Abstract

Many foreign students are coming to Vietnam for educational opportunities thanks to global integration. This study investigates the use of code switching in a multilingual society to propose some implications for English language teaching and learning. The research utilized the descriptive research method, employing quantitative approach with questionnaire survey adapted from Reid’s (1984) research instrument and incorporated with the researcher’s designed demographic information. The participants included 82 instructors and 788 students from three large regional universities in Vietnam to find out their attitudes and perception about the implementation of code switching as a part of a medium of instruction. The findings revealed that both teachers and students highly preferred code switching during the lessons. Most Vietnamese students felt no annoyance with code switching whereas foreign students negatively suffered from code switching as they needed to translate from the teachers’ mother tongue into their first languages then responded to teachers in English. The use of code switching in a multilingual classroom should be applied wisely to avoid the disappointment of learners. The research findings served as a pedagogical reference for teachers of English and future researchers in terms of using code switching in their professions.