LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 25:8 August 2025
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Role of Code-switching in Vocabulary Instructions to the First Year Undergraduate EFL Learners in Bangladesh

Md. Salah Uddin

Abstract

It has always been a challenge for EFL instructors to teach the vocabulary of the target language in useful ways. Language practitioners, especially in the EFL contexts around the world are in a continuous process of crafting and fitting various methods and techniques to teach vocabulary to learners. With a view to evaluate the efficacy of code-switching as a tool to deal with the teaching of vocabulary in EFL situations, the current study undertakes a focused group experimentation on 30 first year undergraduate EFL students at Jahangirnagar University. A finite set of vocabulary were selected based on the target learners' responses in a pre-instructional reading test activity. Teacher-made materials including class lectures, audio-visual clips, worksheets, etc. were developed with to establish an optimum level of interlanguage negotiation between English and Bengali. The study required 20 sessions of 50 minutes each to teach the selected vocabulary items with the help of code-switching and to measure their extent and nature of usages by the learners. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied throughout observations, evaluations, and explanations of the research findings. The performance rubrics were developed based on the participants' responses in the post-instructional test activities. The outcomes observed in the post-instructional test activities were found promising and productive as code-switching facilitated the target learners with learning and applying the target vocabulary items purposefully in their contextual needs.

Keywords:Code-switching, Vocabulary, EFL Context, Interlanguage Negotiation, Contextual Needs

Introduction

Code-switching (CS) as a practice of alternation between Bengali and English is a common phenomenon at different levels of EFL instructions in Bangladesh. The use of CS in EFL situations in Bangladesh is rooted in the pedagogical absorption of The Grammar Translation Method, particularly in the primary, secondary, and the higher secondary levels of education. The first year undergraduate EFL learners at Bangladesh encounter plenty of difficulties with managing English vocabulary for they have to adapt to an instructional medium typically based on English. Furthermore, the undergraduate EFL learners do not only wrestle with a wide range of English vocabularies, but also with instructional strategies they are not accustomed with. Using a focused group experimental design involving two groups of undergraduate students, the current study investigates the pedagogical implications of CS in vocabulary instruction to the first-year undergraduate learners in Bangladesh. The main objective of the study is to evaluate how far code-switching enhances the acquisition and retention of English vocabulary among EFL learners at this level. The study takes a mixed method approach in explaining the outcome of CS's application through a comparative analysis between the pre and post instructional test activities. Furthermore, it shades light on some pedagogical reclamation from the learners' insights retrieved from a casual conversation in L1 after the post-instructional test activities were over.

Although the incorporation of CS in vocabulary instruction in EFL contexts is considered contentious by many EFL researchers, the current study takes the complex sociolinguistic space of Bangladeshi EFL contexts into consideration with intent to redefine the implication of CS as an adaptive strategy at this level of education. The relevance of this study lies in both its academic contributions and practical implications. Firstly, very few studies have addressed previously the application-based implications of CS in vocabulary instructions in the EFL contexts. Secondly, most of them were found to be reluctant in statistical characterization of CS's operations into EFL situations. Through a comprehensive approach into investigation, the current study finds CS as an adaptive contextual strategy that facilitates "comfortable negotiation of meaning, easy networking between existing and new knowledge structure, and a stress free learning environment" (see Nation & Newton, 1997). Moreover, the implications of CS is found to be aligned with learners' "cognitive needs and linguistic realities" (Auerbach, 1993; Gulzar, 2010). This research further interrogates the affective dimensions of CS: learners' comfort, motivation, and classroom participation- often linked to their sense of linguistic security (Krashen, 1982). Therefore, the study underscores CS as a theoretically efficient strategic notion in the vocabulary instructions at this level of EFL context.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Md. Salah Uddin
Lecturer
Department of English
Jahangirnagar University
salahuddin.elt@juniv.edu

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