Code choice between L1 and the target language in English learning and teaching: a case study of Japanese EFL classrooms

Abstract

The use of English as a medium of instruction (teaching in English) as well as a subject (teaching English) has recently been promoted as a part of Japan’s language education policy. However, there is still a need to examine how the first language and target language function together to construct classroom interaction. This article investigates the practice and function of code choice and code alternation in English language classrooms. The way in which teachers and students actually choose the codes according to context are examined. The data were recorded in English classes at a public junior high school and a private junior high school (lower secondary school) in Japan. These data are analyzed from the perspective of classroom discourse analysis. Two types of code choice are considered, one depending on sociocultural factors and the other based on encouragement of target language use. The study suggests that code choice fulfills three pedagogical functions: (1) support to compensate for a learner’s lack of ability in the target language, (2) setting up communicative activities in the target language, and (3) transmission of sociocultural knowledge to learners.

Keywords:

• Code choice
• English as foreign language
• sociocultural knowledge
• teacher–student interaction
• classroom discourse

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Fred E. Anderson from the Faculty of Letters, Kansai University, and three anonymous reviewers as well the Editors for their meaningful comments and help. I would not have been able to develop my ideas and write this article without their assistance.

Notes

¹ This is different from the situation described in Bonacina-Pugh and Gafaranga (2011), where “medium of instruction” and “medium of classroom interaction” can be distinguished. In the French language program in Scotland described by the authors, the students’ proficiency in French is at a level where such a distinction makes sense.

² Scaffolding is a support to accomplish tasks for students or novices, when topics or skills are beyond their present ability. This supporting action is usually provided by teachers or seniors through constructing knowledge and leading students to it. In the case in which one consciously uses scaffolding to help students or novices, this use is regarded as a teaching strategy.

³ In line 15, T uses the more colloquial form te of the quotative particle, while to in line 18 is slightly more formal.

⁴ In Nukuto (2015), I suggested that discourse markers (in that study, “so”) signal the start of or transition between tasks, and that participants are socialized into using these markers in the course of communication.