Code-Switching: A Strategy t o Increase Students’ Participation in Efl Classroom Interaction

This article aims at describing code-switching (CS) as a strategy to increase students’ participation in EFL classroom interaction. Currently, EFL students are discouraged to participate in the classroom. Their English proficiency becomes the major problem initiated this situation. Obligating the students to speak fully English during the classroom interaction forced them to be silent all the time. Code-switching (CS) was considered to offer a solution for this unsatisfied condition in which the students can switch the language whenever they need. This descriptive study was conducted to reveal the role of code-switching in enhancing students’ participa tion in the classroom interaction. Switching from English to Indonesian demonstrated an improvement of students’ participation in the classroom interaction. This study found that code - switching provided students an opportunity to interact more effectively in the classroom. By switching the language, the students felt more confident to participate in the classroom and they began to be more active during the classroom interaction Abstrak


Introduction
One of the main issues is students have problems in using English in the classroom and even in daily life.During the practice, especially in the classroom, students are required to use their English as much as possible.In some formal and informal institutions, students are demanded to use English all the time.Using L1 during the learning process in EFL classroom will impede students' acquisition toward the target language.As stated by Auerbach (1993: 14) in Hornberger and McKay (2010), English is best taught monolingually.It means that the more English is used in the class, the better the result will be.It is claimed that the use of students' L1 will slow down their thinking development in English.Moreover, a study, conducted by Ahmad (2009) in a public university in Malaysia, found that some students believed that English class should be taught in English only.To teach students to learn English, teachers need to communicate in English.Therefore, many institutions, especially English courses, in Indonesia require the teachers and students to communicate in English, both inside and outside the classroom.
As stated above, however, the most problematic issue among Indonesian students is that they have problem in using English in communication.Students' English proficiency in tends to be unsatisfactory.Handayani (2009) found that many students still find problems in understanding oral and written texts.Though they have learned English for many years, their English aptitude seems not improve significantly.Even, students who have attended some English courses for several years feel that they still cannot be active participants in the classroom.
For example, in one of an English course, it is found that there are many passive participants in the classroom.They tend to keep silent almost all the time during the classroom interaction.Actually, those students have good ability in English and are highly motivated to learn English.They are able to understand the English texts but it will be difficult for them to retell or rewrite what they have read.One of the causes is that students do not know how to say their ideas since they have a very limited vocabulary, whereas the regulation demands them to use English all the time.As the result of feeling afraid of being criticized, they decide to keep silent and be reluctant to participate during the classroom interaction.
One solution to overcome this problem is by using code-switching during the interaction in EFL classroom.Actually, code-switching is a common phenomenon in bilingual community especially in EFL classrooms.Code-switching is not only about switching two languages or more.It can be the impact of the ability of bilingual speakers (Pradina, 2013).During the practice, teachers often use code-switching to enhance students' understanding or when they are quoting something.Moreover, code-switching can also be a strategy students can use to help them to speak English in order to participate during the classroom interaction.So, whenever students feel blank, or when they do not know the English word of certain words, they can switch the code into the L1.This strategy will ease them in saying their ideas.Perhaps, it can increase their participation during the interaction in the class.Thus, this article aims to give brief explanation about the use of code-switching as a strategy to increase students' participation during the interaction in EFL classroom.

The Nature of Code-switching
Code-switching becomes one of the phenomena in bilingual and multilingual communities.People who have abilities in more than one language tend to switch their codes as the matter of certain functions and reasons.For example, people switch a code in order to convey a complete idea.Akindele and Adegbite describe code switching as a means of communication which involves a speaker alternating between one language and another in communicative events.While Hornberger and McKay (2010) define code-switching as the intersentential alternating use of two more languages or varieties of a language in the same speech situation.From all of the definitions above, it can be inferred that there are several conditions that possibly people use code-switching.First, speakers in a code-switching situation must have communicative competency in two languages in order to be able to switch from one language to another.Second, people switch the code for several reasons depending on the purpose of the conversation and the people to whom they talk to.Holmes (2001) proposed that code-switching can be motivated by participant, "people sometimes switch a code within a domain or social situation, when there is some obvious change in the situation."It happens to make the conversation runs well and the message of the utterance can be delivered perfectly.
According to Stockwell (2002), there are two kinds of code-switching: situational and metaphorical code-switching.Situational code-switching occurs when the speakers move from one domain to another and they change their codes.It can be said that code-switching also occurs based on the domain or place where the conversation takes place.Another type of code-switching is metaphorical code-switching.It is the type of code-switching that occurs when the speaker can consciously change codes in the middle of a situation, in order to indicate to the listener that they consider a new domain to be in operation.The changing of the code will affect the conversation, it is somehow to make the conversation more clear so all the participants can involve in the conversation.
People perform code-switching for various functions.Sert (2005), in Modupeola (2013), argues that speakers switch a code to or influence or define situation as they wish, and to convey the tones of meaning and personal intention.It is also used to build intimate interpersonal relationships among people who share the same code.

Code-switching in Language Learning
As explained above, people use code-switching for several reasons.It also occurs in language learning.Teachers use code-switching strategy as a mean of providing students with opportunities to communicate and enhance students understanding.The teacher use code switching by starting the lesson in the English Language and may move into the second language and back to ensures that the lesson is as communicative as possible.This approach allows teachers to balance the use of language within a given contact.Hopefully, by switching the code, students will understand the materials better than by using target language only.

The Nature of Classroom Interaction
Classroom interaction can be described as a two-way process between the participants in the learning process, in which the teacher influences the students and vice versa.Interaction can proceed pleasantly or it can be full with tension.Learning a language in the classroom is a consequence of the exposure of the students to the linguistic environment manifested in the interaction between the participants in that context.Therefore, the interaction in the classroom is mainly achieved by two means of resources: language and non-verbal means of expression.Non-verbal resources play as important a part as language does.Classroom interaction differs in form and function from casual conversation and other institutional varieties of talk which occur in different institutions such as hospitals, court rooms, etc.

Type of Classroom Interaction
According to Karter (2014), there are several types of classroom interaction: student-teacher interaction, student-student interaction, small group interaction, and entire classroom interaction.In addition, Dagarin (2014) propose several ways of organizing classroom interaction.The first form is Teacher-Students interaction.It is established when a teacher talks to the whole class at the same time.He takes the role of a controller and decides about the type and process of the classroom activity in order to control the learning process in the class.The second form, Teacher-Student/ a group of students, is conducted when the teacher refers to the whole class, but expects only one student or a group of students to answer.It is often used for evaluation of individual students as well as for an informal conversation at the beginning of the lesson or for leading students into a less guided activity.The third type of interaction is Student-Student interaction or 'pair work'.Students work in pairs to do the assignment given by the teacher.Here, the teacher helps the students when necessary.And the last type of classroom interaction is 'group work', which is almost similar to the pair work.
Besides the classroom interaction organization, there are also some elements that are found in classroom interaction.The first element is turn taking.It is the regulation that underlies speaker selection and change in communication in the classroom; only a speaker can speak at one time, a speaker can select the next speaker or allow the next speaker to self-select, and also the competition to take the next turn (Ellis, 1994).Another element is the teacher talk.It regulates the amount and the function of the talk done by the teacher.The teacher manages and controls the talk during classroom interaction.And the last element is the error treatment.It is about how the teacher corrects the error made by students.
Based on those organizations and the elements of classroom interaction, there are various methods the teacher can use to invite students' participation during the classroom interaction.The teacher can give individual work as well as pair work or group work.For example, the teacher can give a reading aloud activity which can allows students to be focused at exactly the same point in a reading.The next example is conversation.Classroom conversation is a form of classroom interaction in which students in the class discuss a given topic to help students develop their language skills.After that, there is a role play.It is an activity in which students take on given or chosen roles and act out a scene with others in order to demonstrate their creativity and knowledge about their roles, and to think outside of the constraints of the classroom.The last form of methods is the most difficult to be done since students need to answer the questions orally.Sometimes, students are unwilling to answer the teacher's questions because they do not know how to answer it in English.This will trigger the lack of participation in the classroom interaction.

Problems
As stated in the previous section, students commonly have problems in using English for daily communication.They find it difficult to state their ideas orally.One of the reasons is that students have limited vocabulary and they also do not have enough chance to speak English; they environment do not support them really well.This is what happens to most Indonesian students especially those who live in the areas where the use of English is really limited.English is only used in the institution.Therefore, although they have learned English for several years, it is still difficult for them use English communicatively.
There have been ways practitioners do in order to encourage students to speak more as well as to improve students' English proficiency.English has been added as one of the compulsory subjects at school.Even many parents have sent their children to attend an English course in order to give them more chance to use English.Some of those English courses have also required their teachers and students to use English as much as possible.Some of them still require the participant to use English only.The use of their native language is very limited.The purpose is to encourage students to speak English more and more so that their English proficiency could be improved.
However, these efforts bring more disadvantages instead of the advantages.In fact, asking students to use English only in the classroom discourages them to learn.They are afraid of being mistakes and being criticized by the teachers and friends.As a result, most students tend to be passive and do not want to participate during the interaction in the classroom; even, when the teacher asks them to speak, they are likely to keep silent.How students' English proficiency will be improved if they seldom practice to use their English in daily communication.Moreover, the flow of classroom interaction will not be interesting and enjoyable if there is no participation from the students and only the teacher who talks during the learning process.

Discussion
Based on the problem discussed above, the writer thinks that using code-switching can be one of the solutions to encourage students to participate during the interaction in the classroom.The use of code-switching brings several advantages during the interaction in EFL classroom.The most advantage is that it helps students to state their ideas when they find difficulties to state in the target language.They still use English, but they can switch the language whenever they get stuck with English.Thus, code-switching help students to enjoy their learning due to their ability to comprehend the teachers input which also allows them to feel less stressful and to become more comfortable to learn.Once they are comfortable with the environment, the students are able to focus and participate in classroom practice and activities more successfully.In other words, it can be said that codeswitching can help to increase students' participation during the interaction in the classroom.
There are many elements and methods in classroom interaction which the teacher can manage to boost students' participation.For example, during teacher-students, or students-students interaction, the teacher can encourage students to participate in a discussion by using code-switching, if they find it difficult to say it in English.The teacher can invite students to answer his questions with codeswitching; then, he can say it again in English.Weinreich (1970), in Pei-shi (2011), states that when students are unable to create an appropriate word within a limited amount of time, code-switching, in some cases, allows them to express themselves more fluidly.By applying this strategy, students' participation during the classroom interaction will increase.The students will not feel anxious anymore to speak in the classroom.The error treatment can be done indirectly.
According to the research result from Pollard (2002), it is clearly found that most of the time, students will stop speaking in the middle and say that they do not know the answer when they do not know how to say it in English.This is the main factor that causes students to become less participated in the classroom interaction.Code-switching can help them to answer the questions and it is still clearly understood by the teacher.Therefore, code-switching has positive effects on learning processes.In this case, it helps to increase students' participation during the classroom interaction.
Although there are numbers of theories (such as Auerbach: 1993, Ahmad: 2009,) state that English is best taught by using English, it is also argued that English-only classroom would lead to frustration and anxiety, especially for low proficiency level of students, because the students can not get enough and proper comprehensible input (Ellis: 1994 andCook: 2001).Based on these arguments, codeswitching could be an appropriate strategy used by teachers to help students to enhance their participation during the participation in the classroom.There are a range of positive functions of codeswitching, such as introducing new vocabularies, grammar, and relaxing students in learning English.If students are relax, their comprehension will be improved and this will increase their participation in classroom interaction.

Conclusion
In short, the use of code switching during the interaction in the EFL classroom as a strategy provides the students to communicate more effectively.Once they can communicate effectively, it can raise their participation.Thus, code-switching may be considered as a useful strategy in classroom interaction, if the aim is to raise students' participation during the classroom interaction and make the meaning clear for students in efficient manner.
As stated above, the most frequent problem caused students to be passive participants is because they have so limited proficiency in English that makes them do not feel confident to use the language.By using code-switching, students will feel more comfortable to interact in the classroom.They can switch the language if they do not know how to say it in English.Hence, in dealing with less active participation from the students during the interaction, the teacher can use code-switching as a strategy to increase their participation during the interaction in the classroom.