Code-switching: Beliefs and Attitudes of Albanian Pre Service English Teachers

Abstract

Code switching is a phenomenon mostly seen in bilingual and multilingual situations. It happens all the time in language classes. There has been a lot of discussion and research on how much this should be allowed. The common questions that arise are why language teachers choose to shift from one code to the other, how much this is conditioned and affected by students language ability and how this can be exploited to teach language communicatively. A better understanding of the role of code switching in language classes will make student teachers more aware of this phenomenon. They will be able to use a variety of language activities in the class to teach language skills and metalinguistic strategies. A study was carried out about beliefs and attitudes of Albanian pre service teachers on the above mentioned questions. 80 first year students in the Teacher Education Master program were given a semi structured questionnaire with items on their experience and reflections. They wrote about the actual use of the mother tongue in the English classes, the reason of its use and the advantages and disadvantages of code switching in the language class. The paper presents the data from this study , an analysis and concludes with discussion and suggestions of how to deal with this issue in language teacher education programs and in the classroom practice. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n2p384