As the studies discussed in chapter 4.1 demonstrate researchers have been very interested in the L1 and the L2 use in language classrooms over the past two decades. However, classroom discourse and the teachers’ language choice in particular have not been studied that broadly in Finland. Especially studies about code-switching and language choice in primary education are still scarce.
Some research in the field has been conducted but all the studies tend to focus on other contexts than primary school language classrooms. I will now present the central studies and conclude by explaining the need and reasons for the present study.
Nikula (2003, 2005) has been particularly interested in studying the nature of classroom communication and the functions the L1 and the L2 have. In her study, Nikula (2003) gives an overview on the role of English in traditional EFL classrooms and content-based (i.e. CLIL) classrooms in secondary and upper-secondary schools. She summarizes the way English is used in these settings. In EFL classrooms the role of English is quite narrowed, functionally one-dimensional and mainly related to the teaching materials. That is, from the pragmatic perspective the L2 is a detached language and it is used merely as an object of study. In content-based classrooms English is used in more versatile ways; it is used for both teaching the subject matter and managing the classroom. Also, students use English more actively, for instance, to express disagreement, to negotiate meaning and to ask genuine questions. In EFL classrooms, on the other hand, the students’ use of English tends to be limited to their response turns in the IRF sequence. Nikula (2005) continued to study pragmatic implications of Finnish and English in the same setting and focused
on the comparison of the role of the two languages. The goal of the study was to identify the different functions of the L1 and the L2 in classroom discourse, both from the learners’ and teachers’ perspectives, and show how the language use in the classroom affects the construction of social relationships. The results supported her earlier finding that in the EFL classrooms English is an object of study but in the CLIL classroom English is a tool of study. Furthermore, she found that Finnish plays a very important role and is widely used in EFL lessons for such functions as grammar teaching, classroom management and discipline. The L2, on the other hand, was used in text book and activity related teacher-talk. Nikula has come to the conclusion that when the speakers are released from the assessment of language use English is used in pragmatically more diverse ways.
Also, Myyryläinen’s and Pietikäinen’s (1988 as quoted in Reini 2008: 23) Pro Gradu Thesis focused on teachers’ language use through an evaluation of the reasons the teachers gave for choosing to use a particular language. Although the study reported on teachers’ language use, code-switching was not observed or analyzed. More recent studies include Yletyinen’s (2004) and Reini’s (2008) Pro Gradu theses which both focus on the functions of code-switching in EFL classrooms in secondary and upper-secondary schools in Finland. In her thesis Yletyinen examined both learners’ and teachers’ code-switching in EFL classrooms, whereas Reini focused only on teachers’ language use.
Yletyinen (2004) analyzed her data with the help of discourse analysis and was particularly interested in who uses code-switching and in what type of situations it is used in the classroom. In addition, she classified the different types of code-switching that took place during the observed lessons and finally analyzed the achievements of code-switching. The data consisted of two lessons in upper-secondary school and two lessons in secondary school taught by two teachers. Yletyinen found that code-switching exists in Finnish secondary and upper-secondary school EFL classrooms and it is employed by both the teachers and learners. Learners tend to switch from Finnish to English whereas teachers
switch both ways between the two languages. Yletyinen listed explanation, marking shifts, checking for meaning, unofficial interactions and teacher admonitions as the main functions of the L1 in teacher-talk.
As already mentioned Reini (2008) focused only on the teachers’ language use and explored it from the perspective of code-switching and code choice. Both Yletyinen and Reini used data from the same pool of data but it is unclear whether they analyzed the exact same lessons. Reini too used two upper-secondary school lessons and two upper-secondary school lessons taught by two teachers as her data. Reini’s study was mainly qualitative and the data was approached by using methods of conversation analysis. She found that the learners’ first language had one specific and fixed function which is grammar teaching. Apart from that, the L1 and the L2 were both used for giving instructions, while students were working independently and when discussing text chapters. Reini also discovered that code-switching was used for multiple functions, such as topic change, translation, feedback, quotations, dealing with problematic situations, adjusting to the learners’ choice of a language and switching in and out of pedagogical context. In addition, Reini quantified the amount of each language in teacher-talk by using a word count method and found that the amount of L1 varied from 51 per cent in upper-secondary school to 60 per cent in secondary school.
Sadeharju (2012) was also interested in classroom code-switching in secondary school; her emphasis was on student teachers’ perceptions of their language use and the justification for their language choices in EFL lessons. She found that the use of the L2 was seen as a very important aspect in teaching and the participants stated that their aim was to speak mainly in the L2. However, Sadeharju did not report on the quantitative nature of the teachers’ language use, and thus, it is unclear how much target language was eventually used during the lessons. Four categories for language choice emerged from the data:
teacher-related, learner-related, discourse-related and the influence of their teacher trainers. As already mentioned, the participants claimed to use English
as much as possible but reasons for the use of the L1 were discovered as well.
Finnish was used only if necessary and for such purposes as gaining students’
attention, discussing topics unrelated to the lesson or teaching and using the same language as the learners.
Although the studies presented above all share a common interest in classroom code-switching, and Reini (2008) and Sadeharju (2012) further narrowed down the focus on the teachers’ and student teachers’ language use, they do not exclude the need for the present study. Firstly, the focus in the present study is on primary school setting and the learners are both younger and less advanced in their English learning. This view is supported by Sadeharju’s (2012: 43) observation that in her study “the language skills of the pupils do not pose a hindrance for target language use” which very well can be the situation in the first years of EFL teaching in primary school. Secondly, the present study is structured differently as it is longitudinal. Apart from merely looking into the different functions the L1 and the L2 serve in the teacher’s talk, the aim is also to find out whether the roles of the two languages change over a semester.
Finally, the present study focuses only on one teacher’s language choice and the goal is to describe and analyze it in as much detail as possible.
5 THE PRESENT STUDY
In this section, the main objectives of the present study as well as the data and methodology will be presented. First, the aims of the study are explained, and the research questions are presented and discussed in relation to the goals of the study. Second, the methods for the data collection are explained and justified. Third, the setting of the study is described. Finally, I will explain and validate the chosen methods of analysis.