ABSTRACT

This study investigates the use of teacher’s code switching as teaching strategy in the teaching of English at SMK Ristek Nguntoronadi in the academic year of 2016/2017. It is aimed at 1) investigating the types of code switching and code mixing used by English teachers in foreign language classroom, (2) investigating the factors triggering teacher to use code switching and code mixing in foreign language classroom and, (3) investigating the function of teacher’s code switching and code mixing as teaching strategy in helping students with low English proficiency to understand teacher talk.
The study employed qualitative method in the form of descriptive naturalistic inquiry. Classroom observations, in-depth interviews, and documents analysis were deployed to collect the information related to the teacher’s code switching as teaching strategy in teaching and learning activities in the eleventh grade of SMK Ristek Nguntoronadi. The data were then analyzed using Miles and Huberman’s Interactive Model, which includes data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing or verifying.
The findings of this study show: 1) types of code switching used by teacher in EFL classroom are (a) inter-sentential code-switching, (b) intra-sentential code- switching (translation or word/phrase substitution within a sentence), and (c) tag- switching (interactional fillers code-switching), with further explanation; 2) The factors triggering teacher to use code switching as teaching strategy are (a) to quote other statement or proverb, (b) various students’ ability in English, and (c) students’ and teacher’s lack of vocabulary; 3) the function of code switching and code  mixing  as  teaching  strategy  for  helping  students  with  low  English proficiency appeared  in  this  research  is  (a)  as  a means  to  translate language (repetitive function) so students can understand the teacher talk.
Finally, there suggestions to any related stakeholders, including school, the teachers, teacher training programs, and researcher, so that the use of Code switching would be used to help students learning language. Further research is recommended,  particularly  on  how  teacher’s  code  switching  is  seen  from students’ perspective in Indonesian EFL context.

Keywords: Code switching, teaching strategy, English proficiency, EFL, descriptive naturalistic inquiry