Inter-Level Stages of Codeswitching in an L2 Classroom

Researches about codeswitching (CS) are abound but very few on comparison of its inter-level stages specifically among Grades 7 to 11. This study identified the interlevel stages of English-Filipino-Ilocano codeswitching among the Grade 7 to 11 classes that used English as the medium of instruction in a public school. The researcher video recorded the chosen class discussions of the five grade levels and transcribed these video recordings. A conversation-like interview among the teachers and the students who codeswitched was done to elicit reasons for codeswitching. The CS typology and the contexts where CS occurred were examined and analyzed by the researcher. The results showed that intrasentential codeswitching occurred the most, followed by tag switching, and intersentential had the least occurrence, and as grade level goes higher, the lesser the CS in the intrasentential level, i.e. Grade 7 had the most number of codeswitches, followed by Grade 8, then Grade 9, Grade 10 and Grade 11 had the least number of codeswitches. Compensation for difficulty, for inquiry/elicitation/requesting, interjection/utterance filler, elaboration/explanation, conveying cultural/behavioral terminologies and sharing personal experiences/observations were some of the contexts when codeswitching occur as found out in this study. The article concludes with some reasons of CS given by students and why a particular typology is committed in some instances. It recommends more activities on vocabulary development since deficiency or lack of vocabulary seemed to be the general reasons given by the students, and affirmed by teachers, in codeswitching. Another important recommendation is for teachers to avoid CS so that students will not CS as well.