VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* TRẦN THỊ HÒA TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS CODE-SWITCHING IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT RURAL HIGH SCHOOLS ( Quan điểm của giáo viên và học sinh với việc sử dụng tiếng Việt trong các lớp học tiếng Anh tại các trường cấp 3 nông thôn) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS HANOI-2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* TRẦN THỊ HÒA TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS CODE-SWITCHING IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT RURAL HIGH SCHOOLS ( Quan điểm của giáo viên và học sinh với việc sử dụng tiếng Việt trong các lớp học tiếng Anh tại các trường cấp 3 nông thôn) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231. Lê Văn Canh, PhD HANOI-2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my lecturer and my supervisor, Assoc. Dr Le Van Canh, PhD, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose great ideas, expertises and suggestions have helped me a lot to handle the task. A special word of thanks to my colleagues and my students in rural high schools in Thanh Hoa province for their effective cooperation in collecting data for completing this research. Last by not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for the sacrifice I received to finish this academic work.
i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I declare that this thesis is the result of my own work submitted for the Master of Art degree in English Teaching Methodology at Faculty of Post - Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, and has not been previously submitted to any other universities for any degrees. This work was finished with the contributions of other researchers which were indicated clearly with the references. The study was done under the guidance of Associated Professor Le Van Canh at Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies. Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and fullname) Lê Văn Canh Date:…………………… Hanoi, 2019 Trần Thị Hòa ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The use of mother tongue or code-switching in the EFL (English as a foreign language) classrooms has created controversy for many years and its role in the different teaching methods that have been developed has also been clearly defined.
Conducted in the context of a Vietnamese rural area, the study is to examine the teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward code- switching use in English classrooms, find out if there are differences between students’ and teachers’ attitudes and identify how often teachers codeswitch in EFL classrooms. This research was conducted at two rural high schools in Thanh Hoa province, one of them where I was working and 50 students and 6 teachers participated in the study. Data was collected by means of recorded lesson observations, interviews and questionnaires. In general, the results of this study showed that both teachers and students were positive towards the use of mother tongue (Vietnamese) in English classrooms but only under certain circumstances.
The use of code-switching means using both English and Vietnamese in EFL classrooms does not seem to hinder their English learning process, but having to speak only English does make students have negative feelings because they are students in a rural area, their ability and learning condition are limited. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ALM: Audio-Lingual Method CLT: Communicative Language Teaching EFL: English as a foreign Language FL: Foreign language GMT: Grammar Translation Method L1: First language L2: Second language TL: Target language iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iv TABLE OF CONTENT.
v LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES. vii PART A: INTRODUCTION. Aims and Objectives of the Research. Scope of the Study.
Significance of the Study. Structural Organization of the Thesis. 6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of Code-switching.
History of language teaching methods focusing on code-switching in EFL classroom. Arguments about the use of code-switching or L1 in EFL classrooms. Arguments against using code-switching or L1 in EFL classrooms. Arguments in favour of code-switching in EFL classrooms.
Studies focusing on teachers’ code-switching in EFL classrooms. The attitudes of teachers and students. Amount of code-switching use. Situations of code-switching use.
15 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY. Setting and participants. Data collection instruments and procedure. Data analysis procedure.
19 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION. Classroom observation analysis. Analysis of teachers’ interviews results. Analysis of students’ questionnaire results.
How often do teachers codeswitch on average in the lesson?. What are the attitudes of the teachers towards code-switching?. What are the attitudes of the students towards code-switching?. Are there any differences between students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards code-switching? .XII vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Table 3.1: Situations of teachers’ code-switching in EFL classrooms .2: The results of students’ multiple choice questions .3: Suitable amount of English .1: The amount of code-switching use in observed classes.
20 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale There has been a growing interest in learning English as a second/foreign language over the last few decades. This is due to the important role English plays in almost every aspect of life nowadays, starting from education to business (Hasman 2004). In addition, English has become a global lingua franca and a mean of international communication round the world (Brutt- Griffle, 1998).
It has allowed people from different cultures and linguistic backgrounds to communicate and share their knowledge and expertise. Moreover, English has become “a key part of the educational strategy in most countries” (Graddol, 2006 p. This explains why governments have exerted to introduce English language as early as possible to their educational systems, in an attempt to help their citizens to be effective users of the target language in the future. In the process of teaching and learning foreign language, using mother tongue or foreign language only in the classroom remains virtually unquestioned.
This has been still controversy topic for many ages, especially Communicative Language Teaching become more popular. In global scale, many studies were conducted to investigate the code-switching technique or the use of mother tongue in EFL (English as a foreign language) classrooms with the different results. Ellis (1984), Wong-Fillmore (1985), Chaudron (1988), Lightbown (2001), believe that teachers should aim at creating a pure foreign language environment since they are the sole linguistic models for the students and that code-switching will result in negative transfer in FL learning. On the contrary, researchers in support of crosslingual (code- switching) teaching strategy including Tikunoff and Vazquez-Faria (1982), 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Levine (2003), Chen Liping (2004), etc., argue that the first language can promote the learning of target language and the first language deserves a place in foreign language classroom.
And code-switching is a good strategy of efficiency in foreign language classrooms. In Vietnam, some researchers also investigated the attitudes of teachers and students towards the code-switching in EFL classrooms at Universities, English center and High schools. However, it is very difficult to find out a study which is conducted in a rural area where students’ levels are very low and the teachers’ and learners’ beliefs about learning English are different from people in urban environments. That is reason why the researcher conducted this study in this context.
Aims and Objectives of the Research This research project aims to explore teachers’ and students’ opinions regarding code-switching use in English classrooms in the context of rural High schools. To achieve the above aims, the following objectives are set for exploration: - Examining the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards code-switching use in English classrooms at 2 rural High schools. - Identifying if there are the differences between students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards code-switching in EFL classrooms. - Identifying how often teachers codeswitch in their lessons.Research Questions The aim of this investigation is to explore the attitudes of rural teachers and students towards the use of code-switching in EFL classrooms.
The current study aims to answer the following research questions: - How often do teachers codeswitch on average in the lesson? - What are the attitudes of the teachers towards code-switching? 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com - What are the attitudes of the students towards code-switching? - Are there any differences between students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards code-switching? 4. Scope of the Study Within the framework of this minor thesis, the study focused on both students’ and teachers’ attitudes (the teachers of English) towards the code- switching in English classrooms at High schools in rural area. The data for analysis is taken from teachers’ interviews and observations and students’ questionnaires at some High schools. The participants are 6 teachers of English and one hundred students at these High schools in Thanh Hoa province.
Significance of the Study Educational policy-makers in a lot of countries seem to have adopted the monolingual approach. Although there are a lot of researches that support the inclusion of learners’ mother tongue (Schweers, 1999; Swain & Lapkin, 2000; Burden, 2001; Prodromou 2002; Tang 2002; Al-Nofaie, 2010), such pedagogical decisions regarding the exclusion of learners’ the first language have been made on “unexamined and taken-for-granted assumptions (Auerbach, 1993, p. Moreover, there does not seem to be enough evidence that both teachers’ and students’ input has been taken into consideration. Since teachers and students are the most important key players in the education, a lot of studies have been carried out to investigate their perceptions towards the use of learners’ mother tongue in learning another language.
This study focused on investigating the students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards code-switching in EFL classrooms at rural High schools. In rural area, most of students were not taught listening and speaking skills carefully at secondary schools, especially listening lessons are often ignored. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com The rural classrooms always have 40-45 students with different levels of English. Thus, as a mentioned above, this research is to examine the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the use of code-switching in English classrooms in order to find out if its use gives learners benefits and reduces the anxiety in learning process and how to use code-switching effectively.
Every teacher of English can use the results of this study as a reference to consider some change if needed in teacher training process. Structural Organization of the Thesis The study consists of three main parts, namely Introduction, Development and Conclusion: Part A: Introduction This part provides the rationale, the aims, the scopes, the objectives, the method and the design of the study Part B: Development This part consists of Literature Review, Methodology, Data analysis and Discussion - Chapter 1: Literature Review This chapter provides an overview of definition and history of code-switching technique in EFL classrooms, some arguments for and against mother tongue use as well as the reviews of related works in this topic. - Chapter 2: Methodology It presents the subject of study, research instruments, collecting data procedure and data analysis procedure from which answers for the research questions. - Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion The data collection from observations, interviews and questionnaires are analyzed in this chapter so the findings and discussion will be presented 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.