A Study Of Teacher Code-switching In Senior High EFL Classrooms From A Sociocultural Perspective

With language teaching gradually entering into the post-method era，the research focuson the relationship between mother tongue and foreign language teaching, a once-neglectedphenomenon, now has attracted researchers’ attention again.The role of L1(First Language) in L2(Second Language) learning has been widelystudied as a source of language transfer of crosslinguistic influence of the native linguisticsystem on the target language system. Most recent studies view teacher talk as a way ofproviding comprehensible input in the L2, which is assumed to facilitate acquisition (Gass&Varonis,1985,1986). Meanwhile, an increasing number of researchers hold a positiveattitude towards L1and are in favor of teacher code-switching in L2or FL classrooms.Studies of teacher code-switching, however, have mostly been carried out from the cognitiveperspective, and very rarely from the sociocultural perspective. In an attempt to study thisphenomenon from this relatively new perspective, the present study choose to explore therole of mother tongue in English language classrooms at a senior high school in ZhejiangProvince.To find out the role of Chinese in the practice of English teaching and learning, theresearch through classroom recording, student questionnaire and teacher interview wasconducted among212students and4teachers at the chosen school to explore the followingtwo aspects:(1) the general situation of code-switching in the chosen English classes in termsof its frequency, type and function;(2) teachers’ and students’ opinion towardscode-switching. The focus of the study is on identifying the functions of code-switching, thatis, how the teachers use code-switching as a teaching strategy to facilitate teaching andlearning. The data was analyzed by applying several key principles within the framework ofsociocultural theory.The results of this study indicate that Chinese was still quite extensively adopted inEnglish classes. All the occurrence of teacher code-switching can be put into thecategorization of inter-sentential code-switching, intra-sentential code-switching and tagswitching. They were mostly used for teaching purposes, but also metalinguistic functionsand communicative functions. The questionnaire conducted among the students and interviewwith the teachers revealed that both the teachers and the students responded positively to areasonable use of the mother tongue, and that teachers’ use of the mother tongue wasperceived of great help for English studies. Also, similarities and disparities in opinions werefound within and between the two groups of the subjects. For instance, both the teachers and students agreed that the mother tongue should be used to teach and learn grammar, while theiropinions mismatched on the use of the mother tongue for some other pedagogical purposes.Based on the findings from the present study and on comparisons with the findings inprevious studies, this paper concludes that the role of the mother tongue should be restrictedto be supportive, facilitative and compensatory in FL classrooms, and that both too muchreliance and total prohibition of the mother tongue should be avoided.