TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARD CODE ALTERNATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH CLASSROOMS

Abstract

This research is an attempt to explore students‟and teachers‟ attitude towards code alternation withinEnglish classrooms in Pakistan. In a country like Pakistanwhere official language is English, the national language isUrdu, and every province has its own language, most of thepeople are bilinguals or multilingual. Therefore, the aim ofthis study was to find out when and why teachers codeswitch in L2 English classrooms. It has also exploredstudent‟s preferences of language during learning secondlanguage. It has also looked into teachers‟ code-switchingpatterns and the students‟ priorities. Ten teachersresponded to an open ended questioner and 100 studentsresponded to a close ended questioner. Results of teacher‟sresponses indicated that they mostly code switch whenstudent‟s response in relation to the comprehensibility isnegative and they do not grasp the concepts easily in L2.They never encourage students to speak Urdu. Student‟sresults showed that they mostly prefer code-switching intotheir L1 for better understanding and participation in class.Analysis revealed that students only favored English whilegetting instructions of test, receiving results, and learninggrammatical concepts. In most of the cases, studentsshowed flexibility in language usage. Majority of students(68%) agreed upon that they learn better when theirteachers code switch in to L1.Keywords: Teachers‟ and students‟ attitude, Codeswitching,Official language, National language