The Application Of The Pedagogical Strategy Of Code-switching In English Language Teaching

Code-Switching has been a subject of great scholarly attention in recent decades. Researchers have done much on it from the perspectives of syntax, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis. Furthermore, it is regarded as a central issue in bilingualism research and the studies on its implication in bilingual classroom are of great value. This thesis sets out to investigate code switching between English and Chinese in EFL classroom, with hope to help EFL teachers improve their teaching through effective use of it in classroom.Since 1980's, there has existed a long-standing controversy about whether it is advisable to use native language in foreign language teaching and learning. And due to it, the distinction between intralingual teaching strategies and cross lingual teaching strategies occurs. In intralingual teaching strategies, teachers must use the target language maximally and avoid the native language in the classroom to ensure the input of the target language to students. However, cross lingual teaching strategies believe that using the native language appropriately in foreign language and learning is beneficial to students' understanding and mastery of the target language. And accordingly the students will not be imitators of the target language but genuine foreign language learners.This thesis attempts to show that code-switching can be used as a useful teaching strategy in the education of high school students; thus, teachers should be aware of the teaching tactic of code-switching and use it effectively in the education process.It studies the high school teachers' code-switching between English and Chinese in the classroom by means of questionnaires survey and experiments. The subjects of the survey are 9 English teachers from 3 different schools and their students. The questionnaires investigate students' perception of the teachers' code-switching, the influence of teachers' code-switching on students' learning and the different functions of code-switching in different teaching aspects. According to the analysis of the questionnaires, the following conclusion have been drawn: high school English teachers' code-switching is favored by most of the students, most of the students believe that teachers' code-switching has positive influence on students' English learning, teachers' code-switching in different situations has different functions and helps teachers teaching in different aspects. And analysis of the data shows that the effective use of code-switching helps teachers realize their teaching purposes, helps them to express themselves better, emphasize some content, draw students' attention or translate some special words and phrases. And because the 9 English teachers and their students are from 3 different schools, though the survey is about the same topic, the specific results are not totally same because of teachers' knowledge and students' different levels. However, the effective application of code-switching will no doubt provide an opportunity for language learning development so it is very important for teachers to use code switching effectively in teaching English.The experiment was designed to show how, when and to what extent 6 teachers actually coded switch in their English teaching practice. The researcher chose 6 teachers and listened to their classes. And how many times the teachers used code-switching, to reach what aims and why, were recorded. Then depending on the results of the first-hand data, the researcher made a comparison among them and found whose class-teaching results were better. Then the researcher made some tables to make a contrast. Statistical analysis of the result of the experiment produced definite conclusions: high school English teachers can use Chinese appropriately in English teaching and the effective application of code-switching can improve students' memorization of some words and phrases, enhance their understanding of the passage structures and some details, and as a whole facilitate their learning.Based on the survey and the experiment, the thesis discusses when, how to use code-switching effectively in EFL classroom, the ideal percentage of Chinese in English teaching and the principles for teachers using Chinese in English teaching, and the limitation of the study.