IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jfr/ijhe11/v9y2020i4p332.html

Factors of Code-Switching among Bilingual International Students in Malaysia

Author

Listed:
  • Paramasivam Muthusamy
  • Rajantheran Muniandy
  • Silllalee. S. Kandasamy
  • Omrah Hassan@ Hussin
  • Manimaran Subramaniam
  • Atieh Farashaiyan

Abstract

The present study aims to identify the factors that can potentially affect code switching in a college classroom in Malaysia. The participants were twenty bilingual international students enrolled in an English course in Malaysia. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the participating students. The findings of the study indicated that the main factor behind code switching among the students was incompetence in the second language. Other factors that could account for code switching were maintaining privacy, the ease of speaking in the first language compared to speaking in English, avoiding misunderstanding, and unfamiliarity with similar words in English. Therefore, code switching was found to be an effective strategy used by the students to make their intended meaning explicit and to transmit some knowledge to other students in classroom interactions. This study provides some implications for English teaching community including language learners, teachers, and curriculum developers.

Suggested Citation

  • Paramasivam Muthusamy & Rajantheran Muniandy & Silllalee. S. Kandasamy & Omrah Hassan@ Hussin & Manimaran Subramaniam & Atieh Farashaiyan, 2020. "Factors of Code-Switching among Bilingual International Students in Malaysia," International Journal of Higher Education, Sciedu Press, vol. 9(4), pages 332-332, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:jfr:ijhe11:v:9:y:2020:i:4:p:332
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/ijhe/article/download/18455/11356
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/ijhe/article/view/18455
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aisha Bhatti & Sarimah Shamsudin & Seriaznita Said, 2018. "Code-Switching: A Useful Foreign Language Teaching Tool in EFL Classrooms," English Language Teaching, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(6), pages 1-93, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kufakunesu Zano & Jabulani Sibanda, 2024. "Code-switching – normal oversight on the part of bilingual speakers: A review of literature," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 13(7), pages 500-507, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jfr:ijhe11:v:9:y:2020:i:4:p:332. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sciedu Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.