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From that case, we could see that there is an Indonesian clause within the teacher’s utterance. It could be concluded that the English teacher did clause code
switching in his utterance by saying besok saya terangkan.
2. The Functions of Code Switching Occurred in the Classrooms
The second objective in this research is dealing with the functions of code switching used by an English teacher in teaching English to the eighth grade
students of SMP N 2 Mlati. In this research, the researcher is going to discuss only the
five functions of teacher’s code switching since the researcher did not find the function of code switching to facilitate students’ understanding by quoting other’s
words in the field of observation. Those five functions of code switching are:
a. Translating Unknown Vocabulary Items
The first function of code switching done by the English teacher had aim to convey the meaning of foreign language through translation. The researcher
found 28 cases of code switching aimed to translate unknown vocabulary items in the classrooms. Here are the examples of the cases:
[7] T: As … as. It means? Itu artinya apa anak-anak? S: sama
[8] T: Ya, as … as means sama atau se-
In the example [7] and [8], the English teacher did code switching from
English to Indonesian to t ranslate unknown vocabulary item which was “as …
as”. It is showed in the example that the teacher was asking the students about the meaning of “as … as”. Then, a student answered the teacher’s question correctly.
The teacher agreed with the student’s answer and repeated it by saying “Ya, as … as means sama atau se-
”. From the example [7] and [8], it could be concluded PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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that the teacher did code switching to translate unknown vocabulary item when there was a difficult world for the students. In this case, th
e difficult word was “as … as”.
Here is another example of code switching aimed to translate unknown vocabulary items:
[61] T: Are going to apa anak-anak are going to? Synonym with will, akan.
From the example above, we can see that the English teacher did code switching from English to Indonesian to translate unknown vocabulary items
which was “are going to”. The teacher asked the students about the meaning of are going to and inserted Indonesian words in his sentence by saying “Are going to
apa anak-anak are going to?”. Before he translated into Indonesian, the teacher
gave the synonym in English. The teacher sentence was: “Synonym with will, akan.
” From the example, we can conclude that the teacher did code switching to translate unknown vocabulary item when there was an unfamiliar word or phrase.
In this situation, the unfamiliar phrase was “are going to”. From the examples of code switching above, we can see that the English
teacher of SMP N 2 Mlati did code switching to translate unknown vocabulary item
s. By seeing the fact that English is not the students’ native language, translation of words and phrases are needed during the interaction between teacher
and students. The teacher was found to switch from English to Indonesian when the students seemed not to understand some English words and phrases. In the
examples above, the teacher realized that the words and phrases might not be in PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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the students’ repertoire, so the teacher gave the equivalent and the Indonesian meaning of the difficult words.
b. Explaining Grammar
