4.1 . INTRODUCTION
4.2 CONCLUSIONS
In this section of this concluding chapter, I present my views based on the findings as well as on the broad problems and issues that were investigated in this study. I present my conclusions on whether CS in the classroom can effectively enhance learning and scholastic achievement; whether learners' NL can be effectively employed to promote ESL; whether CS affects the degree of learner-teacher and learner-learner interaction; and finally, whether code-switching, in the domain of the schools of my study, works or not.
4.2.1 Can CS in the classroom effectively enhance learning and scholastic achievement?
Luthuli (1985:14) states that "language is the lifeline of every educational endeavour." He goes on to say that a learner is a product of relevant and meaning communication, and that education finds expression through the medium of a language. The findings of this study indicate that the language that is of relevance and meaning to the learner participants ofthis study is English-Zulu CS.Itis my perception that CS is not simply an 'interlanguage' which Selinker (1972) views as an adaptive strategy by speakers who try to speak the target language because they have little proficiency in it. My findings show that English-Zulu bilingual educator participants ofthis study are proficient English speakers who were able to converse with me using English only. Yet these educators also code-switched naturally with other bilinguals, both colleagues and learners at the school. In addition,MrE, one ofthe teachers of the experimental group, is a proficient speaker ofEnglish who has obtained his majors in English and holds a post graduate degree in education, which for the purposes of emphasis, I add, were papers written through the medium of English.
MrE also employed CS strategically with his pupils in the literature classroom. Can one then truly say that the use of CS by these educators is as a result of a lack of proficiency, asMrSelinker deems? To me, this means that CS may not be perceived as an interlanguage, but a type of code that finds natural expression among the bilingual peoples in Port Shepstone, the region in which my study is based. I see CS as a code in its own right that, and as Luthuli notes, finds meaningful expression.
My findings show that CS is a natural phenomenon that occurs mostly spontaneously among English-Zulu bilingual educators and learners in the domain of the school. By fulfilling various
specific functions, such as CS for reiteration, explanation, elaboration, influencing learner behaviour, providing content and/or new information, solidarity, and for directive and phatic purposes, as discussed extensively in the preceding chapter, teachers were able to enhance pupils' learning. By the strategic use oflearners' NL, by means of intersentential and intrasentential CS, the teachers of the experimental group were able to:
(a) enhance learners' vocabulary;
(b) enable learners to grasp difficult ideas and concepts;
(c) provide meaningful and significant extra or new information thus enhancing learners' overall knowledge;
(d) ensure understanding of plot, characters and themes of literary texts studied;
(e) exhort learners to think critically and creatively (which is one ofmajor aims in the study of literature e.g. Reid 1982).
(t) incite learners to make value judgements.
My findings demonstrate thatthe use oflearners' NL, by use ofCS behaviour, promotes learning.
Through the use of CS pupils are better able to understand the literary texts studied and are therefore better able to respond to test questions. In addition to enhancing learning, my findings reveal that CS during literature lessons serves to fulfill emotional, social and moral values. The use of CS helps promote learners' acquisition of moral awareness and a sense of values, and acquire empathetic understanding ofothers and themselves, which are also aims ofliterature teaching (e.g.
Reid 1982). In so doing, learners are better equipped to deal with life's emotional and moral challenges, and are helped to become worthy persons. Hence, CS contributes to not only learning for academic success but also to learning for life at large.
4.2.2 Can learners' NL be effectively employed to promote ESL?
Milk (1993:93) describes ESL as "a second language approach in which the goals, teaching methods and techniques, and assessments of students' progress are all based on, and oriented toward development of that student's English proficiency." My study also shows that by employing learners' NL in the form ofintersentential and intrasentential CS, ESL is promoted. As I have demonstrated in chapter 3, 3.5.3, by resorting to the use of learners' mother tongue, teachers discuss vocabulary and phrases thus enhancing vocabulary in English. Inaddition, when teachers use CS for reiterative purposes, repeating in Zulu what has been said in English or vice versa, pupils acquire the grammatical rules ofspeaking and writing in English. However, as Canale and Swain (1979:4-6) and Canale (1992:6-11) note, the notion of communicative competence includes not only grammatical competence (i.e. the implicit and explicit knowledge ofthe rules of grammar) but also sociolinguistic competence (i.e. the extent to which utterances are produced and understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts depending on contextual factors such as status of participants, purposes of the interaction, and norms and conventions of interaction); discourse competence (i.e. the ability to combine grammatical forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text in different genres such as oral and written narrative, argumentative essay, letter to the editor etc.); and strategic competence (i.e. the ability to make use of verbal and non-verbal strategies to compensate for breakdowns in communication or to enhance the effectiveness ofcommunication). Literature teaching is an excellent resource for the acquisition ofgrammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic competences. Using CS in the teaching of literature becomes a powerful technique in promoting ESL.
My study clearly demonstrates that learners' NL has a legitimate and irreplaceable position in the
teaching of literature irrespective of the proficiency levels of either teacher and the learner. To deprive the learner of hislher mother tongue in the classroom is to deprive him/her of the opportunity of acquiring hislher L2 proficiently. Ifindeed education is "a mirror unto a people's social being" (Ngugi wa Thiongo 1986:223) and that literature is, among other things, an exploration ofthe selfthrough characters, the language one employs, including CS, is inextricably woven in unfolding ofvalues inherent in literature teaching. To deny a learner the opportunity to use hislher NL in the classroom is a negation ofhim/herselfas a social being and more importantly as a unique, emerging individual.
4.2.3 To what degree does CS affect learner-teacher and learner-learner interaction?
My study shows that when teachers use CS they are better able to elicit responses from pupils, and better able to elicit responses that go beyond monosyllabic responses than when they use English only. Specific examples have been discussed in chapter 3 in the discussion of CS for classroom management and influencing learner behaviour. This however, does not mean that when teachers ask questions they must always resort to using learners' mother tongue or using CS behaviour.
Doing so will, in fact, impede thelearning process and scholastic achievement as pupils will become dependent on teachers' use of the NL. Theywillknow that the teacher is going to use their mother tongue and learn not to attend to the English version of a question. Also, ifthe teacher makes frequent use of the mother tongue or CS, learners will become unfamiliar with questioning techniques they meet in tests and examinations. Instead, the strategic use of CS, i.e.
by using learners' NL only when it is evident that pupils fail to respond to a question that is posed in English only or using learners' NL as a springboard for sustained and animated discussion, will
bebeneficial.
As the lessons of both the experimental and control groups were chiefly teacher dominated there was no evidence of how the use of CS affected the degree of learner-learner interaction in the classroom. However, in the control group, as I have already noted, the teacher gave opportunities after each lesson for pupils to respond to questions in small group work. Evidence obtained from the recording of one such group activity reveals that the use of CS by learners within the group facilitates learner-learner interaction. The kind ofanimated talking that went on among the pupils serves as a contrast to the limited learner participation when the teacher was teaching. Itis clear that using the mother tongue allow pupils to express their thoughts and opinions without anxiety and with confidence. They feel secure in the knowledge that they are able to communicate exactly what they think and feel without fear ofmaking mistakes should they use English only. However, the danger lies in overusing the mother tongue.
Atkinson (1987:246), as I noted earlier, draws attention to some ofthe dangers ofoveruse ofthe NL in the ESL classroom. Of relevance to this research, is not overuse of learners' NL by the teacher but by learners themselves when they engaged in group work. My research shows that learners use mostly English to interact with their teachers but mostly their mother tongue to interact with each other. The dominant language during group work was Zulu. It appears that speaking with each other in the NL is a matter of course, even when they are quite capable of expressing themselves in English. This observation is evident in the fact that the report back after group discussion was done in English. In my view, such overuse ofthe mother tongue in the ESL classroom defeats the purpose ofeffective CS and cheats learners ofpracticing their English. My
findings therefore supports Atkinson's (1987) view that CS canbeeffective as long as the matrix languageisEnglish.
4.2.4 Does code-switching in the classroom work?
In this thesis, I treat CS as a code in its own right that serves to fulfill a variety of social and . pedagogical functions. My research shows that additive bilingualism i.e the means by which competence in a second language is acquired while the first language is maintained (Luckett 1993 :20), as evident in the use of learners' NL in the experimental group, fulfills a variety of pedagogical functions (as discussed in chapter 3). The role of additive bilingualism, thisisto say that the L2 should not be learnt at the expense of the Ll, is in keeping with the ANC Draft (1993: 15) policy for education:
The state will adopt a twin-pronged approach to the question of language for education in the new South Africa, i.e. access to English will be broadened whilst South African languages other than English and Afrikaans are developed for wider use in the whole range of educational contexts.
However, whether this policyisindeed being adhered to at schools is questionable.
Faltis (1989: 117) notes that there are two ways in organizing language use in the bilingual classroom: One, is to organize language use in such a way that a strict separation of the two languages on the basis of time of subject matter is maintained. The other is to allow for both languages to be used concurrently. The latter, of course, iswhat my study advocates. I am also in agreement with Grosjean (1985) who argues that although students in bilingual programs need to have access to some separate language inputifthey are to be able to adopt a monolingual speech mode in either of the two languages when circumstances demand, they also need to be
helped to see the relationship between their language and the possibilities for communicating appropriately in a bilingual speech mode, including CS, with other bilinguals. The community of learners ofthis study, as I have already noted, is a CS community, and it is therefore essential that pupils are exposed to this form oflearning, in preparation for the real sociolinguistic situation and not what purists might perceive to be real.
Using a concurrent approach is in keeping with the long tradition ofusing more than one language as medium of instruction in schools. Heugh (1993) notes that in many schools Afrikaans and English were used in the same classroom. My research shows that in the Afrikaans L2 classroom, teachers use both Afrikaans and English in teaching Afrikaans. My research also shows that English-Zulu CS is a norm in the ESL classroom as well as in content subject classrooms. The use of CS appears to be so compelling that even in the control group where the teacher uses only English in her teaching, pupils switch to their mother tongue even though this is not expected of them.Itseems to me that there must be some sort ofinstinctive need to use CS even though pupils might be able use the L2 competently, ifnot proficiently. To me, this suggests that other than fulfilling pedagogical functions, CS must fulfill some important psychological functions: to be recognized as a person with ones own sense of identity or one who has valuable information to contribute to a lesson which an "English only" policy negates; to provide the learner with confidence to say what s/he feels and thinks in herlhis NL without fear ofbeing ridiculed by more proficient peers, if she fails to express her/himself adequately in the L2; and to achieve solidarity with his/her NL peers so that conflicting views (as evident in the group activity) is not perceived as a personal attack.
Finally, I support Elridge's (1996) view that decreasing the mother tongue in the classroom does not automatically increase the quality and quantity ofthe L2 used. A comparative study oflesson recordings between the control and experimental groups does not show any significant difference between the amount oftalk in English. As I have noted in chapter 2, it is the type ofquestion that teachers ask that determines pupil response. Subtractive bilingualism will only serve to impede the language process and ESL acquisition itself. To conclude, in providing a succinct response to the question, "Does CS in the classroom work?" my study shows that in the domain ofthe schools of my research, CS does work as long as the matrix language is English. To think otherwise is a sterile notion bred on views ofpurists who fear the 'degeneration' of ,pure' English and who fail to see that ultimately the goal oflanguage, any language, irrespective ofits degree of 'purity', is to effectively communicate what one wants to communicate.