Code-switching in a Turkish secondary school

Abstract

English language teachers who teach in monolingual environments have for a very long time been concerned about reducing or even abolishing student use of the mother tongue in the language classroom. The reason for this is presumably to maximize the amount of time spent using the target code, and thus improve learning efficiency. This study will describe and analyse the code-switching of young learners in a Turkish secondary school. It will show that there is no empirical evidence to support the notion that restricting mother tongue use would necessarily improve learning efficiency, and that the majority of code-switching in the classroom is highly purposeful, and related to pedagogical goals. The issue of how we treat language alternation in the classroom is of central methodological importance, and one, it will be argued, that has enormous implications for practising language teachers. It is therefore vital that we understand precisely its causes, motivations, and effects, and that until that point we avoid making rash, censorial judgements on its classroom manifestations. © 1996 Oxford University Press.