Teacher and Teacher Student Beliefs on Using Code-Switching in EFL Classrooms

Abstract: This study explores teacher student and in-service teacher beliefs about using code-switching in the English language classroom. Language classrooms have long adopted amonolingual approach. However, nowadays many classrooms are multilingual and a shifttowards using multilingual strategies to accommodate multilingual pupils can be seen inboth research and steering documents. Plurilingualism is promoted by the EuropeanCouncil and the Swedish syllabus for English, and research shows that code-switchingcan be one method for pupils to draw from all their language skills. Although amonolingual approach is still considered ideal, in research about teacher and teacherstudent beliefs about code-switching most participants use code-switching. This papertherefore investigates teacher student and in-service teacher beliefs in order to explorehow teachers use code-switching. Using the qualitative method of semi-structuredinterviews and analysing our data with the help of a coding scheme, we found that thoughall participants agree that a monolingual standard is ideal, they believe that it is importantto acknowledge pupils’ multilingual backgrounds and that code-switching can be one wayof doing that while still facilitating learning. We also found that the participants’ use ofcode-switching depends on their pupils’ proficiency, that they mainly use code-switchingfor communicative purposes, and that the participants’ own lingual backgrounds affectedtheir beliefs about code-switching. The result of this paper shows that in-service teachersneed to reflect on how and why they use code-switching while teacher educationprogrammes need to acknowledge multilingual strategies and make students aware ofwhen such strategies are beneficial to learning, and when they are not.