College English Teachers’English/Chinese Code-Switching In Independent College

Nowadays the bilingual and multi-lingual communication has become very common.Code-switching refers to the alternate use of two or more languages by bilingual ormultilingual speakers within one conversational turn. Code-switching has attracted theattention of different fields. Since the1960s, more and more researchers in and abroad havestudied whether code-switching should be applied in foreign language classroom. Althoughthere are significant results in different fields, there are few researchers who do the researchbased on the students of the independent college. Comparatively speaking, the students fromthe independent college have a low proficiency in English. It is impossible and ineffective toteach them in full-English, so code-switching between English and Chinese has beenextensively used in college English class.The aim of the thesis is to find out the real condition, reasons and functions of teachers’code-switching through the investigation of English classes for the students from theindependent college. And then find the appropriate model or principles to obey when usingcode-switching in English class for independent college students which can enhance theEnglish teaching and improve the students’ English ability.Based on Verschueren’s Adaptation Model and Yu Guodong’s framework of AdaptationModel, this study analyzed the teachers’ code-switching in college English classroom. Thedata was colleted through questionnaire, classroom observation, recording and interviews inHebei Agricultural University. Then the analysis of code-switching was carried out withqualitative and quantitative approach. Through investigation, we see that code-switching is acommon phenomenon, and most of the teachers and students hold positive attitude toward it.Teachers’ code-switching is an adaptation to students’ ability, linguistic reality, teacher’s rolesand psychological motivation. Code-switching has very important functions, for example,translation, emphasis of important language points, cheering up the atmosphere and releasingthe students’ burden, etc. But we should also notice that some teachers are lack ofself-consciousness and self-control when using code-switching in class which may lead to overuse of Chinese. All in all, as an effective teaching strategy, code-switching plays a veryimportant role in foreign language teaching process for students from the independent college.The appropriate use of code-switching can promote teaching and improve the students’learning efficiency.This thesis is divided into six parts. Chapter one is an introduction of the research,including the background of the research, the significance of the study and the structure of thethesis. Chapter two is the literature review of the whole thesis, including some basic conceptsand research survey of the topic. Firstly, definitions of code and code-switching have beenintroduced. Secondly, I give a brief introduction of classroom code-switching studies in andabroad. Chapter three introduces the theoretical framework of the thesis. Chapter four is theresearch methodology of the thesis, including subjects of the research, instruments of theresearch, the procedure of data collection and data analysis. Chapter five is the detailedanalysis and discussion of the results collected from questionnaire, classroom observation,audio-recording and interview. This part offers answers to the research questions and it isconsidered to be a very important part of the thesis. Chapter six summarizes the majorfindings and results of the study. It provides some practical implications in order to facilitateEnglish teaching and learning in the future. This part also points out the limitations of thepresent study and gives some suggestions for further research.