An Empirical Research On Correlativity Of Teacher’s Code-Switching With Teaching Effect In High School Classroom

As a phenomenon in class, code-switching exists widely in foreign language class. However, whether teachers should use a target language or both target and native languages to foreign language teacher in class has been an argumentative focus. Though TL appropriates still advocate TL, they believe the native language will always be a barrier to reduce students’ English intake. However, considering the results and findings about the previous researches, most of teachers still make use of code-switching to aid their foreign language teaching. For this reason, this thesis inquires into current situation about teachers’ code-switching in foreign language class in China, analyzes and discusses what the functions of the code-switching in class are, whether code-switching is helpful for facilitating foreign language teaching. This thesis’ s linguistic data are mainly from two kinds of resources: classroom recordings and teachers and students’ questionnaires which are main research evidences. Subjects of this thesis are 8 teachers and 200 students in Grade One and Grade Two in No.1 Middle School in Jiamusi, Heilongjiang province, which is mainly used for inquiring current situation about code-switching in foreign language class and different functions of code-switching in English class. This thesis mainly analyzes the functions of code-switching in transcribing the linguistic data and qualitative and quantitative analysis. At the same time, calculate the number and frequency of code-switching, and also make questionnaires for both teachers and students to investigate the functions of code-switching and whether the code-switching is helpful to English teaching. The findings show that code-switching is still a widespread phenomenon in high school in China; Frequency of code-switching is mostly related with lesson types and students’ English proficiency. And most of teachers and students firmly maintain the positive role of code-switching, and confirm its validity during the process of English teaching. The research also suggests that necessary code-switching not only improves students’ knowledge internalization, but also enhances class efficiency. Therefore the teachers need a few effective principles in order to avoid overusing native language. This is reflected in the following aspects: 1. Target language principles; 2. Marked native language principle; 3. Native language timely and appropriate principle; 4. Linguistic adaption principle. Thus we should encourage teachers to use code-switching, but at the same time, teachers should also make some prompt adjustment according to students’ needs and extent of understanding knowledge.