An Investigation On Teachers’ Code-Switching In English Class In Secondary Vocational Schools

Code-switching refers to the phenomenon of applying two or more languages in a conversation,and in this study refers specifically to a phenomenon in which business English teachers use Chinese and English interchangeably in the classroom.Since the 1970 s,researchers have paid a lot of attention to the phenomenon of teacher code-switching,and they have studied teacher code-switching from different perspectives,and researchers regard code-switching as an effective teaching strategy.This study was guided by Poplack’s code-switching classification theory,Ferguson’s functional theory of code-switching and interactive teaching theory.216 business English students in a secondary school in Changchun were surveyed by questionnaires,and four business English teachers in the school were observed and interviewed in the classroom.This study mainly answers the following two questions: what is the current situation of code-switching among secondary business vocational English teachers? what are the factors influencing the code-switching of secondary vocational business English teachers? In this study,classroom observation,questionnaires and interviews were used to conduct the survey,and the collected data were analyzed in both quantitative and qualitative ways.The results of this study show that: first,code-switching is common in the secondary vocational business English classroom and there are problems with teachers’ excessive use of code-switching and high reliance on the native language.In terms of code-switching categories,inter-sentential switching is the most frequent and tag switching is the least frequent;in terms of code-switching functions,the teaching management function is the most frequent and the interpersonal function is the least frequent.Finally,the factors influencing the code-switching of secondary vocational business English teachers can be divided into three categories:student factors,teacher factors,and other factors.In order to promote reasonable and appropriate code-switching among secondary vocational business English teachers and improve teaching quality,this paper puts forward the following suggestions from the school and teacher levels.Firstly,schools should improve teacher training and optimize teaching resources.Secondly,teachers should strengthen the input of the target language and adhere to the principle of target language priority;raise the awareness of using code-switching rationally;respond to students’ needs and enhance the interaction with students.