Codeswitching in English-medium instruction: A Dutch case study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to gain insight into teachers’ perceptions on codeswitching in English-medium instruction. More specifically, this research examines the following research question: what are teachers’ perceptions of codeswitching in English-medium instruction at Dutch universities? Semi-structured interviews, with six native Dutch lecturers from the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University, served as a tool to investigate the research question. Interviews were conducted through the chat function of Microsoft Teams and a pre-determined topic list served as a basis for the interview questions. Afterwards respondents’ answers were analyzed by using a thematic analysis. The findings suggest that teachers have various views on codeswitching in EMI. Teachers described similar situational contexts in which they codeswitch and the results illustrate that there is no clear relation between teachers’ self-perceived level of English proficiency and codeswitching.