MOHAMED ELSAYED SEDDIK 14 Reasons for Teachers' Code-switching in EFL Classrooms

Bilingual or multilingual People tend to use two
languages or more during the same conversation.
This shift between the languages is known as
code-switching (Wardhaugh, 2006). Egypt is an
example of those countries where students may
use their mother tongue (Arabic) while studying
English as a foreign language. In Egypt,
although teachers adhere to use English only
inside the EFL classroom, some of them may
use Arabic words or short sentences for different
reasons. This code-switching from English into
Arabic and vice versa may affect the students’
acquisition of the English language. In this
research, we are going to identify the reasons for
code switching. Some teachers of English at
high schools in Egypt filled up an online
questionnaire and were interviewed as well. The
results may help to identify the reasons behind
code-switching made by these teachers in that
community. Moreover, the study presented some
ways suggested by the teachers to benefit from
code-switching in the EFL classroom.