Current Debates in Classroom Code-Switching

  • Eda Üstünel
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Abstract

There are many reasons why code-switching in the EFL context has been a popular topic of interest in the last three decades. Western language pedagogy has gained popularity in many countries and the use of the mother tongue has been avoided in the classrooms. Even some who are for and against the code-switching use have used metaphors to elaborate their points further. Teachers who use the mother tongue in the classroom have been blamed for it. In addition, there was a scarcity of authentic resources (Legenhausen 1991) in the past, so the common tendency was the exclusive use of TL by teachers in the classroom, which also created a learning environment in which learners were also encouraged to speak in L2. This Western-style pedagogy has challenged teachers, too. Harbord (1992: 350) points out that “many [ELT] teachers have tried to create an English-only classroom but have found they have failed to get the meaning across, leading to student incomprehension and resentment”. He concludes that “translation/transfer is a natural phenomenon and an inevitable part of second language acquisition” (Harbord 1992: 351). After the marginalisation of L1 use practically ended, the debate over the optimum amount of code-switching in language teaching attracted conflicting views. Some researchers have asserted that code-switching should be barred from L2 teaching. Others have attempted to justify L1 use by highlighting its functions as an effective tool for teaching. Therefore, the literature on the classroom code-switching features examples of conflict and tension.

Keywords

Mother Tongue Online Shopping Language Choice Pedagogical Function Discourse Marker 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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  • Eda Üstünel
    • 1
  1. 1.Muğla Sıtkı Koçman ÜniversitesiMuğlaTurkey

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