NON-ENGLISH MAJORS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS CODE-SWITCHING AS A COMMUNICATION STRATEGY IN RELATION TO THEIR ENGLISH PROFICIENCY

Abstract

There has been a controversy regarding whether code-switching should be employed in an English language classroom. It is believed that code-switching probably facilitates English learning process; however, some researchers express their doubt about the effectiveness of code-switching in a classroom in which English is taught and learned as a foreign language. This study aims to investigate university non-English majors’ attitudes towards the use of code-switching as a communication strategy and examine whether or not it was correlated with their English proficiency. After the delivery of the proficiency test and a closed-ended questionnaire to 50 non-English majors at a private university in Ho Chi Minh City, the quantitative data were processed using descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation. The findings indicated a positive attitude towards using code-switching as a strategy for communication and some positive correlations between their attitudes and English proficiency. Based on the findings, it is supposed that the use of code-switching is considered to be a means of communication rather than a hindrance in an English language classroom.