Investigating code-switching in teacher talk in Turkish as a foreign language classrooms

Abstract

Teaching Turkish as a foreign language (TFL) has recently gained popularity because of various reasons such as migration, education, etc. Studies investigating Turkish offer a different perspective to foreign language teaching. This study sets out to investigate code-switching functions of teacher talk in TFL classrooms and to compare in-class practices with teachers’ perceptions. Within the scope of the study, English as the code-switched language was investigated. Data were collected by using semi-structured observation, audio recording, transcription of recordings, and by interviewing four teachers. Findings of this study showed that introducing a lexical item was the most frequently used function, followed by confirming, answering a question, giving instructions. The findings indicated that teachers code-switched to English mostly for educational purposes, and partly for conversational purposes. Educational purposes were mostly observed at word level, whereas conversational code-switching was mainly exemplified at sentence level. Finally, the findings showed that classroom practices and teacher perceptions mostly aligned with one another. Teachers regarded English as an ally for TFL teaching at certain points on condition that it is kept at minimum level.