Hoạt động chuyển mã ngôn ngữ của giáo viên tiếng anh trung học phổ thông từ quan điểm đến thực tiễn

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DAO THI NGOC HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHERS’ CODE-SWITCHING: BELIEF AND PRACTICE (Hoạt động chuyển mã ngôn ngữ giáo viên tiếng Anh Trung học Phổ thông: Từ quan điểm đến thực tiễn) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN – 2019 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DAO THI NGOC HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHERS’ CODE-SWITCHING: BELIEF AND PRACTICE (Hoạt động chuyển mã ngôn ngữ giáo viên tiếng Anh Trung học Phổ thông: Từ quan điểm đến thực tiễn) M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Dr Nguyen Trong Du THAI NGUYEN – 2019 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that this submission of the minor thesis entitled “high school English teachers’ code switching: Belief and practice” is my own work To the best of my knowledge, it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at SFL or any other educational institutions The thesis has not been submitted to any other examining body and has not been published Any contribution made to the research by others is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis Thai Nguyen, July 2019 Dao Thi Ngoc Approved by SUPERVISOR Dr Nguyen Trong Du Date: July, 2019 ABSTRACT This thesis presents the findings of a study which aims to investigate how teachers of English at Vu Van Hieu high school switch between English and Vietnamese in their classrooms and how this practice match with their beliefs on the use of both languages in EFL teaching In order to achieve those objectives, the study relies on two methods of data collection namely classroom observation and interviews During classroom observation, observation sheets were used in combination with audio – recordings Interviews were conducted with the participation of both teachers and students Data collected were transcribed, grouped into themes, and explain in details Results show that the teachers switched between English and Vietnamese with different levels of frequency and in different types The teachers’ code-switching has some functions such as: to draw attention of students to the lesson, to check whether students get clear about what they are supposed to next, to explain the meaning of vocabulary and the usage of grammatical phenomenon, and to deliver instructions and tighten the mutual relationship between teachers and students These findings go quite well with what the teachers and students say about code – switching On the other hand, both teachers and students believe that using Vietnamese is necessary for the effectiveness of the teachers’ instructions Moreover, they both agreed that the amount of Vietnamese used in EFL classrooms should be reduced to minimum and should be based on students’ competence Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction Nowadays English is considered as a global language, and the majority of people who use it as a tool of communications are non-native, i.e most of the users are bilingual or multilingual It is commonplace to see English being used and studied without a linguistic environment beside classroom hours; English is rarely used in their real life Therefore, in English teaching and learning context, code-switching is also seen as inevitable either on purpose or by chance Code-switching in classrooms has been discussed for several decades worldwide, and research on this case is often conducted to find out how codeswitching takes place between English and another language such as: Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Turkish and German and so forth (for instance, Auer, 1998, Ferguson, 2003; Flyman, 1991; Marcaro, 2009; Sert, 2005; a well-known Vietnamese Nguyen T N, 2016; and other teachers of English It can be said that nowadays, code-switching is one of the most emerging trends in linguistic field, particularlyin bilingual or multilingual environments During the history of the matter as Macaro (2013) proclaimed, the major issues in code-switching debated include causes, types and its roles in teaching and learning English Additionally, researchers keep a close eye on how teachers’ perceive and practice their code-switching in the reality or whether code-switching serves as a functioning tool in assisting learners or appear to be stumbling blocks for them in acquiring language skills Consequently, publicized reports often mention the weaknesses as well as the strengths of code-switching In line with the academic study trend of code-switching worldwide, there have been voices from Vietnam in the form of conference reports, articles, master and doctorate thesis, which are popular with research conducted by teaching staff from universities throughout Vietnam as well as oversea Vietnamese linguists Many of the researchers specialized in this field have focused on analyzing theoretical matters as well as exploring the ongoing facts 1.2 Rationale English is widely regarded as one of the key languages that help Vietnam integrate into the world; therefore, studying English plays an important role in almost all Vietnamese school curricula However, in the classroom where English is treated as a foreign language (EFL), as a teacher of English and after years of teaching, I have realized that many Vietnamese teachers face several challenges in their attempt to make their students comprehend This issue has raised heated discussions among teachers over the problem of how and how much Vietnamese should be exploited in order to assure students’ understanding as well as to achieve the goals set in teaching procedures Therefore, the aim of this study mainly focuses on figuring out how teachers’ belief matches with what they within their teaching practice at Vu Van Hieu high school This is the reason that leads to the study proposal entitled “High school English teachers’ code switching: belief and practice.” The study is expected to help high school teachers investigate the code-switching in depth as it can shed light on the beliefs and practices of code switching in the teaching of English as a second language in bilingual classrooms 1.3 Aims of the study This study deals with high school English teachers’perception and their codeswitching between English and Vietnamese in the classoom and aslo uncovers how much their realities match their perception, i.e, between their belief and their practice 1.4 Research questions Based on the aims set up above, the study tries to answer the following two questions: How teachers of English practice code-switching in their English classes? How their practices of code-switching match with their perception and students’ opinions about the use of English and Vietnamese in their English classes? 1.5 Significance of the study This study asserts the key factors including the culprits, the effects and the aims of code-switching of the teaching process, and the relationship between beliefs and practice of teachers in the classroom Furthermore, in this study, it is hoped that the findings will give me some experience of teaching English as well as equip myself with up-to-date knowledge in code-switching with my colleagues 1.6 Scope of the study The study focuses on the teachers’ opinions about using both languages (English and Vietnamese) and their common practice of using them In other words, it places focus on what they say and what they with regard to their use of languages in their instructions of English 1.7 Design of the study The thesis consists of five chapters as follows: Chapter I: Introduction This chapter includes the rationales of the study, the aims and scope of the study as well as the research questions Chapter II discusses the previously conducted research by both foreign and domestic authors to give the whole picture of the matter This this chapter, key definitions are brought forward including bilingualism, code-switching as well as their types and categories and so on Chapter III is composed of methodology which consists of the key methods of collecting and analyzing data Also, in this chapter participants and procedure of the thesis are mentioned and analyzed in depth Chapter IV analyses the data obtained from interviews as well as classroom observation Chapter V concludes the findings of the present study as well as the suggestions for further study and the shortcomings of this thesis Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies The pioneers in this field in the 1970s can be mentioned such as Fishman, Platt& Platt with the studies published in 1971 and 1975 respectively Those In sum, in spite of the difference in the number of kinds in code-switching, the above mentioned researchers seemed to adopt code-switching as a useful tool in teaching activities in the classroom 2.3.7 Definitions of terms Code Switching: There are numerous of definitions of code-switching, however, according to Soodeh (2012, p.219) “Code switching is the communicative exchange between two languages codes among people who contribute to those specific codes.” Bilingualism: It is stated in the study published by Verplaetse (2010, p.559) that “bilingualism is defined as a speaker’s ability to use two languages for communication” Students and teachers at Vu Van Hieu high school are comprehensive bilingual, thus, code-switching is unavoidable Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design The study is qualitative research and narrative analysis To find out the teachers’ beliefs and practices of code switching applied in EFL classrooms at Vu Van Hieu high school, both observations and interviews, namely group-focus interviews, are chosen as methods for my thesis Three teachers and three students from my school at all grades were selected as participants Data is explained, evaluated to comprehend the teachers' beliefs and the way they put their opinions into practice 3.2 Instruments of data collection There are numerous tools of collecting data for a scientific research, such as, questionnaires, interviews, surveys and so forth In order to gain the most reliable results, I used two instruments to collect data, including observation and group interviews 10 3.2.1 Classroom observation In order to find the answer to the question “How teachers practice their code- switching?” Observation was conducted at random throughout the 2018-2019 academic year Of course, prior to choosing a lesson, the thesis author had been permitted by teachers who took part in this study In the observed lessons, an observation sheet is a must-have for the researcher to write down every detail that serves the purpose of the observer as Masoumeh stated “an observer should write down everything he or she sees and hears” Therefore, a classroom observation sheet was designed and it was assisted by a recording Before the observation took place, teachers and the thesis author had a brief discussion about the lesson, the aims and the place of the observer 3.2.1.1 General concepts As Reed and Bergemann (2001, p.6) reclaimed classroom observation “the bridge between the worlds of theory and practice”, therefore, theory, in this case beliefs of qualified teachers, can be examined in certain and specific situations Another view about classroom observation proclaimed by Mathew T Hora (2013) is that it is a method which helps observe directly and recurs in real time Peer observations are one of the most popular methods in Vietnam in which fellow colleagues accumulate information in terms of teaching methods, the accuracy of the content For the sake of the thesis’ purpose, the researcher of this thesis mostly uses peer observations since its participant teachers feel much more confident and more relaxed when being observed Classroom observations provide rich data on which administrators and fellow teachers rely on their assessments and evaluations The achieved data can also be used for research as well as for professional development activities in the successive teaching practice 3.2.1.2 Procedure Pham, V H (2004) drew four steps of conducting classroom observation including collecting material, preparation, observation and feedback In the third stage, in the classroom the observer collects data selectively and focuses on choosing materials and document that are able to answer the preset questions Feedback is 11 normally understood the final step when observers and teachers sit together and discuss about the 12 strengths and weaknesses of the teaching method applied in the lesson Afterwards, both sides have an opportunity to overtly and frankly speak out their views and beliefs For effective observations, there are a few things to be prepared beforehand, such as, field notes which mark time and procedure of the lesson; the observer must think twice about the most suitable seating; checklist which ensures the observers not get out of track as well as not miss anything; a follow-up conversation is a “must” in order to facilitate both sides to explain and discuss 3.2.2 Focus group interviews A focus group interview is one of the effective methods in a qualitative research Anderson (1990, p.241) defined it as “a group comprised of individuals with characteristics who focus discussions on a given issue or topic.” As a group interview is regarded time-consuming, to arrange a meeting for a focus group interview I had to ask for permission of every member including teachers and students 3.3 Participants For the purpose of the thesis, the participants are picked up at random (for students), namely, for each class, a representative is selected in regard of their study reports, diversity of levels, grades, age groups The chosen participants are divided into two groups including teachers group and students group In the teachers group, there are three experienced teachers using the latest teaching materials In students group, there are three of them coming from different classes and representing three grades at the school 3.3.1 Teachers The central role of this thesis is played by the three teachers at Vu Van Hieu high school Due to the small amount of number, all the three my co-workers are willing to participate in the study However, all of the teachers-participants urge to be anonymous in the study, hence, their names are numbers from one (T1) to three (T3) Moreover, their teaching lessons are not allowed to be published beyond this study Several lessons which have been chosen at random to be observed are under their permission 3.3.2 Students 13 Students are guaranteed to hide their real names and encouraged to tell the truth about their feelings towards English lessons as well as their teachers’ code-switching 14 during the lessons in general, not just code-switching in the observed lessons They are only informed about the interview shortly after the observation but fully provided with information of the interview They are all informed that the content would be recorded Some of the selected are under eighteen years of age; hence, the agreement of the principal appears decisive 3.3.3 The moderator I work as the moderator of the interview in order to ensure the interview will not get out of track Also, I myself am a fellow teacher of the participants Hence, the interview is believed to be a talk among co-workers speaking out the common issues emerging in teaching 3.5 Data collecting procedures + Preparation for the observations For classroom observations, observation sheets, field notes, a recorder are always in a full ready state In order to confirm the legacy of the observations, all the documents, such as, confirmation letter, agreement letters have been signed before the official class hours Each of the recorded lessons is the final result of the agreement between observed teachers and the author of this research In case of not missing any precious and valuable details of the observed lessons, field notes can be used to register emotional responses in the classroom The content of the lessons is critically transcribed in written form which, afterwards, becomes a primary source for the upcoming analysis + Preparation for the interviews: Before and at the beginning of the interview, both all the fellow teachers and students are informed about the purpose, activities of the talk Adequate preparation can guarantee the smoothness of the talk; as a result, the outcome was more reliable Place for the meetings are registered and keep secret in order not to disturb others at the school Additionally, the place of interviews is in the school’s campus and it takes place after working hours Prior to the interview to take place, a list of most possible questions has been chosen in advance 3.5 Data analysis In the thesis, the deductive thematic method has been used for the following reasons: 13 Firstly, the resources are limited since the number of interview participants are small (three teachers) although the student population at school is great In order to balance the two numbers in each group as well as balance the group size between them, the number of student population is limited to three only Time is another key factor as when this study was conducted, teachers were busy preparing for their professional teaching competition, particularly, students were engrossed into their review for a finally test in English as well as other subjects To begin with, the observation sheets and field notes will be the first resource to be looked at Next, the recordings of the observed lessons were listened, transcribed and finallyanalyzed The most trustworthy data is stored in the audio recordings; nonetheless, the background noise turns out the most challenging stumbling blocks Secondly, after looking at all the transcription texts, sentences with codeswitching were screened and selected to serve as illustration for the findings In the final stage, reports and suggestions were put forward for further studies Overall, these documented materials are used and analyzed to serve the findings in the concrete case of code-switching at Vu Van Hieu high school Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Code-switching in the English lessons at Vu Van Hieu high school: realities The units which have been observed were: No Unit Title of the unit skills Class T hour(s) Undersea world (grade 10) skills 10 &2 12 The Asian Games (grade Language 11) focus Films and Cinema (grade Reading 1 10) Speaking The Association of writing 3 13 16 Southeast Asian Nations (grade 12) 14 15 international organization Reading Speaking (grade 12) 10 Preserving the environment (grade 10) Table 4.1: Observed units at Vu Van Hieu high school In total, the number of observed units was 16 class hours, in addition, each of the unit was taught in five periods including reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus or grammar in other words For the purposes of enlightening the research’s aims, each of the lesson’s code-switching activities will be truly described, compared and etc The below table shows the comparison between the two teachers T1 and T2 in terms of code-switching in their listening sections: Unit T1 (times) T2 (times) Undersea World 16 18 (Lesson 3: Listening) Table 4.2: Frequency counted in the listening lesson conducted by T1 and T2 Over all, the total code-switching times used by T1 and T2 in the whole unit 9: Undersea world in 10 class hours can be summarized as: Unit 9: T1 (times) T2 (times) Reading 14 12 Speaking 26 20 Listening 16 18 Writing 22 26 Language focus 25 31 Undersea World Table 4.3: Code-switching frequency in unit by T1 and T2 Teachers Frequency of code-switching appearance in each skill’s time (on average) 15 Reading Speaking Listening writing Language focus T1 14 26 16 22 25 T2 12 20 18 26 31 T3 14 22 / 26 28 16 Table 4.4: The average code-switching frequency of three teachers And, afterwards, some initial conclusions can be drawn from the observations as below: The teachers switched codes all the vocabulary of the pre-reading task Furthermore, they also switched codes to make the instructions clear They even stressed on the usages of structures practiced in the lesson All the examined teachers, more or less, used code-switching as an effective tool in managing class, giving instructions, explaining Above all, code-switchingwas present at any time, and in any period of the lessons.From my observation, it can be summarized that code-switching in classroom context seems unavoidable It is obvious that the types of this teacher’s code-switching were rather varied By and large, as far as I can see, the more experienced the teacher is, the more she switches codes In addition, the younger the teacher is, the more English language is used in the classroom In fact, teaching activities in a bilingual environment, it is unavoidable for teachers to switch between codes The matter lies in the adoptable amount of code-switching in the situation of the classroom Code-switching occurred most often in the language focus and writing period as teachers seemed to try to make their lessons more comprehensive and explain clearly for their students understand the lesson to exercises Types of Code-switching from the observation at Vu Van Hieu high school Typically in unit 9: Undersea World by T1 and T2 alone, the types of codeswitching was prescribed as illustrated in the table below Types of code-switching Parts of a sentence T1 T2 (times) (times) 45 47 17 Whole sentences 33 35 Fillers 17 18 Tags Table 4.5: Types of code-switching in Unit by T1 and T2 In the total examined class hours, the code-switching by three teachers on average was displayed as: Types of code- T1 T2 T3 switching (times) (times) (times) Parts of a sentence 51 54 36 Whole sentences 38 40 30 Fillers 17 19 16 Tags 10 Table 4.6.the average frequency of code-switching in types by three teachers From the classroom observation, it can be concluded that teachers’ codeswitching functions to: Draw attention of students to the lesson; Assign tasks to students; Check whether students get clear about what they are supposed to next; Explain the meaning of vocabulary and the usage of grammatical phenomenon; Deliver instructions in a game or a speaking task; Convey teachers’ emotions via fillers; Tighten the mutual relationship between teachers and students, therefore, student more actively take part in the lessons 4.2 Code-switching perceptions of teachers of English (Data obtained from the interviews) In sum, none of the teacher in the interview denied the role of code-switching in their teaching activities On contrary, they seemed rather optimistic towards the future code-switching and the used of their mother tongue in teaching process It can be concluded based on the above interview that all the teachers perceived the importance of the use of Vietnamese and the role of code-switching in their teaching activities They share the same view of maintaining the use of Vietnamese and code- switching activities because they highly appreciated the benefits their codeswitching had brought about in supplying students with interpretation They also admitted that the frequency of the use of Vietnamese in code-switching was rather high while hoping to reduce this in the future Obviously, the teachers’ beliefs matched their real when they switched codes, as a result, their students seemed active, excited and they were willing to take part in the designed activities in class Their perception about code-switching was rather practical, however, they did better than they had expected In comparison with the data in the observation sheets and from my direct observation I learnt that their code-switching was exploited to deliver instructions, eliciting vocabulary, explaining grammatical structures, manage the classroom, draw students’ attention and so forth 4.3 Teachers’ code-switching in the eyes of students Upon answering question number one about the situations in which codeswitching occurred, students confirmed that teachers used Vietnamese when eliciting new vocabulary, highlighted more concretely when assured that Vietnamese was used to make the vocabulary clear to classmates who are not very good at lexisand focused on the situation when appeared hard exercises or structures All the three students admitted the level was “enough” and did not express any other different ideas To answer question number three which required the students to comment about teachers’ code-switching’s effect on the students’ comprehension, all of the students revealed that the use of Vietnamese in the classroom had imposed positive effect on the understanding When suggesting the usage of Vietnamese in the future, all of the three students completely agreed to reduce the amount of Vietnamese in order to provide students more chances to practice English In response to question six about the trend of complete English in English lessons nowadays, none of the students approved the elimination of mother tongue in teaching English They all thought of the ineffectiveness of a complete English lesson Students pointed out that Vietnamese was commonly used in the speaking and listening class hours Like all the interviewed teachers, all the students looked at the bright side of using Vietnamese in conjunction with English in class hours It can be deduced that Vietnamese or, in other words, code-switching is an integral part of teaching activities as well as a way to acquire language knowledge for students Chapter CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation The thesis has mentioned three main types of code-witching, including insentential, intrasentential and intersentential, afterwards, has found out the two most common types among teachers at Vu Van Hieu high school: within sentences, fillers/ tags insertion All the types above match with the findings and conclusions by other Vietnamese as well as international researchers in the field Teachers’ view about the role of Vietnamese perfectly matched with reality From the observation, the author of this thesis has learned that there were still some students seemed to be put behind in the lesson in which English was the dominant language It is undoubted that the opinion of teachers about using code-switching basing on the classroom situation matched with the suggestions from interviewed students From the side of students, code-switching was still encouraged and approved, yet, they recommended that teachers provide more chances for students to be exposed to English In this case, teachers also figured out the necessity of code-switching However, like their students, they hoped to reduce the amount of Vietnamese in their classes 5.2 Implications The findings of my research can be a reference for teachers who are in service and also for those who are teachers-to-be The findings help teachers have an insight into the benefits of code-switching; besides, teachers can explore these findings when they tend to use code-switching activities as a teaching tool Utterances provided by teachers in their code-switching activities can be used as samples in any other studies and exploited as evidence for reasons of code-switching 5.3 Limitations The thing that I feel most regretful about when conducting this research is that I could not commence my observation earlier in order to have a more insightful setting into the matter Apart from the above mentioned limitation, the choice of students to take part in the interview would be greater if more students had been informed Moreover, time did not this study a favour since the school year was approaching the end-of-term test Our teachers and students were busy preparing for their finally examination; consequently, we did not have enough time to discuss the matter of code-switching in depth In terms of the textbook used at Vu Van Hieu high school, the coursebooks, which are not widely used nowadays in Vietnam, are rather traditionally designed Hence, more concret comparison of code-switching activities with other teachers at other high school appears difficult 5.4 Suggestions for further research This thesis only studies about high school English teachers on the beliefs and practices of code switching in the teaching of English as a second language in bilingual classrooms Therefore, in the further studies, it is suggested that the researchers should study about the positive and negative impact of code switching on language practice (English) ability of high school students in bilingual classrooms ... ENGLISH TEACHERS’ CODE-SWITCHING: BELIEF AND PRACTICE (Hoạt động chuyển mã ngôn ngữ giáo viên tiếng Anh Trung học Phổ thông: Từ quan điểm đến thực tiễn) M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: