Students’ Attitude towards Teachers’ Urdu Code-Switching in ESL Class-Rooms at University of Management & Technology Lahore

Abstract

In multilingual classrooms such as in Pakistan most of the individuals have the knowledge of two or more languages, the linguistic phenomenon of combining languages is quite frequent. “A common term for alternative use of two or more languages, varieties of a language or even speech styles” is called code-switching (Hymes, 1974). The present article investigates the students’ attitudes to Urdu code-switching (CS) used by teachers in English as a Second Language classes at University of Management & Technology Lahore. A sample of 30 students studying at undergraduate level has been taken. Quantitative approach of data analysis has been used to investigate the responses. A 10-item questionnaire was developed and distributed among the students. The closed questions of the questionnaires were analyzed statistically by using the SPSS program. The results display that students have positive attitude towards teachers’ code-switching in ESL class-rooms and teachers’ code-switching is an effective teaching strategy when teaching English in Pakistani scenario.

Keywords: Code-switching, Attitude, Investigation, ESL class