Factors of Code Switching among Bilingual English Students - Essay Example

Bista (2010) points out that he conducted the study due to the fact that despite the frequent use of code-switching in foreign language classrooms, previous studies in code-switching have failed to try and focus on the various factors that are seen to affect the bilingual international students that are striving to try and learn English in universities. The study was able to find that students would often code-switch when they did not know the appropriate English word that would adequately convey their meaning.

Bista (2010) was also able to identify a number of other secondary reasons as to why students often used code-switching in the classroom, these include; an attempt by the students to maintain privacy while conversing with other students from their home countries, to help in avoiding any misunderstanding as well as in the event that the students happen to be unfamiliar with the correct English word that can accurately convey the information they wish to pass across.

At the end of the journal article, Bista (2010) argues that code-switching can prove to be an extremely useful strategy in improving classroom interaction and can even increase the degree of English competency if it is not used excessively.