A Study On Code-switching Of Excellent English Teachers In Senior High Schools

Classroom code-switching refers to the alternations between target language and mother tongue in the foreign language classes.Since the 1970 s,researchers have begun to study classroom code-switching.Many researches have been done on classroom code-switching from different perspectives.Researchers at home have mainly focused on the code-switching in college foreign language teaching.But few researchers have studied the code-switching in senior high schools,not to mention the code-switching of excellent teachers in senior high schools.So this study focused on the code-switching of excellent teachers in senior high schools,in order to provide reference for ordinary senior high school English teachers to cultivate students' language competence.This study focused on the following three questions: 1.What are the frequency and functions of excellent teachers' code-switching in senior high school classes? 2.What factors affect excellent teachers' code-switching in senior high school classes? 3.What attitudes do students hold towards excellent teachers' code-switching in English classes?The research subjects all came from a provincial model senior high school,including five excellent teachers and 276 students.Classroom observation,recording charts,a questionnaire and interviews were used as research instruments.The quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyze the research data.The major findings of this research are as follows:Firstly,code-switching is commonly used in English classes.The frequency of teachers' code-switching is different in different grades and types of lessons.Different types of code-switching have different functions.Secondly,the factors affecting the excellent teachers' code-switching can be divided into three categories: factors related to students,factors related to teachers and other factors.Lastly,the majority of the students hold a positive attitude towards these excellent teachers' code-switching inclass.The results of this study have the following pedagogic implications: Firstly,code-switching should be properly used in classroom teaching.Secondly,teachers should be aware of the importance and the effects of classroom code-switching.Finally,teachers can help students improve their language ability by adjusting their language choices.