A Study On Teachers' Code-switching In Vocational College Comprehensive English Classrooms

Over the past three decades, code-switching has been a focus in the field of linguistics in western countries. Researchers studied it from different perspectives and have made a great deal of findings. However, the researchers in China did not begin their studies on this issue until the recent decade. Thus, the related empirical studies were much less and most of them only use students from the classrooms in the secondary schools or the undergraduates in the universities as the subjects. They paid little attention to the EFL classrooms in the vocational colleges, which still hold a considerable proportion in the institutions of higher learning and play an important role in Chinese education. Thus, this study aims at revealing the functions of teachers' English/Chinese code-switching in the EFL classrooms in vocational colleges in which the English proficiency of most students are comparatively poorer than that of universities with degrees.In accordance with the purpose, the present study is based on Yu Guodong's Adaptation Model within the framework of Verschueren's Adaption Theory. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses have been conducted on the situation of teachers' using code-switching in Comprehensive English classrooms in a vocational college through questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews. Six teachers and 160 students from Zhanjiang Educational College participated in this research. The present study revealed that teachers switched codes mainly as an adaptation to the linguistic reality, the teacher's roles and the psychological intentions. Moreover, teachers' code-switching could be classified into the following functions: Gap-Filling, Class-Management, Convenience-Efficiency, Understanding-Facilitating, Emphasis, Feedback Device, Anxiety-Avoidance, Politeness-Intimate and Humour-Creating functions, among which understanding-facilitating function is the most important factor that triggers teachers' English/Chinese code-switching. The results also revealed that teachers' code-switching was mainly influenced by students' English proficiency, teachers' English proficiency, teaching ideas, attitudes towards the code-switching and psychological intentions, and the cross-linguistic difference. We believed that the results of the present study will shed light on the EFL teaching, especially in vocational colleges.