Characteristics and Causes of Code-mixing by Teachers in Chinese SLA Classes in International High Schools

Abstract

An increasing number of Chinese students are studying English because second language acquisition (SLA) is becoming more and more important in schools. When teaching in conventional test-oriented education system, teachers seldom ever paid attention to their discourse systems. Consequently, this paper gathered several natural observational recordings from SLA classes of Chinese students in international high schools in order to increase Chinese instructors' knowledge of the discourse system employed in such classes. Recordings are then analyzed and interviews with teachers related to code-mixing (CM) they used in classes are collected, with the aim of investigating several characteristics and causes of CM in SLA classes. After adequately analyzing the data collected, it turned out that, if possible, most teachers will use CM in their classes, and the reason for this is mainly because of the student's English proficiency level and the course content of the class. An overwhelming majority of teachers mentioned in the interview that the use of CM can help learners better comprehend new knowledge, as well as for simplicity and efficiency. This result can be reflected and applied to teachers since the pedagogical application of CM can serve as a more natural mechanism for facilitating students’ language acquisition and a simpler way of communicating.