Code switching as a communication strategy of German language students in Ho Chi Minh City – The case of German classes at USSH, VNU-HCM

Abstract

The phenomenon of code switching – the use of multiple language varieties in a conversation (Myers-Scotton, 2006) – has been widely researched and discussed in the fields of linguistics and education. In foreign language classes, how languages are used by teachers and learners shows not only the applied teaching methods but also creates classroom discourse. However, even in classrooms where the target language is allowed, all participants occasionally code switch for multiple purposes. In many recent researches, this mixing of language is considered to be a communication tool; there are arguments that language mixing can even facilitate the learner in second language acquisition. In this paper, we gathered data from German language classrooms at intermediate level in Ho Chi Minh City, in which learners interchangably used both Vietnamese and German. We considered these classrooms to be a community of practice and we used conversation analysis as research framework to look at the functions of the learners' code switching in order to gain insight into language application from this target group in particular and multilinguals in general. Therefore, we suggest an approach in which the foreign language learners are viewed as multilingual individuals, and foreign language teaching should be based on this target group.