Code switching between peers in a project-based English for science course at a Hong Kong university

Editor's Notes

• #5: The course takes a project-based approach, involving students in the completion of a simple scientific experiment (designed by a member of the science faculty and often carried out in the science labs), which is documented in two main ways – first, as a multimodal digital video scientific documentary, second, as a scientific report, similar to a lab report. In their video project, students work together in order to research their topic, collect data, design a storyboard and script, film, edit and share their work. In this process we see many elements of co-operative learning at work, with students working in collaborative teams, peer teaching and working autonomously out of class in order to get their projects done. Then, in the written scientific report the content from the video is re-worked or re-contextualized into a scientific report which is individually written up by students.
• #9: We adopted a kind of participant observation method in this project, with two teams of four students engaged to act as participant observers to their own out of class learning processes and collect data on those processes for us. In addition, one student researcher helped to co-ordinate with the groups and archive and store the artifacts and communications that they were generating. Through this method, we were able to limit our own intervention in the process, and as a result a lot of the data collected is ‘naturally occurring’, what students would have created in the course of the project anyway. Note the range of data sources that were collected in this way: project artifacts, in-class discussions, out-of-class project communications, focus group interviews and reflections. Also note that all students provided their informed consent for this process and that, because of the intense nature of the study, participant observers were hired as student helpers to provide some incentive for the amount of time we expected the project to take out of their schedules.
• #10: Here is some background information that we collected about the teams. By design we selected two different kinds of teams – one with an international student from the mainland in it, the other with only HK students with Cantonese as mother tongue in it. We wanted to test the theory that the international group would tend to use English as a lingua franca to communicate and that they would therefore have more opportunities to practise English.
• #11: The first team shared a variety of project artifacts with one another through Dropbox and also allowed us to have access to their Whatsapp messages and email messages. We also collected some in-class handwritten notes that they had used.
• #12: The second team shared a range of artifacts through a FB group, which they used in a similar way to the dropbox, allowed us to have access to their Whatsapp messages and reported communicating through email as well.
• #13: Here are some examples of project artifacts
• #14: Here are some examples of project communications
• #15: In the analysis we focus on the code choice, especially how code switching is used purposefully by participants
• #16: This is the team that included a mainland student. * What is immediately apparent is that the students do use a range of codes in the course of their out-of-class project use, and this includes two different dialects of Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) and English. * In addition, it is worth remarking that written artifacts which are clearly associated with the final product of the project work are essentially composed in English (and students also reported that they read in English). However, Cantonese and Mandarin may be used in some stages of the project where (from a teaching perspective) English might have been preferable, for example when the students were conducting interviews about sound levels with others. * In these cases, students reported that they felt worried that approaching other students using English would scare them away – use of the mother tongue overcomes this problem and serves to identify the students as part of the same in-group.
• #17: This is the group of Cantonese speakers. Like the other group they tend to rely on Cantonese * more for brainstorming and negotiating difficuties (for example technical difficulties). In specific settings, * such as the laboratory, they report using English only and also * for specific tasks, such as writing the script.
• #18: What we can see from this is that the * dominant language in Team 1 is English, while the * dominant language in Team 2 is Chinese. There is more intra-sentential code switching in team 2, with most of the code switching going from C to English, though this does include 3 system messages.
• #19: Here you can see the kind of Chinese to English intrasentential code-switching that was going on, as well as all of the English words found in the data as part of such switches. There seem to be three main groups: * proper nouns like Gwen GE and brian; * technology related lexis like call, upload, msn, skype; * project related lexis like group, script, idea
• #20: As students reported that they tended to follow the code choices of other participants, we thought it would be interesting to see how conversations were initiated in the two groups. This table indicates that group members in team 1 * initiated the conversations much more frequently in English. The data does show that once an initial language choice has been made it is frequently followed by the participants to the conversation and not often switched, so if a conversation begins in English it continues in English in general (observed in both groups). Once it is switched it tends not to be switched back, again participants tend to follow the lead in terms of the language choice made.
• #21: The students stated that code selection related partly to their confidence in respective codes and a tendency to follow the initial code choice, a practice that is observed in both groups.
• #22: When the initial choice is made by the system, this may also be followed by the students, so here we see two system messages in Chinese followed by a student’s message in Chinese – it is possible that the technology can influence code choice and have an impact on opportunities for independent language learning
• #23: One reason for initiating conversations in English is to practise your English, here the participants are discussing a sequence in their WhatsApp transcript and explaining the preference for English near the beginning of the transcript. The participants describe an unspoken assumption that communications for the project would be in English because the project is for an English course.
• #24: Looking at the first conversation, lines 3-5, we see that it is accomplished through Chinese, the code which is selected by the system. Looking at the second conversation in lines 6-8 we can see that Gwen GE has initiated the conversation in English. As she says, Whatsapp is a good medium for her to use to practice English as she is more confident with this written medium than she would be with face-to-face speaking.
• #25: Here we have a comment from the mainland student in the group, who expressed a desire to practise typing in the ‘Cantonese’ way. One aspect of ‘typing in the Cantonese way’ is the use of Chinese/English code-switching as illustrated on the next slide.
• #26: Willie switches into Chinese in message 79, what he himself describes as typing in the Cantonese way, with the intrasentential code-switch into English forming a part of this Cantonese way of typing.
• #27: Chinese English code-switching is also used if there are particular problems, for example, the use of technical words in the video editing software
• #28: Here we see the switch into Chinese at the point where greater clarity is required (in message 72). Note that in lines 69, 70 and 71 Willie prompts for more information in English first, but seems to switch to Chinese when he receives no reply. Gwen doesn’t respond until much later. Students reported that if technical words were involved they would sometimes switch so as to be as clear as possible.
• #29: At this point it is necessary for us to re-iterate that this is a pilot study in its initial stages only, and so the findings are necessarily tentative.
• #30: Students tend to use Chinese if they are not confident that their message will be successfully understood or if they want to reduce the effort that they need for successful communication. Certain technical issues with specialized vocabulary will therefore sometimes be discussed in Chinese. At the same time, Chinese is sometimes used as a marker of social identity, especially when students try to convince others to participate in their projects.* English is used in part with the explicit aim of practising English with some students saying that English is the natural code choice for an English project. There is also code-switching into English for certain specialized vocabulary, for example related to technology (skype) or the project (script). Finally, this kind of intra-sentential code switching in Whatsapp can also serve as an identity marker, marking yourself as someone who is able to type ‘in the Cantonese way’.
• #31: Another important finding is that initial code selections tend to be followed and this means that * if there is a strong leader who consistently initiates conversations and selects a particular code, that individual can lead the group to interact more in English or more in Chinese.
• #32: The results also show that in the international group, there was greater use of English than in the HK group, however, this was not so much because of the need for a lingua franca (as the international student was very comfortable in Cantonese as well), it was more likely because of the fact that one student in that group was committed to using the Whatsapp conversations as a site for English practice out of class and * an unspoken agreement to operate in English therefore emerged, with individuals who were both committed to this idea and comfortable with it (in terms of their ability).
• #33: The study describes a complex multilingual environment, with different codes being used for different purposes, and in particular support from the mother tongue being used in order to overcome communication difficulties and as a marker of social identity. From the WE perspective one can say that this kind of use is both to be expected and possibly also a productive use of the mother tongue which facilitates the successful completion of the video project. * On the other hand, we are also aware that there are many more opportunities for independent language learning that students can and sometimes do adopt, particularly in terms of the communications about the project. * We are interested in encouraging students to take advantage of these opportunities in future, perhaps by discussing this issue with them and doing our best to convince them of the benefits of increasing their out of class English language use. So far, students have commented that using English at all stages of the project is not easy, but that they can do it – we believe that the kind of project processes and communications which students engage in on this project are useful for future workplace environments and hope that students will agree with this and invest accordingly in their out of class language learning.