Quantitative Investigation of Students' Perceptions regarding Code Switching in Pakistani English Classrooms at University Level
Keywords:
Code-switching, linguistic variety, cultural identity, language acquisition, communication, pedagogyAbstract
Code-switching is the focus of this study, illuminating its implications for communication,
cultural identity, and pedagogical methods in Pakistani English classrooms. It emphasizes the
importance of teachers recognizing and capitalizing on code-switching as a technique of
bridging language and cultural gaps for the benefit of their students' education. This study
investigates how students in Pakistani English courses feel about teachers' use of code-switching
in the class. The university students at Institute of Space and Technology Islamabad were the
population of this study. Purposive sampling technique was used for the collection of data from
the sample. For sample, 100 university students of English course were collected from the
population. Self-made questionnaire was developed for this study. The researcher collected the
data face to face through a close ended questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed through
the Statistic tool SPSS. The findings show that people see code-switching positively as a means
to improve their communication skills. Code-switching is a socio-cultural manifestation, and
respondents credit it to the preservation of their cultural identity. The results of the research
highlight the importance of educators in influencing their students' views on code-switching.
Findings show that the students feel more comfortable when they do code switching because
they can understand things easily in their language like difficult sentences, vocabulary etc. This
study has far-reaching effects on how we plan and execute instruction. The study recommends
that the student and teacher should minimize the use of code switching in class. Teacher knows
that the medium of instruction is English and they stop students to use a lot of code switching
in class. A more welcoming and culturally sensitive classroom may be created when teachers are
aware of code-switching as a communication method.
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