In a bilingual community, the people fluctuate between two or more languages during communication. This fluctuation between two or more languages is also common in the educational institutions for teaching/learning processes. Such an alternation between two languages is termed as code-switching. The current study is aimed at analyzing the various perceptions of the teachers and students regarding the use of code-switching as a teaching strategy in an EFL classroom. Moreover, the concerned research work is an attempt to find out the differences between the perceptions of the teachers and students and the perceptions of the male and female students regarding the role of code- switching as a teaching strategy in an EFL classroom. The study seeks to suggest views on the impacts of code-switching on the English Language proficiency of the students. Students perceptions and insights are worthy of consideration. For achieving the said goals, the data were collected through questionnaires from 60 teachers and 200 students. The data was analyzed through SPSS version 17. The results revealed that majority of the students and teachers supported the use of code-switching in the classroom. No reasonable difference has been found between the perceptions of the teachers and students and the perceptions of the male and female students. The overall results show that code-switching has a role in developing the understanding level of the students, increases intimacy among the participants of the class and make the students bold enough to get exposed to the target language. A reasonable space is present in researching the applications of code-switching in the classroom of EFL from different perspectives for further research.
Key words: Code-switching, Perceptions, role of code-switching, EFL classroom, Pakistani students and teachers.
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