Pedagogic and Social Functions of University EFL Teachers’ Classroom Code-switching

This study attempts to study classroom code-switching with the focus on code-switching of university teachers of teaching English as the foreign language and teachers of using English mainly as the instructional language. The research methods are mainly ethnographic observations of four participants. It was found that three types of code-switching patterns were identified in the study across the participants. The four teachers switched between English and Chinese for pedagogical considerations. Code-switching also served to adjust teacher-learner relationship. The research findings show that codeswitching can be utilized by teachers as a useful and effective pedagogical and social strategy, which enriches the communicative repertoire and pedagogical resources.