A Comparative Study Of The Key Junior High School Teachers' Code-Switching And The Regular Junior High School Teachers' Code-Switching In English Classes

Theoretically,the target language is widely advocated to be used in English classroom teaching.However,in practice,it is very common and popular for the mother tongue to be used in middle school English classroom teaching.That is to say,teachers speak both Chinese and English in classroom teaching.The application of both Chinese and English in English classroom teaching has been controversial for years.Some scholars consider code-switching as a useful cognitive and communicative strategy in language teaching,while others suggest learners should be exposed to target language as much as possible.Therefore,how to use the target language and mother tongue in EFL classroom teaching is a hot issue.This study aims to investigate the types and functions of English teachers' code-switching in key and regular junior high school English classes.To be specific,three research questions are put forward:1.What opinion do students and teachers hold about the teachers' code-switching in EFL classrooms?2.How do the types of English teachers' classroom code-switching between key and regular junior high schools vary?3.How do the major functions of English teachers' classroom code-switching between key and regular junior high schools vary?To answer these questions,a study is conducted in two junior high schools which are both in Guilin urban area.One is Kuiguang Middle School,a municipal key junior high school.The other is Chuanshan Middle School,a regular junior high school.Eight English teachers from these two schools and the students taught by them are involved in the study as research subjects.Four English teachers are selected from each school.Eight reading lessons and eight aural-oral lessons are recorded,transcribed and analyzed to compare the types and major functions of teachers' code-switching in key and regular junior high schools.Questionnaires with eight English teachers and classroom recording in eight teachers' classes are conducted to answer the three research questions.The major findings of this study are the following: 1)Both the teachers and students in the key and regular junior high schools hold a positive opinion to code-switching.Teachers from the regular junior high school tend to use code-switching more frequently than teachers from the key junior high school do.2)In terms of the types of code-switching,inter-sentential code-switching is used more frequently in the key junior high school,while intra-sentential code-switching is used more frequently in the regular junior schoo1.3)In terms of the major functions of code-switching,teachers from the two schools switch their codes mainly because of teaching functions,while the numbers of teachers from the regular junior high school switch their codes because of class management function is significantly more than those from the key school.Based on the findings of the study,some suggestions are put forward,such as priority of the target language,integrity of language and conscious use of code-switching.Further experimental research can be conducted in regular junior high schools to investigate whether the teaching efficiency in regular junior school can be increased if teachers reduce the frequency of code-switch and use more inter-sentential code-switching instead of intra-sentential code-switching in English classroom teaching.