Abstract

As a result of multilingualism, education in Pakistan is becoming replete with the practice of code switching (CS) for academic purposes. A study was conducted to determine the effects of teachers’ code switching on the students’ learning and their proficiency in English language at Abdul Wali Khan University. Students’ and teachers’ perceptions were probed through questionnaires, interviews, and classroom observation, revealing that advantages of CS in the content learning area of language teaching are set against the problem of decrease in attainable language proficiency. The study proposes the teaching of code switching to be made part of English language teachers’ training programs.