Abstract:
In every aspect of human life, language is an important form of communication and
that is one of the skills that the school system seeks to develop. Ghana as multilingual
country has a challenge to meet due to the numerous languages that students are
exposed to. This makes it difficult to effectively learn the target language. In order to
communicate well with students in the English language classroom (L 2), teachers
code-switch for several pedagogic reasons. This study sought to find out when codeswitching
happens in the English language class, the reasons for which teachers and
students code-switch, and the benefits they derive from it. The research design that
was adopted for the study is a qualitative descriptive survey. Qualitative approach
which involves audio-tape recordings, interviews and observation of the classroom
interaction between teachers and pupils were used to gather data. The main purpose of
using a descriptive survey is to observe, describe and document aspects of the English
language teaching-learning classroomas it naturally occurs. The sample population for
this study consisted of J.H.S 1 to JHS 3 students and English teachers of the selected
schools. Convenient sampling technique was used to select six JHS teachers from six
schools from six towns in the District. The schools selected for the study were
Asikuma R/C Boys‟ JHS, Brakwa Presby JHS „A‟, Odoben R/C JHS, Supunso D/A
JHS, Asarikwa JHS and Eshiem D/A JHS. Quota sampling technique was used to
select the si towns for the study. The analysis revealed that code-switching occurs at
various stages of lesson delivery: introduction, content delivery, evaluation, and
closure in the classroom. The study also revealed that code-switching was used for
academic, socializing and management functions in the English language classroom.
Finally, code-switching was found to have significant benefits to the English class,
some of which are to help to meet the individual needs of the stuents help build
rapport between teacherand students and help the teacher to draw the attention of
students. Others are that it is an important communication strategy and instructional
tool for both teachers and students, it is used to clarify their understanding of lesson
contents, used as a tool to correct students during instruction, and to increase students‟
participation and activeness in class. Based on these findings, it is concluded that
teachers and students should judiciously use code-switch in the English language
classroom in order to effectively accelerate the learning of English.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Basic Education, Faculty of Educational Studies,
Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Basic Education)
in the University of Education, Winneba