Việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ thứ nhất khi dạy tiếng anh trên lớp học của giáo viên trung học phổ thông

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYEN THI THU HIEN HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ EMPLOYMENT OF FIRST LANGUAGE IN THEIR ENGLISH CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION Việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ th

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN THI THU HIEN

HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ EMPLOYMENT OF FIRST LANGUAGE IN THEIR ENGLISH CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION (Việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ thứ nhất khi dạy tiếng Anh trên lớp học của

giáo viên Trung Học Phổ Thông)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN THI THU HIEN

HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ EMPLOYMENT OF FIRST LANGUAGE IN THEIR ENGLISH CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION (Việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ thứ nhất khi dạy tiếng Anh trên lớp học của

giáo viên Trung Học Phổ Thông)

M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Hang, Ph.D

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

The thesis entitled “High school teachers’ employment of first language in their English classroom instruction” has been submitted to School of foreign languages, Thai Nguyen University for the Master of English language

I hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it are my own and have been generated by me as the result of my own original research All references and all sources of information used in it have been specifically acknowledged

My thesis does not contain work extracted from a thesis, dissertation or research paper previously presented for another degree or diploma at this or any other universities

Signature:

Name: Nguyen Thi Thu Hien Date: / /2019

Approved by Signature:

Dr Nguyen Thi Hang

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness and render my warmest thanks

to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Hang, who made this work possible I am grateful

to her for her patience, her encouragement and insightful suggestions

My special thanks are definitely to high school teachers in Quang Ninh province who agree to participate in my study During my Data collection, they always provide me with great help

I would like to extend my thanks to my family: my mother, my husband and

my daughter, who are always by my side and encourage me to accomplish this thesis

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the practice of code switching among English language teachers at high school in Vietnam with practical experience in English as a foreign language It places a focus on the situations in which teachers use their first language within their English instruction in their English classroom, and the reasons why teachers utter Vietnamese when giving instruction of English in their classes

An ethnographic research design is applied in the study The research is based

on the data analysis of four typical high school teachers’ code switching from three sources of information: class observations, class recordings, and interviews with teachers

It was found that the teachers practiced code-switching very commonly in their English instruction in different situations such as presenting vocabulary, presenting pronunciation, presenting grammar rules, correcting mistakes and keeping class management Specific examples were illustrated and interpreted in each situation to provide the context where the teachers practised code switching

At the same time, the reasons why they code switched were revealed These ranged from the teachers’ personal reasons to those for students’ sake: students’ English proficiency, time saving strategy and teachers’ habits Among which, students’ low level of English was the most popular factor that teachers took into consideration when deciding to use their first language frequently

Based on the findings of the study, recommendations are provided for English teachers for situations where teachers’ code-switching could be encouraged and many other situations, their code-switching should generally be avoided

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES iv

ABBREVIATIONS v

PART A INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Structure of the study 3

PART B DEVELOPMENT 3

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 3

1.2 Code-switching in classroom instruction 6

1.2.1 Viewpoint supporting the use of L1 in language classes 6

1.2.2 Viewpoint against the use of L1 in language classes .7

1.3 Studies of teachers’ using L1 in language classrooms 8

1.4 Summary 10

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY 11

2.1 Methodology of the study 12

2.2 Participants 13

2.3 Data collection 13

2.3.1 Classroom observations 14

2.3.2 Post-observational interviews 15

2.4 Data analysis 16

2.5 Summary 17

CHAPTER 3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 17

3.1 Code-switching situations 17

3.1.1 Explaining new words 18

3.1.2 Presenting grammar rules 21

3.1.3 Correcting mistakes 22

3.1.4 Dealing with class management 24

3.2 Reasons for teachers’ code-switching 25

3.2.1 Students’ English proficiency 26

3.2.2 A time saving strategy 28

3.2.3 Teachers’ habits 29

3.3 Summary 33

PART C CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 34

1 Conclusion 34

2 Recommendations for the teachers 35

3 Limitations and Recommendations for further studies 37

REFERENCES 38 APPENDICES I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Summary of teacher participants………13 Table 2 Summary of teachers’ code-switching situations……… 18 Table 3 Summary of reasons for teachers’ code-switching……… 26

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

There have been ongoing debates about teachers’ use of languages, particularly whether they should use their first language in their English classes On the one hand, using the first language (L1) in foreign language classrooms is discouraged by advocates of the target language (TL) use only (Chauron, 1988; Mcdonald, 1993) These authors contend that students must be exposed to a significant amount of TL input if they want to develop it better This explains why teachers of English can sometimes receive criticism for using their first language in their classroom instruction At the other end of the spectrum, a number of scholars including Eastman (1992), and Addendorff (1993), Code-switching amongst Luzu-speaking teachers and their pupils: Its functions and implications for teacher education, Language and Education, 7(3), 141-161 feel that switching from TL to L1 can be an effective strategy for teachers to help improving their students’ TL proficiency if L1 is deliberately utilized in classrooms Cook (2001, pp.402-423) also provides guidelines for teachers when employing L1 in classroom instructions, which are “efficiency”, “learning”, “naturalness” and “external relevance”

These contrasting viewpoints reflect what I have observed and questioned for years during my teaching career at Van Lang high school in Ha Long, which has driven me to investigate the English teaching setting of high schools in Vietnam, where the teachers’ use of L1 in instruction is a common element From my own experience and my observation of other English teachers’ teaching practice, it is evident that Vietnamese teachers use both L1 and English in different phases in their language classroom

It is a common perception that when the teachers use Vietnamese, their students might better comprehend the instructions Especially in classes with English low-level students, if L1 is not used, tasks and activities must be kept simplest to ensure that the instructions are understandable, which might result in teachers treating high school students like kids rather than intelligent and sophisticated people (Gunn,

2003) In other cases, some teachers resort to Vietnamese with a view to saving time and effort of explaining and understanding, which may somehow solve the problem

of class time limit However, it would turn out to be negative if this practice becomes

a habit and both students and teachers accept Vietnamese as a matter of fact in a language classroom This issue has given me a desire to understand when and for what reasons teachers at high school employ L1 in classroom instruction

The study entitled “High school teachers’ employment of first language in their English classroom instruction” will hopefully give high school teachers an opportunity to reflect on their own teaching practice and use code switching as an effective strategy by utilizing Vietnamese deliberately in classroom instruction Besides, it raises awareness of language alternation in classroom instruction, not only among teachers of the high school chosen in the research but also among language teachers in other similar teaching and learning contexts in Vietnamese

2 Aims of the study

The study aims to investigate English language teachers at a high school in Vietnam with practical experience in English as a foreign language (EFL) It places

a focus on the situations in which teachers use their first language (Vietnamese) within their English instruction in their English classroom Moreover, the study provides the evidence of reasons why teachers utter Vietnamese when giving instruction of English in their classes

3 Scope of the study

This study focuses on teachers’ use of their first language in their classroom instruction of English It will be conducted during the academic year of 2018 – 2019

4 Structure of the study

The study is composed of three main parts as follows

Part A: Introduction provides the background to the study, the aims of the

study which is followed by the research questions, the significance of the study and the organization of the study as well

Part B: Development consists of three chapters

Chapter 2: Literature Review is an overview of the related topics that

provides the theoretical background to the study including theoretical background of code switching Some previous studies about teachers using L1 in foreign language classes are mentioned in this chapter to be the references of the study

Chapter 3: Methodology describes the research design, the data

collection instruments used and the procedures of data collection, the description of the participants and data analysis

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion analyses all the data collected

from the study, including the results from observation notes, recordings and interview transcriptions

Part C: Conclusion and Recommendation concludes the thesis by

summarizing the findings, discussing the contribution of the study, limitations and

suggestions for further studies

PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

Using the first language in foreign language classes has received great attention from language researchers This chapter, consisting of four sections,

reviews relevant matters related to code-switching as the background for the study First, it briefly discusses an overview of the notion of bilingualism and one of its main characteristics - the phenomenon of code-switching The next section provides a number of different viewpoints in regard to the practice of code-switching in classroom instruction of English These main viewpoints come from those who are for and against the L1 use The third section aims to synthesise previous studies of teachers’ L1 using in language classrooms The chapter ends with a summary of the main points presented

1.1 Bilingualism and code-switching

Bilingualism is the phenomenon of speaking and understanding two or more languages The term can refer to individuals (individual bilingualism) as well as to

an entire society (social bilingualism)

There have been different views on bilingualism and bilinguals One of the most common views is bilingualism is defined based on the level of language proficiency of the speaker of the two languages Accordingly, bilinguals are divided into three groups as follows

According to Mackey (2000), bilinguals refer to speakers who can use two languages equally fluently This means if someone is called a bilingual, he or she must master the second language, more or less, than their mother tongue in all the four skills: listening, reading, writing and speaking With this definition, the number

of bilinguals is limited At the other end of the spectrum, those educators like Haugen (1953) claims that bilinguals are those who master one language and at the same time can show certain level of proficiency of another language In his view, bilinguals refer

to anyone who can demonstrate their ability of using second language (even at a basic level) The last category of bilinguals is proposed by Edwards (2004) and Mackey (2000) who believe that bilinguals are those who are able to use two languages alternately

In this study, I adopt the third definition which emphasizes on the teachers’

alternate use of English and Vietnamese in their English classes to be bilinguals The teachers’ use of both languages is known as one of the three main features of bilingualism, the phenomenon of code-switching, which occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages in conversation Instances of code-switching, like the following examples, commonly occur around the classroom context

Examples:

(a) Cuối tuần này đi picnic đi

(b) Keep silent please Cả lớp trật tự được chưa?

(c) Giờ tôi không thể nhớ chính xác cái moment ấy như thế nào […]

In the above examples, the speaker starts in one language (Vietnamese in this case), then he or she shifts to English His/her switches maybe forth and back

This phenomenon has been long discussed; however, there has not been an

agreed definition Nunan and Carter (2001) simply define code switching as “a

phenomenon of switching from one language to another in the same discourse” Simon (2001) describes foreign language teachers’ code-switching as the teachers’ choice of using the language being taught and the teachers’ and students’ first

language

Another definition of code-switching proposed by Hoffmann (1991) is “the alternate use of two languages or linguistic varieties within the same utterance or during the same conversation” (p 110) This definition is supported by Muysken (1995) who defines bilingualism as “the alternative use by bilinguals (or multi-linguals) of two or more languages in the same conversation” In this perspective, code-switching is identified by Gardner-Chloros (2009) as “the use of several language dialects in the same conversation or sentence by bilingual people” (p 4) Similarly, code-switching is used to refer to the phenomenon in which “speakers switch backwards and forwards between distinct codes in their repertoire” (Bell,

2014, p 111)

In the language classroom context, code-switching has been defined as “the systematic, alternating use of two or more languages in a single utterance or conversational exchange” (Levine, 2011, p 50) More specifically, G Cook (2010) refers to the teacher’s code-switching as the use of the first language in his/her L2 classroom G Cook (2010) also sees translation as one means for a bilingual to code-switch However, he notes that teachers’ L1 use does not necessarily involve translation because translation is not the only tool for a bilingual to use

In the context of the language classroom in Vietnam, teachers’ code-switching seems to be a common practice in their classroom instruction of English, and it is seen as “the practice of using two languages within the same utterance and between utterances and turns” (Nguyen, 2013; Grant & Nguyen, 2017)

1.2 Code-switching in classroom instruction

Teachers’ code-switching in classroom instruction involves their alternate use

of the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) There have been disputes among scholars on teachers’ using only L2 and on their using both the L1 and L2 in the FL classrooms The viewpoint that approves of the teachers’ use of two languages means their code-switching is, to a great extent, accepted In contrast, there are those who disparage this practice, viewing that a degree is a more of hindrance than a help

if language teachers insert their L1 into their instruction in class These two contrasting views are, in turn, reviewed as follows

1.2.1 Viewpoint supporting the use of L1 in language classes

The advocates of L1 employment in language classroom base their support on such ideas that teachers can use L1 with specific purposes Tang (2002), for example, claims that L1 can be used by teachers to give instructions and explain complex grammar and difficult ideas This is a common view of the supporters of the Bilingual Approach, i.e the one which advocates L1 use Miles (2004, p.8) states that “the Bilingual Approach might argue that to make the separation or distinction between L1 and L2, explanations in L1 are necessary, because the teaching of grammar is so

complex, that without L1 use, there would be little or no comprehension on the students’ part, especially at lower levels.” Sharing the same opinion, Nunan (1997) believes that the exclusion of L1 in lower-level monolingual classes is practically impossible

More specifically, Cook (2001) also provided two reasons for employing the first language in an FL class, which are efficiency and naturalness He proposed various ways for teachers to use their native language positively in their FL classes such as to convey meaning, explain grammar, organize tasks, manage the classroom, establish and maintain contact with individual students an administer tests

Another reason leading to teachers’ use of their mother tongue is the fact that non-native speakers account for the vast majority of teachers of English across the world (Hawks, 2001, cited in Miles, 2004, p 9) These teachers normally find it hard,

or even impossible to carry out the English-only teaching in the classroom; thus, the insistence on the monolingual approach may result in their reduced ability to communicate and consequently their reduced teaching performance (Miles, 2004, p.9)

1.2.2 Viewpoint against the use of L1 in language classes

Although the use of L1 tends to gain more support from some L2 researchers, there are many who have argued that the use of L1 should be limited in L2 instruction These opponents of L1 provide evidence to support their argument

One of the first arguments is that the use of L1 may have negative effects on the instructors’ use of L2 because if instructors use L1, the quantity of comprehensible L2 input decreases, which is thought to do harm to learners’ L2 learning Years ago, Mitchell, (1983) argued that adult L2 learning should take place

in the same way as child L1 learning and that the L2 should be ‘‘largely acquired rather than consciously learned, from message-oriented experience of its use’’ (p.41) Later, Polio & Duff (1994) viewed the use of L1 as characteristic of the old- fashioned grammar translation method, which largely focused on translating from L2 to L1 as

a way of learning the L2

Other authors who are of the viewpoint against the use of L1 believe that L2 teaching should take place without interference from L1 According to Cummins (2007), the dominant approach in L2 teaching has advocated no use of L1 in L2 classrooms Thus, many language teaching approaches continue to assume that L2 instruction should be mainly through the L2 and that if there is recourse to the L1, it should be minimized as much as possible (Turnbull, 2001) Some even may believe that instructors should avoid using L1 altogether and that those who use it may be in- adequate pedagogues (Cook, 2001)

1.3 Studies of teachers’ using L1 in language classrooms

Studies of teachers’ use of L1 in classroom vary Duff & Polio (1990) found that although instructors acknowledge the importance of teaching in L2, most of them still use L1 to a certain degree in their classrooms Studies have also found a large variability of L1 use among teachers They examined the use of L1 in foreign language classes taught at the University of California and found L1 use ranging from

0 to 90% They also found that teachers used L1 for a range of purposes, from administration to grammar instruction and classroom management

Other researchers, Nguyen (1999) and Zacharias (2003) reported their studies

on the use of L1 in L2 teaching and concluded that most of the respondents held supportive views on the role of L1 in the English classroom Zacharias (2003) further pointed out the possible uses of L1 in the process of teaching L2 including explaining the meaning of new words and grammatical points, giving instructions, checking learners’ understanding and giving feedback to individual learners

Many studies investigating teachers’ code-switching in classroom instruction have found out the reasons why teachers of English switch to Vietnamese when giving instruction

There were different factors that led to the teachers’ code-switching found in

a number of studies (Greggio & Gil, 2007; Kang, 2013; Kim & Elder, 2008; Macaro, 2001; Rolin-Ianziti&Brownlie, 2002; Üstünel&Seedhouse, 2005) Such factors

examined in these research studies are grouped into two main categories: teacher factors and student factors

Kim and Elder (2008) looked into the practices and perceptions of two cases

of native speaker teachers (one is French and the other is Korean) of the TL in FL classrooms in New Zealand Four factors that caused teachers to code-switch were shown in the analysis of their participants’ lesson transcripts The first factor was the teachers’ attitude towards TL use, i.e., their opinion about language teaching and learning, their awareness of language use The second factor was the teachers’ physical or mental state (e.g., the teachers’ impatience), the third factor was the teachers’ language educational background, and the fourth factor was the teachers’ time pressure

Other teacher factors arose from the classroom needs, e.g., to encourage students to speak (Üstünel&Seedhouse, 2005) to make sure of students’ comprehension (Greggio& Gil, 2007), or to perform procedural instruction (Macaro, 2001; Rolin-Ianziti&Brownlie, 2002) Teachers code-switched to their first language (Arabic) to deal with a cultural concept of, for example, Muslim people’s religious cultural behaviour of performing ablution which occurs before praying because this concept does not have an exact equivalent in English (Khresheh, 2012) In particular,

Le (2014) conducted a case study of a teacher in the Vietnamese university context, and found that the teacher code switched because she underestimated the students’ ability in the target language Furthermore, based on the evidence of the teacher’s unnecessary switches, he claimed that many of the teacher’s switches from English

to Vietnamese in his study were habitual and automatic

The student-related factors that caused teachers to code-switch were found in far fewer studies Kim and Elder (2008) found that the teachers in their study code-switched because of the students’ poor level of English and the students’ physical or emotional state, for example when they are unwell or unhappy Other authors found that teachers code-switched because they wanted their students to be relaxed or less stressed (Greggio& Gil, 2007; Kang, 2013; Rolin-Ianziti&Brownlie, 2002) In these studies, the students felt more comfortable or more relaxed in many situations when

their teacher code switched In other words, their emotional state can be seen as a motivation for their teachers to code-switch This is a reason for teachers’ to code-switch as Kim and Elder (2008) pointed out

In sum, authors of interest have exploited various aspects in regard to teachers’ L1, also known as their code-switching Good examples of these authors include Macaro (2001) who examined the attitudes and perceptions of instructors and students regarding the role of L1 in different contexts, Cook (2001) explored the benefits for teachers’ use of their mother tongue teaching learners a foreign language Specifically, in the context of Vietnamese teaching and learning English, Nguyen (2013), Grant and Nguyen (2017) provided an entire picture of teachers’ code-switching, looking at the types and functions of code-switching, the situations where their switches occur, the reasons for their switching and even the effects of their switching on students language behaviour They found that teachers switched forth and back in many situations, when they dealt with both teaching content (grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation) and classroom process They, in their study, also concluded that reasons for teachers’ switching vary, ranging from their personal reasons (i.e linguistic needs and teachers’ habitual and experiential practice) to students’ reasons (i.e students’ language ability and motivation)

1.4 Summary

In general, there were three main issues discussed in this chapter: bilingualism and code-switching, code-switching in classroom instruction, and studies of teachers’ using L1 in language classrooms About bilingualism, there seems to be no perfect definition of bilingualism that serves all contexts In this study context of FL education, the definition which emphasizes on the teachers’ alternate use of English and Vietnamese in their English classes to be bilinguals was adopted Also, code switching was defined as a common practice of using two languages (English and Vietnames) in classroom instruction There have been debates on the teachers’ use of L1 in language classes While many researchers advocated that teachers can use L1 with specific purposes, others argued that the use of L1 should be limited in L2

instruction However, the use of the L1 occurs naturally and unavoidably in practice

As a result, the code-switching phenomenon frequently occurs in the FL classes It appears in various situations including grammar and vocabulary presentation, classroom management, mistake correction, or teacher-student communication Moreover, the reasons why teachers of English switch to Vietnamese when giving instructions were also discussed in this chapter Teacher factor and student factor are the two main mentioned points that cause code switching in classroom instruction

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY

This chapter aims to briefly discuss ethnography as a theoretical approach that the writer has applied to the study It then, in the second section, presents the participants involved in the study The chapter continues with detailed descriptions regarding the procedures in which the writer collected data and analyzed the obtained information in the next two sections A summary of the points presented closes the chapter

2.1 Methodology of the study

As stated in Chapter 1, the present study addressed two research questions:

 When do high school teachers employ their first language in their classroom

A key term in ethnography, according to authors such as LeCompte and Schensul (1999), Walford (2008) and Creswell (2008) is ‘culture’ For these authors, ethnography focuses on an understanding of a community’s culture by engaging and interacting with its members, as well as by observing these members in their career activities

In the present study, I consider Vietnamese EFL teachers who have been working in the same school over a certain period of time to be a cultural group These teachers share a cultural behavior: code-switching – using both Vietnamese and English alternately to teach in their EFL classes

As a way to triangulate the source of information which guarantees the trustworthiness of the study (because an ethnographic study aims for local knowledge and different cultural settings, it is impossible to generalize how the findings of a specific study would apply in other contexts), I decided to use different methods to collect data for the study: classroom observations; class recordings; field notes; interviews with teachers

Ethnography also informs the methods of data analysis Inductive analysis, which involves discovering patterns, themes or categories in one’s data, is typically carried out from the early stages (Burns, 2000; LeCompte & Schensul, 1999; Murchison, 2010; Patton, 2002) These authors also refer to inductive data analysis

as one of the main characteristics of an ethnographer who employs an ethnographic approach as the methodology

The data from notes and recordings during classroom observations and teachers’ answers in interviews were qualitatively analyzed also to uncover teachers’ perspectives of their teachers’ code-switching

2.2 Participants

The participants of the study were four high school English teachers The teacher participants are mostly those of the intermediate level classes and they have experienced all different levels of language learning, ranging from B2 to C1 according to the CEFR Table 1, below, summaries the participants who took part in the study

Table 1 Summary of teacher participants

teachers

As shown, these teacher participants were chosen based on two criteria: gender and teaching experience Concerning the former criterion, i.e gender, three out of the four participants recruited were female, and the later criterion, i.e teaching experience, three teachers with at least three years of teaching experience were selected The reason is this reflects the ratio of the male and female EFL teachers and the range of their teaching experience in the school

2.3 Data collection

The ethnographic methodology shapes the way how a researcher obtains data for analysis to uncover the explored phenomenon-to-be Accordingly, I used two methods to collect data for analysis: classroom observations along with field notes

and post-observational interviews Both techniques greatly deal with my inquiry about the situations in which teachers utilize Vietnamese in their English instruction and my gain my insights into the reasons why they practice using their first language

in their English teaching context

2.3.1 Classroom observations

In this study, I observed eight lessons which were taught by four high school teachers of English from a school located in Ha Long city, Quang Ninh It is a private school The students still follow the old course book which consists of 16 units There are 5 main parts in each unit They are reading, speaking, listening, writing, and language focus 8 observed lessons taught by the total of four teacher participants were enough for the data collection because the teaching strategies of each skill are quite similar Through the classroom observations, I could get in-depth information about these teachers’ code switching and more importantly, I had the opportunity to learn what the teacher participants were unwilling to share in the interviews

Before each observation, the teacher participants informed me the time and location of the class I always came early to wait for the teacher and came into the class with him or her Each class session lasted 45 minutes I sat at the back of the class the entire class time, starting to take notes of all what was happening, for example, the teachers’ teaching activities, which language they used, and both verbal and non-verbal interaction Furthermore, I logged other events that occurred around teachers’ teaching practices: the number of students, their unexpected practice of being late for class, or even the weather conditions which may affect both the teaching and learning

At the same time, all class sessions were recorded using a digital voice recorder which both the teachers and I agreed that it would be better to be placed on the teacher’s table at the beginning of the lesson The participants were fully aware

of the purpose of my use of these digital recordings as a key source of information for analysis in the present study The transcripts of these recordings provide instances

of the teachers’ practice of code-switching in their classroom instruction as well as the students’ language behavior in their interactions with their teachers In addition,

by listening carefully to these recordings, based on such points as their use of pitch ranges, along with my notes during class time, I was able to understand better how the teachers used both languages in their instructions

2.3.2 Post-observational interviews

Post-observational interviews were carried out with three out of the four school teachers that I observed to obtain teachers’ views on the acceptability of code-switching in the classroom and students’ attitudes toward their teachers’ use of Vietnamese when instructing The teachers would have a chance to reflect on and share their beliefs about their teaching and learning experiences, in particular their employment of Vietnamese within their English instruction

These interviews were based on such key points as the frequency of using L1,

in what situation/ which phases of classroom instruction teachers use L1, and for what reasons Teachers’ conversations with me in the interviews were of a great source to cross-check my observational data so that I would gain deeper understanding of their common practice of using both languages in their English classes

Basically, interviews were done right after I finished observing them We met

in the teacher’s waiting room of the school and each interview lasted around 15 minutes The interviews with teachers were to find out:

 their overall language use in their classroom instruction;

 the frequency of using Vietnamese;

 the situations in which they switch to Vietnamese;

 the reasons for their code-switching practice;

 their awareness of any disadvantages of using Vietnamese, and

 their awareness of their students’ changes in language behavior when they code-switch

The interviews were designed in the form of semi-structure interviews in which

the same questions can be used for all participants Those questions include key questions and prompts During the interview, if the participants were unclear about any points, the questions were reworded or details were added so that they could fully comprehend what I would like to hear from them and feel free to share with me

The language used in interviews is mostly Vietnamese, which is aimed to make them feel comfortable in sharing their ideas Interestingly, there were moments where both teachers and I naturally switched between the Vietnamese and English

Then, I started transcribing the class recordings and the interview recordings

To have an overview of what the teachers share during the entire interviews, I transcribed the interview recordings using unfocused transcription not to focus on particular sections of data, but on what was said in the voice recording After that, focused transcription was employed to find out exactly situations of and reasons for using Vietnamese in teachers’ classroom instruction With this type of transcription, all the information related to the mentioned aspects was highlighted on the transcripts This made me compare the commonalities and differences so that I could categorized such themes Finally, I triangulated the two groups of themes, i.e the one I categorized from observational recordings with that of interview recordings along with my field notes as confirmation of the information obtained and my understanding, preparing for my interpretations of what I found

2.5 Summary

In this study, I adopted ethnography as the research methodology because the characteristics of this qualitative approach suit this study very well First of all, the research focused on a cultural group of teachers in a particular high school in Vietnam Next, the members of this cultural group share a common practice in their natural professional setting, i.e they code-switch between English and Vietnamese

in their classroom instruction of English Moreover, they share beliefs regarding their practice Lastly, I myself am one of the members of this cultural group, having spent years teaching and code-switching in my English classes Thus, I my colleagues are reflexive about this practice These are the reasons why I choose ethnography as the research methodology in the present study

The data were collected from various sources: classroom observations; class recordings; interviews with individual teachers, and writing field notes In analysing data, I apply the methods of preliminary and thematic analysis This approach helped

me to find out the commonalities, differences and the relationships between findings

I started to collect data at the beginning of November 2018, and finished it at the end of December 2018 I spent the next 3 months analysing the data and writing Chapter 2: Methodology, Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion The rest of the thesis was completed from April to June 2019

CHAPTER 3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter discusses the findings based on the observational notes, classroom recordings and interview recordings It places a focus on the situations in which teachers used their first language (Vietnamese) within their English instruction, the reasons why they uttered Vietnamese giving instruction of English in their classes It ends with a summary of the points presented

3.1 Code-switching situations

Through the observations of eight class hours, it is found out that the teachers used English most of the class time in their instruction However, there were situations where they switched to Vietnamese and back to English, as shown in Table

2

Table 2 Summary of teachers’ code-switching situations

 Explaining new words

 Presenting grammar rules

in various situations including new words explanation, grammar rules presentation, mistake corrections, and classroom management These four code-switching situations are, in turn, presented and discussed in detail

3.1.1 Explaining new words

The phrase “explaining new words” in this study refers to the situations when the teacher explained the meaning of words, word spellings, parts of speech, pronuncitation and word forms

3.1.1.1 Presenting meaning

It was observed that when explaining new words, the teacher tended to translate the words or ask their students to translate words into either English or Vietnamese In most of the cases, the words or phrases that the teachers required their students to translate were from the textbook

The following examples, taken from my observation sheet, show their switches when they were dealing with vocabulary explanations

Example 1

T: They don’t want to be seen as places where animals are imprisoned