Code-Switching: Pedagogical Method in Bridging the Linguistic Gap between Students' Mother Tongue and English language

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the pedagogical role which code-switching plays to bridge the linguistic gap between the students' mother tongue and English language during EFL classes. The study adopted the descriptive analytic method and it incorporated two data gathering tools which were classroom observation checklist and teachers' questionnaire. To conduct the study, ninety (90) students at Alnokhaba Secondary School in Omdurman Locality besides (15) EFL secondary school teachers were randomly selected to represent the study sample. The statistical results obtained have revealed that code-switching achieved the students' satisfaction and helped them feel more comfortable and more connected with the lesson content in addition to enabling them to take a remarkable part in classroom discourse. Besides what has been mentioned the findings also have indicated that, code-switching actually minimizes both the time spent by the teacher to explain the difficult linguistic concepts and the effort that he/she exerts.