PRIMARY TEACHERS’ CODE-SWITCHING IN EFL CLASSROOMS

Teaching English has never been easy especially for countries where English is a foreign language. It becomes more challenging if the learners are primary students because their English proficiency is low. Therefore, primary teachers are required to have appropriate teaching methods for them. Code-switching is considered one of teaching methods which is adopted by primary teachers frequently in the classroom. It not only assists teachers in teaching but also in classroom management effectively. Thus, research is conducted to find out functions of CS as well as to the reasons why primary English teachers use it in their classroom. This research is qualitative research. The participants of this study are English teachers who are teaching at primary schools in the Mekong Delta. The instruments of this study were observation, audio-recording, and interview. The results showed that CS was actually used a lot by primary English teachers in their classroom. However, code-switching serve their teaching most. Teachers also admitted that it provided great support for them in teaching such as helping students understand the lesson better and saving time. This study is expected to benefit EFL teachers, especially those who are teaching English for primary schools in general and for young learners in particular. Furthermore, it enables primary EFL teachers to have insights into the functions of CS as well as when it is used in teaching practices. In addition, primary EFL teachers are expected to have critical thinking of the CS and make suitable choices in applying CS effectively. Article visualizations: