Starting Point of the Current Study: Linking CS Re-evaluation to CIC

To use or not to use CS in the L2 classroom has been “one of the greatest dilemmas in the foreign language classroom” for around a century (Medgyes, 1994, p. 65).

According to the ELT literature, it firstly can be documented as a fully advocating position to use CS, i.e., grammar translation. Then, strictly avoiding CS use became favourable, i.e., monolingual teaching promoted by Widdowson (2003) or intralingual teaching by Stern (1992). In the contemporary debate, the current trend of re-evaluating and reviving the CS use brings an acceptance of CS back and increasingly

acknowledges and highlights the positive roles that CS can play, particularly when taking the L2 classroom as a social context (Hall and Cook, 2012; 2014). However, there are also considerations about the side effects of CS deployment, resulting in some caution of the limited use of CS. To be specific, the re-assessment, with favourable yet reserved attitude to CS use, contributes to such notions like “judicious” (Atkinson, 1987), “optimal” and “purposeful and principled ”(Macaro, 2009; Hall and Cook, 2014), “purposeful and intelligent” (Deller and Rinvolucri, 2002) use of CS and the like.

Within ELT literature, besides several theoretical arguments (e.g., negative transfer of CS), these notions are proposed mainly drawing on considerations on the amount of CS use, and pedagogical functions carried out by deploying CS. The amount varies from different studies, ranging from 0%-90% (e.g., Duff & Polio, 1990; Turnbull, 2001) due to a number of variables, such as background contexts (e.g., institutions, English language level, etc., see Hall &Cook, 2014), and specific teaching aim (Atkinson, 1987). Empirical evidence also reports that CS deployment is pervasive and plays different functions in teaching and learning activities (Hall & Cook, 2014). It is also found that teachers’ CS use differs markedly from individual to individual in terms of both amount and frequency

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of the pedagogic functions(Kim and Elder, 2005). As a consequence, variance in the amounts of CS use and pervasion of CS deployment in carrying out pedagogical functions, results in the impossibility to define a comprehensive standard to justify a “judicious use”, “optimal use” and the like. However, these notions can be reflected and understood from the quality of its use, in that the re-evaluation and revival trend clearly demonstrates a shift of the issue from whether to use to when and how to use L1(Waer, 2012). This shift echoes Hall and Cook’s (2014) suggestion to undertake a practical classroom investigation for further explorations of CS.

It is argued that a teacher’s appropriate language use should enhance the learner- oriented interaction, which is “in response to the work-in-progress” and enables “learners to play a more prominent part in the jointly constructed discourse” (Walsh, 2006, p. 131). This argument further brings Walsh’s (2006; 2011; 2013) initial

considerations on the teachers’ competence in the classroom teaching in relation to promoting teacher development, which is termed CIC (Walsh, 2006; 2011; 2013). CIC is then conceptualised as “teachers’ and learners’ ability to use interaction as a tool for mediating and assisting learning” (Walsh, 2011, p. 132). As reviewed in Section 2.2.3, in addition to promoting learners’ language proficiency (Macaro, 2009), Walsh (2006; 2011; 2013) has stressed the importance of enhancing learners’ CIC in the L2 classroom teaching. Therefore, CIC, I suggest, can be taken as a reference to understand the quality of CS use. Such a link is also supported by some recent research findings, which argue that a significant feature of CIC is the management of language alternation (Sert, 2011; Waer, 2012; Daşkın, 2015; Sert, 2015; Lin, 2018). However, the study on CS L2 classrooms from insights of CIC does not mean that the study is directed to set up standards or “a systematic set of rules for using L1”, which cannot be actually designed (Waer, 2012, p.31). Rather, the study sets out to

understand the language choice from two levels. That is, on a macro-level,

understanding the quality of CS use is linked to CIC via examining how the learning opportunities are evolving from the CS operation; on the micro-level, the CS sequential patterns and interactional features in the L2 classroom is unveiled in depth on a

moment-by-moment basis. CIC can be closely understood through the SETT framework in terms of local context, interactional processes and features, and pedagogical goals in the classroom teaching (Walsh, 2011). Hence, SETT is also introduced in the current

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study both as a theoretical model (see Chapter 3 for details of SETT) and an analytical tool (see Section 4.3 in Chapter 4 for its methodological application).

Setting up this link comes from my position of the necessity of understanding the use of the learners’ own language (Hall and Cook, 2012; 2014), which is based on two

assertions. The first one is no overuse of CS (Turnbull and Dailey-O'Cain, 2009). It is acknowledged that L2 input is crucial to learning, and the overuse of CS may largely influence the learners’ exposure to the L2 within the limited teaching time in the

classroom. China is a monolingual country where the English learning relies heavily on the classroom teaching, given that there are few opportunities for the students to be exposed to English input outside the classroom. However, secondly, “‘English-only’ is a lazy rule” (Raschka et al., 2009, p. 157), in that it seems to be impractical to exclusively use English in EFL classroom teaching (Cook, 2001; Raschka et al., 2009). This

impracticality is also evidenced by the collected classroom recordings in the current study, which reflects the “prevalence of CS among experienced teachers” with high qualifications in term of language proficiency and education (Raschka et al., 2009, p. 157). Nevertheless, supporting this claim does not mean to simply restrict the amount of CS use, but to understand when and how to use CS (Raschka et al., 2009). The second assertion is not to use CS only for the sake of an easy-solution in EFL classrooms (Cook, 2001; Macaro, 2005), but consider to promote the learning (opportunities) with the CS use.

Both claims are concerned with making effective use of CS (Deller and Rinvolucri, 2002). Here, “effective use” of CS adopts Walsh’s (2006) definition that “language that promotes learning” (p.3). In this regard, the effective use of code-switching promoting students’ CIC is geared to extend their engagement and participation to increase learning opportunities (see Section 2.7 for more discussion on CIC and learning

opportunities).