Paper presented at 8th University of Sydney TESOL Research Network Colloquium in conjunction with Macquarie University

7 September 2013

Beyond a language deficit: Students’ code switching in Indonesian tertiary

bilingual classrooms

Hilda Cahyani

PhD Scholar, University of South Australia

Background

Research of CS on syntactic aspects (Poplack, 1980) and sociolinguistic aspects (Blom and Gumperz, 1972)

A debate about reasons for Code switching (CS): language deficiency or bilingual strategy?

Background

Status of English:

Why bilingual program?

In Indonesia, international education is not a new phenomenon (Zacharias, 2013)

In ASEAN, English is becoming formalised as the official working language (Kirkpatrick , 2012)

Background

Students struggle in learning content and partly using the additional language

Students are the central objective of the teaching

Why students’ CS?

Research in CS is more interested to see teachers’

Context

Located in Malang, East Java, Indonesia Established in 2010 2 Departments: Accounting, Business Administration

The program: Bilingual program

vocational tertiary level Diploma 3

Context

Medium of instruction: English and Bahasa Indonesia

Students: 1st & 3rd year bilingual program

Male:34% female:66 %,

Classroom size: 22-25 students

Research question

What are the reasons for students to code switch?

Grounded theory

Research methods

Prolonged observation and multiple data collections (Creswell, 2013)

Ethnographic case study

Data

Questionnaires – In the 3 classrooms observed

(56 students)

Observation 3 classes in one bilingual program: 2 Computer Accounting/MYOB courses, 1 Introduction to Business over one semester (23 sessions)

Interview One on one interview with 6 students Stimulated recall with 3 students Focus Group with 7 students (2 times)

Reasons for students to code switch:

struggling in using English

concerned that peers may not

understand

expressing solidarity with

cultural identity

Struggling in using English Example 1:

(S5) Okay now I will explain to you about capital of limited company, capital of limited company, eh the first eh the first capital is the base capital atau yang disebut dengan modal dasar yakni keseluruhan nilai perusahaan..(or we usually call authorised capital, that is the maximum amount of capital owned by a company).

Reason:

I did not know the equivalent words in English. I was afraid if I made mistakes. Well, because in fact it is really hard. (S5 stimulated recall)

Struggling in using English

Structuring questions in English related to the topic discussed is not easy (S2 interview)

For asking questions, I frequently structure it first before asking it (S6 interview)

In English presentation, we begin with English but in question session, when it gets very complicated, we will switch into Bahasa Indonesia.(S7 focus group)

Concerned that peers may not understand

(P1) Any question?

(Ss) [Some were raising right hands]

(P1) [Pointing to one peer]

(S4) Okay thank you eehh Can you explain to me about [reading a note] capability of limited managerial [hesitating with her E, looking at the presenters and smiling], bisakah anda jelaskan mengenai kemampuan menejerial yang terbatas (Can you tell me about the limited managerial skills)?

Example 1: P1: Presenter 1, Ss: students, S4: student asking question

Concerned that peers may not understand

First I had difficulty to transfer the content when I delivered in English. Second I was afraid if my friends could only listen and they could not understand the message (S4 Stimulated recall)

Reason:

When my friends listened to me, they would say, well the presentation has two languages, mixing...not just English. So they would get more attracted with in our group (S4 interview)

Expressing solidarity with cultural identity

(S6) So the first I wanna give entertain to our friends but the presentation is very wahh tidak mendukung (not supportive) [referring to the blackout]. This is for you all please cekidot (check it out).

Example 1

Expressing solidarity with cultural identity

We use Bahasa Indonesia because we want to respect the nation, especially for Bahasa Indonesia as the national language. (S6 Stimulated recall)

Reason:

Silahkan berdiri (stand up please) [talking to other presenters in his group] Thank you for your attention and I beg you an apology if I make mistakes, I end this session (S4)

Because it is the language used by our culture, that is the way we close the meeting. So I translated all using English (S4 stimulated recall)

Reason

Expressing solidarity with cultural identity

Example 2

Discussion

Emotional support (Swain 2013)

Code-scaffolding (Cook, 2001; Fennema-Bloom, 2010)

Nationalism as the result of the spread and use of Bahasa Indonesia through the country (Hamied, 2012)

CS behaviour in a certain group is influenced by both cognitive and social factors (Seidlitz, 2003)

Conclusion

to express their national identity and social attachment to their cultural group

CS as a tool which not only served

as a ‘make-up’ for their language insufficiency, but also

as a response to the perceived needs of peers

Conclusion

to ease of communication

to social and national identity and social attachment to their cultural group

a positive perception of code switching

References • Blom, J.P. & Gumperz, J. 1972. Social meaning in linguistic structures: Code-switching in Norway:

Directions in Sociolinguistics, edited by J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (New York), pp 407-434.

• Cook, V. 2001. Using the first language in the classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review-revue Canadienne Des Langues Vivantes. vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 402-423.

• Creswell, JW 2013, Qualitative inquiry & research design : choosing among five approaches, SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks.

• Fennema-Bloom, JR. 2010. Code-scaffolding: a pedagogic code-switching technique for bilingual content instruction. Journal of Education, vol. 190, no. 3, p. 27.

• Hamied, F.A. 2012. English in multicultural and multilingual Indonesian education. A. Kirkpatrick and R. Sussex (eds.), English as an international language in Asia: implications for language education, Multilingual Education 1, NY: Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg.

• Kirkpatrick, A. 2012. English as an international language in Asia: Implications for language education. A. Kirkpatrick and R. Sussex (eds.), English as an international language in Asia: implications for language education, Multilingual Education 1, NY: Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg.

• Poplack, S. 1980. Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en espanol: Towards a typology of code-switching. Linguistics 18: 581-618.

• Seidlitz, L. M. 2003. Functions of code switching in classes of German as a foreign language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Texas. Retrieved May 20, 2012, http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/928/seidlitzlm032.pdf?sequence=2

• Swain, M. 2013. The inseparability of cognition and emotion in second language learning. Language Teaching Journal V.46, Issue 2 pp. 195-207.

• Zacharias, NT 2013 'Navigating through the English-Medium-of-Instruction Policy: Voices from the Field', Current Issues in Language Planning, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 93-108.