The language of communication in English classrooms in the Czech Republic: Mixing languages

Abstract

The paper deals with classroom communication. More speci ically, it focuses on issues connected with the usage of English as the target language and Czech as the mother tongue in lessons of English as a foreign language in primary and lowersecondary schools in the Czech Republic. 89 English lessons were analysed and the proportion between English and Czech used in the sample lessons was established in order to show how the two languages are mixed in the lessons. The analysis of the number of words uttered in the lessons showed that teachers used Czech more than English but students said more English words than Czech words. When operationalized in terms of time, the use of language was equally balanced between the target language and the mother tongue. Another perspective described in the paper is one of opportunities that the teacher creates for the students to practice different language skills. Great differences in using the mother tongue and the target language were found between individual teachers, which is in line with the indings of a number of similar research studies. Towards the end of the paper, ive typical situations of mixing languages are brie ly presented.Keywords: language mixing, code switching, foreign language teaching, English as a foreign language, classroom interaction, communication in foreign language classrooms This paper focuses on the phenomenon of communication in the speci ic context of foreign language classroom. For many teachers, communication between the teacher and his or her students as well as communication between students is the single most important tool by means of which the learners acquire a foreign language.

Dialogism and classroom interaction in English language teaching: A review of Czech research

“…Another study is related to more general educational issues, such as interaction patterns, lesson phases or the use of teaching aids, and introducing these along with domain-speci ic aspects of language teaching, such as classroom language (Najvar, Najvarová, Janík, & Šebestová, 2011). Although Najvar et al (2011) (re)introduce (some of) the results of other studies (Hanušová et al, 2014;Najvar et al, 2013;Šebestová, 2011;Zerzová, 2012), we decided not to exclude any of the studies, since each of them declares different theoretical background, which was one of the aspects that were analyzed in the light of dialogism.…”

“…Another group is represented by a study dealing with classroom language, i.e. the use of the mother tongue or the target language (Najvar, Janík, & Šebestová, 2013). Furthermore, there are two studies which mainly deal with communication and relatedly (intercultural) communicative competence as the goal of foreign language teaching (Šebestová, 2011;Zerzová, 2012), whose results were synthetized in Zerzová and Šebestová (2014).…”

“…Next, the issues related to the use of the mother tongue and English in English language teaching are introduced in several studies (Hanušová et al, 2014;Šebestová, 2011) and, more speci ically, these issues are referred to as code-switching (Najvar et al, 2013). As far as the speci ics of foreign language teaching are concerned, two studies declare the four skills and/or the concept of communicative competence as their theoretical background (Šebestová, 2011;Zerzová & Šebestová, 2014).…”

“…This view is clearly a monologist one. Interestingly, two of the newest studies building on the IRSE videostudy data do not declare their theoretical grounding in opportunities to learn any more (Hanušová et al, 2014;Najvar et al, 2013).…”

Predictors of the Czech learners’ acquisition of selected English phonemes

“…a retrospective longitudinal study, minimised the characteristics of formal education which could be explored, and therefore only the quantity of input is discussed. While Czech NNS teachers vary noticeably in the amount of target language they provide (Najvar et al, 2013), it has been suggested that NS teachers provide massive exposure to English, which, according to the conclusions of Turnball and Arnett (2002( , in Ellis, 2008, leads to higher achievement by learners, theoretically in pronunciation, too. Lastly, the location of a school in a town or a village was deliberated because it may also be linked to the availability of NS teachers.…”