Attitudes of English Language Teachers towards Code-switching (CS) in Pakistani Classrooms: A Review of five selected Articles

Abstract

Nowadays, the most widely used language in academic settings is English because in the last few years there has been an immense increase in English Language Teaching at all dimensions in Pakistan. Fundamental reason for this review study is to add to the perspective of code-switching to have positive effects on teaching. This study also investigates language choice and use, and reasons of code-switching by the English Language Teachers. To achieve the aims of this study, descriptive qualitative research methodology was adopted and all the five articles were selected through random sampling technique. In the selected articles, qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used in which interviews; semi-structured interviews, questionnaire and observations were utilized as tools for data collection from the teachers of English Language. Samples of selected articles being reviewed, consisted of English Language Teachers at university level. This review study has also a limitation because only five (05) selected articles were reviewed. Therefore, the findings are not generalizable. After reviewing the articles it has come to notice that most of the Pakistani experts/teachers are in the favor of meaningful use of code-switching but some of the experts/teachers asserted that CS in L2 learning settings is not so far a useful strategy. The findings of this review study can prove to be helpful for both English Language teachers and language policy makers to utilize code-switching as a useful teaching methodology in Pakistani context.