Speaking Performance and the Types of Code-switching of Senior High School Students

Abstract

English proficiency is considered a frontline skill especially among Humanities and Social Sciences students in the locality. This study was conducted to explore what particular types of code-switching affect the speaking performance among HUMSS. It determined the students’ demographic profile, types of English reading materials, time spent in reading, types of media, time spent in viewing and length exposure to English conversations, frequency of code-switching, and their level of speaking performance. The study used the Spearman rank correlation coefficient to determine the relationships between the demographic profile and the types of code-switching used in the conversation and the relationship of the types of code-switching and the level of speaking performance. The findings revealed that the speaking performance of the respondents is not generally affected by their exposure to English conversation. Nonetheless, it was found out that exposure to English reading materials and media corresponds to students’ fluency in speaking. In addition, using intra-sentential and tag code-switching make students speak fluently in the conversation. With this, it is concluded that intra-sentential and tag code-switching are communicative pedagogical approaches that can be adopted to meet classroom language needs. Likewise, the availability of learning materials either English reading materials and media or multimedia sources at home and in the classroom are crucial factors to foster students speaking performance. Thus, the study highly recommends that the conduct of intervention to students’ low level of speaking performance through the exposure to English reading materials and media, as well as the creation of home libraries and innovative media sources to promote students’ literacy skills.