Students’ Attitudes towards Code-switching in the Bilingual Classroom of Accounting English

Abstract

This study examines interviews with 58 undergraduates to explore if participants with different language proficiency view code-switching primarily as a) a necessary means because of a lack of words of the target language, or b) a hindrance as a result of interruption in the course of the target language learning. For many decades, bilingual teaching has been dominated by the principle that teachers should use only the target language and avoid using the mother tongue. However, reports show that code-switching is a common phenomenon both in China and abroad. So it is meaningful to study the students’ attitudes toward this phenomenon in order to make this course more effective.

Bilingual education is one of the compulsory courses in universities according to the curriculum standard issued by the Ministry of Education in China mainland. It is one of the key points in the Target Evaluation System of School-Running Level for assessing the newly upgraded universities. So accounting English is one of the major courses in the newly upgraded financial university in Hunan province.

But bilingual education is not the same as that in the western countries such as those in North America for integrated purposes in the target language society. Students as well as teachers don’t speak the target language in daily lives after class. It is just one of their professional knowledge and competence in case it may be used in future jobs. So, code-switching can not be avoided, and the students’ attitudes toward this should be studied.

This report describes several aspects of attitudes from affect, cognition and behaviorist perspectives. It includes attitudes to the code-switching and the bilingual linguistic competence development line. Attitude and linguistic behavior theory was used. This is a working theory which is based on the idea that one linguistic variety is comparable to another, revealing  something of the cognitive component of their attitude. It is characterized by the mentalist approach and behaviorist current. The methods used in our study are known as qualitative and quantitative studies such as interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations. The informants were chosen from the students in three grades in the university majoring in accounting. Detailed information has been processed by the author using SPSS. The studies we have performed showed that bilingual linguistic competence is not acquired in a linear order, it is a curve line. In conclusion, we state that the students’ attitudes vary a lot and the mother tongue is their crutch in their immature stage.

Keywords: code switching, bilingual, accounting English