Senior High School Students' Attitudes towards English and Tagalog-English Code-Switching

Authors

  • Kristine Joy Urriza

Keywords:

code-switching, Bilingual, Tagalog-English, attitude

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Code-switching has always been a dilemma among multilingual nations like the Philippines in terms of academic and communicative functions in the teaching and learning contexts. Code-switching is a complex, skilled linguistic strategy used by bilingual speakers to convey important social meanings above and beyond the referential content of an utterance. This paper intends to gather perspectives from the points of view of the respondents regarding their attitudes towards English and Tagalog-English.

 

METHODS

Both quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (open-ended questions) research approaches were used to collect data. The data collected was then analyzed to measure the differences in the students' language attitudes towards English and Tag-lish code-switching in class or during casual conversation. Fifty senior high school students of Morong National High School-Senior were randomly selected from the sections handled by the researcher.

 

RESULTS

Findings imply that respondents are unanimously positive towards English. It is also perceived as a necessity for future success and vital for everyone. They are aware of the importance of English as instrumental, and therefore, highly valued and perceived to be the very key to a better future. Moreover, findings imply that respondents are unanimously positive towards Tagalog-English. Bautista (2004) claims that Tagalog-English is the language of the educated middle and upper-class Filipinos. The stand may associate to be true, but it could not be the basis for generalization. Out of 50 respondents, 90% has a positive attitude towards code-switchers. Grade 11 and 12 students are equally positive towards code-switchers. They usually converse in Tagalog-English code-switching during casual conversation. It is also generally perceived as a good learning technique in their English communication skills during the discussion.

 

DISCUSSIONS

The respondents imply that the practice of Tag-lish is natural, and thus, serves as an emerging trend. Respondents' attitude towards Tagalog-English code-switching is not equally positive compared to their attitudes towards the English language. It was found out that using English is highly regarded than using Tag-lish. However, respondents' attitudes towards Tagalog-English code-switchers are equally positive to their attitudes towards the English language, while respondents' attitude towards Tagalog-English is congruent to the respondents' perception towards themselves as Tagalog-English code-switchers.

Published

2019-01-18