Code-switching Versus Target-language-only for English as a Foreign Language: Saudi Students’ Perceptions

Selecting the medium of instruction to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has been a controversial issue for several years. This article explores the impact of code-switching (CS) versus target-language-only (TL-only) teaching strategies on the learning and affective sustenance of EFL reading comprehension beginner students based on their perceptions. It also investigates whether there is a significant difference between the participants’ perceptions of these two teaching strategies’ possible impact on their learning and affective sustenance. Fifty-two female Saudi college students participated in the study. A questionnaire and follow-up interviews were used to collect the data. The results indicate that the participants had positive perceptions about the impact of CS on their learning and affective sustenance in the EFL reading classes as opposed to negative perceptions about TL-only instruction. The results also show that there is a significant difference between their perceptions of TL-only instruction and CS, indicating that they prefer CS to TL-only instruction in their EFL reading classes. We recommend that reading comprehension teachers for beginners utilize CS as a facilitating instructional strategy for EFL beginners to give them affective support and make the input more comprehensible.

2017). Some researchers concluded that language instructors who favor bilingual instruction in the form of CS believe it to be a valuable and effective tool that fosters learning at beginner levels .  argued in favor of CS over monolingual instruction for the sake of course-content clarity. His findings reveal that students are more attentive and less confused when teachers instruct them through CS. Some researchers have developed instructional approaches in this regard, such as translanguaging, multilingual teaching, and plurilingual education .
Reading comprehension plays a critical role in the acquisition and learning of any foreign language, and it is considered the scaffolding for the remaining language skills. It helps language learners to construct, contextualize, and comprehend any received information in the target language. EFL teachers tend to employ different instructional strategies to teach reading and facilitate reading comprehension in language classrooms. One of the critical factors that directly affect reading comprehension is the number of known words in a reading text. When all the words in a text are unknown to the reader, comprehension cannot take place. In the case of EFL learners, the CS strategy discussed above might be useful in this regard, especially for beginners. This study's objective is to investigate female EFL college reading comprehension beginners' perceptions regarding the effects of CS versus TL-only instruction on their learning and affective sustenance in the classroom.
There has been growing interest in the investigation of the perceptions of teachers and learners regarding CS versus TL-only instruction. For K-12 learners, Al-Nofaie (2010) investigated Saudi teachers' and students' attitudes in an intermediate female school in Jeddah toward using Arabic as a facilitating tool in English classes. The results show that the participants held positive attitudes toward that use in the EFL classrooms. The results also reveal that, although the teachers preferred using the native language for specific functions, they were reluctant to use it or allow students to use it.
Similarly, in Iran,  investigated Iranian elementary EFL learners' and teachers' views on the use of L1. The findings reveal that, while most participants hold positive attitudes toward the judicious use of L1, a few prefer TL-only instruction.  studied the EFL student teachers' beliefs of their classroom CS used at a private school in Turkey. The study concluded that student teachers' use of CS could be an indicator of how they define themselves professionally, their beliefs and identity, and their rapport with supervisors. The researcher recommended the inclusion of CS as a topic in student-teacher education and supervisor training. For CS in college-level EFL classrooms,  explored the perceptions of EFL communication course beginners in Malaysia concerning their teachers' use of CS and its effect on their affective support, learning success, and use of CS for future learning. The results show that beginners perceive CS as a positive strategy due to its useful functions. The researchers concluded that CS is an effective instructional strategy for those with low English proficiency. In 2011, Al-Shammari also investigated the attitudes of pre-intermediate college teachers and students in Madinah toward L1 use in the classroom. The results show that the majority of teachers and students have positive attitudes toward that use. They believe that L1 use is beneficial in explaining new vocabulary and difficult concepts.
Gulzar and Al-Asmari (2014) compared the attitudes of 100 faculty members and 100 students from Taif University English Language Center with regard to several CS exchanges. The results indicate that both teachers and learners share similar, relatively positive attitudes toward the use of CS, but vary in their views on the effectiveness of different functions of CS. The findings also indicate considerable differences in their awareness of CS and the idiosyncratic customs of CS in Saudi EFL university classrooms.
In Kuwait, Al-Rabah, Wu, Alotaibi, and Aldaihani (2016) explored the affective, sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic factors that led to CS and EFL college teachers' attitudes. Although the teachers code-switched because of affective, sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic factors, they generally held negative attitudes toward this strategy. The researchers recommended that language teacher education programs equip EFL graduates with suitable teaching methods and classroom practices to use L1 appropriately in EFL classrooms.
Al-Mohaimeed and Almurshed (2018) investigated Saudi EFL female preparatory-year college students' attitudes and perceptions toward L1 use in English classrooms. The results show that, while elementary and intermediate students hold positive perceptions of CS in English classes, advanced students have a negative attitude toward it. In the same year,  investigated the perspectives of EFL higher education teachers and students on the use of Arabic in EFL classrooms. They found that both teachers and students hold positive attitudes toward CS. They recommended planned, occasional, and judicious use of L1 while teaching adult EFL learners.  highlighted the superiority of using Pedagogical Translation Strategy, which is a translation between English and students' first language when teaching. He stated that the Pedagogical Translation Strategy is an essential instructional strategy for reading comprehension for the Management Study Program in the Faculty of Economics, and he recommended adopting this technique in EFL/ESL teaching.
More recently, Mahdi and Al-Malki (2019) studied Saudi EFL learners' perceptions of using CS in the classroom. They also analyzed CS's functions used by the teachers through a questionnaire that contained both open-and close-ended questions. The findings revealed negative perceptions about CS. They also revealed that EFL teachers use CS for several functions, such as helping low-level learners and streamlining different language activities.  also explored the views of 41 Grade 10 students and 5 teachers in the Philippines toward the practice and use of CS in ESL classrooms. The results revealed that teachers preferred CS since it helps them in classroom management, curriculum access, and building interpersonal relations with the students. The results also showed the students' positive attitude toward CS as an effective instructional strategy to clarify complex concepts and classroom interaction.
Although several studies have explored the attitudes and perceptions of learners about CS in Saudi EFL classes, none of them have compared college reading comprehension beginners' perceptions of CS versus TL-only instruction with respect to their learning and affective sustenance in the classroom. Hence, the present study is an attempt to add to the literature on CS versus TL-only instruction. The researchers hope that this paper will give EFL teachers useful insights into CS versus TL-only in their classrooms.

Research Questions
Based on the concepts of CS and TL-only instruction, the researchers' teaching experiences, and the related literature, this study addresses Saudi EFL learners' perceptions of the impact of CS versus TL-only instruction on their learning of reading and their affective sustenance in the classroom.
The specific research questions are as follows: 1. What are the perceptions of female Saudi EFL reading comprehension beginners at King Khalid University (KKU) about the impact of CS versus TL-only instruction on their learning and their affective sustenance in their reading comprehension course? 2. Are there significant differences between female Saudi EFL reading comprehension beginners' perceptions of CS versus TL-only instruction in their learning and affective sustenance in their reading comprehension course?

Methodology
This study employed a mixed-method research design to give an in-depth report of the participants' perceptions of CS versus TL-only instruction as teaching strategies and the effect of those two strategies on their learning and affective sustenance in the classroom.

Participants
The context of this study was a Saudi university female campus during the first academic semester of 2019-2020. It employs data obtained from 52 female Saudi EFL Level One reading comprehension students. Access to male students was not possible since they were taught by male teachers in a separate campus because of cultural constraints. The participants of this study were students in the English department, which offers a bachelor's degree in the English Language. Their ages ranged from 18 to 20 years old. They were taught by one of the researchers during that semester. They were representative of all Level One reading comprehension students during the semester. The participants were studying listening, speaking, reading, and writing English language skills. The researchers chose this specific level because they were novices at studying reading comprehension Level One, for which the prescribed book was the Well Read 1 Student Book: Skills and Strategies for Reading Student Guide series . Some of their teachers were bilingual, and others were native speakers of English who did not speak Arabic.

Materials
The researchers used two main tools to collect the data of this study. The first tool was a questionnaire designed to obtain the participants' perceptions of the effects of teachers' CS versus TL-only instruction on their affective sustenance in the classroom and their learning in a reading comprehension class (see Appendix A). Some items in the questionnaire are from Ahmed and Jusoff's (2009) questionnaire on CS. The questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first part obtained the participants' demographic information. The second part consisted of 11 items arranged in a Likert scale ranging from 1 ("most unlike this") to 9 ("most like this"). The mean score according to this Likert scale has an equal interval length (0.89) with three levels: low level for the mean score in the interval elt.ccsenet.org English Language Teaching Vol. 13, No. 9; (1-3.67), moderate level for the mean score in the interval (3.67-6.33), and high level for the mean score in the interval (6.33-9) (see Table 1). In addition to the questionnaire, interviews with 10 students were conducted to obtain an in-depth understanding of whether their teacher should use CS or TL-only in teaching them a reading comprehension course and why (see Appendix B). The 10 students were chosen from two classes taught by the same researcher. The researcher is bilingual and spent four weeks teaching one of the classes using CS and the other class using TL-only. A consent form was given to the 10 randomly selected students (See Appendix B).

Procedures
The researchers gave the questionnaire to three colleagues from the same department-two assistant professors and one associate professor to review it for validity. One of the researchers distributed the questionnaire. It was written both in Arabic and in English to ensure that participants did not face difficulty in understanding the items. The respondents had 15 minutes to fill in the questionnaires in class. The researchers also invited the students to ask for any clarification. In the same context, the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 participants to get a more accurate account of the students' perceptions. Each interview lasted between 5 and 10 minutes. Then, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program, version 23, was used to conduct descriptive statistics of the questionnaire responses and to conduct inferential statistics comparison tests (a paired t-test) to compare the participants' perceptions of the two instructional strategies. The researchers also used Microsoft Excel to draw the figures of the obtained results.

CS versus TL-only Instruction and Learners' Learning
The results show that while the participants perceived CS as a strategy helping them to understand the course, learn difficult concepts and new vocabulary, and learn reading skills more effectively, they do not consider TL-only instruction as being equally effective (Table 2). As shown in Table 2, while the participants' perception of CS as being helpful in understanding the course was high, they perceived TL-only as ineffective. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 6.8, p = .000 = 51). While their perception of CS as being effective in making difficult concepts easy to understand was high, their perception of TL-only instruction as being equally useful was low. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 4.6, p = .000 = 51).
Besides, while they perceived CS as having a positive impact on learning new vocabulary, their perception about TL-only instruction as having an equal impact was low. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 4.6, p = .000= 51). Moreover, while their perception of the positive impact of CS on learning reading skills was at a medium level, their perception of TL-only instruction having an equal impact on learning reading skills was also at a medium level. However, the paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 1.8, p = .085 = 51).

Code-switching and Learners' Affective Sustenance
The results show that the participants considered CS to be a strategy that gave them confidence, support, enjoyment, satisfaction, and comfort. They also considered it a strategy that made them less stressed and feel less lost during lectures. One the other hand, they did not perceive TL-only instruction as being equally useful. Table  3 shows these results. Feeling less lost 6.9 (H) 3.1 (L) 3.8 4.5 6.1 .000 Note. (L) = low level of preference; (M) = moderate level of preference; (H) = high level of preference As shown in Table 3, while the participants perceived CS as having a positive impact on their confidence, their perception of the impact of TL-only on that affective feeling was low. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 7.9, p = .000 = 51). Further, the participants perceived CS as positively supporting them in the classroom, whereas they perceived TL-only instruction as not equally effective. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 4.1, p = .000 = 51).
Additionally, students had a medium level of perception that CS had a positive impact on their enjoyment during lectures, and a medium level of perception of the same impact of TL-only instruction on that feeling of enjoyment. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 3.3, p = .002 = 51). Moreover, they had a high level of perception of CS having a positive impact on their satisfaction during lectures, whereas their perception of the TL-only instruction having the same impact was at a medium level. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 3.9, p = .000 = 51).
While they highly perceived CS as positively impacting their comfort during lectures, they did not perceive TL-only instruction as being equally useful. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 5.0, p = .000 = 51). While their perception of CS positively impacting their feeling of being less stressed was high, their perception of the impact of TL-only instruction on that feeling was low. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 6.5, p = .000 = 51).
Moreover, while their perception of CS as positively impacting their feeling of being less lost was high, their perception of the TL-only instruction as being equally useful was low. The paired-samples t-test shows that the difference between the two perceptions is significant (t = 6.1, p = .000 = 51).

Interviews
One of the researchers conducted interviews with ten of the participants. Five of them were from the CS class and five were from the TL-only class. The first interview question was whether they would prefer the teacher to code-switch or teach them through TL-only instruction. The second question was to give reasons for their preferences. Most of the interviewees reported that their teachers should use the CS strategy in reading classes. Only a few of them reported that they should use TL-only instruction. The following table shows this result. As shown in Table 4 above, the majority of the students (80%) favored being taught through CS, while only a few (20%) felt they needed to be taught only in the target language. Those interviewees who preferred CS think that it is a helpful strategy for them since they are beginners and do not have adequate language competency to comprehend the target language easily. They also reported that CS makes their language learning process smoother, with less psychological barriers. They added that a reading comprehension course needs the teacher's CS, since it depends on comprehension, and, for them as beginners, it takes time to comprehend any received information in the target language, especially unfamiliar words. One of the interviewed students had studied the same course before with a teacher who did not code-switch. She reported that now, being with a bilingual teacher who did code-switch, it was easier for her to understand the course.
The few interviewees (20%) who reported that they prefer TL-only instruction think that they are language learners and that it is essential to be taught only in the target language. When the teacher speaks only in the TL, they think that she will give the learners an excellent opportunity to listen to and learn the TL, and provide learners with the necessity of learning the language. They added that it is for the good for the students that the teacher spoke in the TL, and that they will learn it faster and start thinking in that language. The interviewees added that it is their responsibility as language learners to make efforts to translate and learn the TL. They believe that the teacher should use only the TL in the classroom, considering her to be a source for that language.

Discussion and Conclusion
There is a significant difference between female Saudi EFL reading comprehension beginners' perceptions of CS versus TL-only instruction in favor of the former. Regarding the effects of CS to Arabic on their learning, the results reveal that generally, the majority of participants believe that CS in class makes it easy for them to understand the course and to learn difficult concepts and new vocabulary. These findings are in line with Al-Shammari's (2011) conclusion that college beginners see CS as helpful in understanding new vocabulary and difficult concepts. They are similar to the previous studies that consider CS to be a beneficial tool in accelerating learners' language learning process, particularly for beginners, to whom most of the skills are new .  concludes that CS in EFL classrooms would help language learners to start from the "known to the unknown" (p. 93).  also indicates that teachers can utilize learners' native language when teaching new vocabulary. Furthermore,  state that the use of the native language in the classrooms can enhance L2 learning. Finally,  recommend that CS, compared to TL-only instruction, might lead to better vocabulary learning.
Regarding the effects of CS to Arabic on their affective sustenance, most respondents see CS as a strategy that gives them more confidence and support in EFL language classrooms; CS helps them enjoy the lecture and makes them satisfied, comfortable, less stressed, and feel less lost during the lecture. The interview results also indicate that the vast majority of the interviewed participants prefer their teacher's CS over TL-only instruction to teach them reading skills. They reported that they are beginners and need the input to be more comprehensible to them. This reasoning supports  comprehensible input hypothesis, in which he states that the TL input should be only one level above the learners' current level (+1) to be comprehensible to them. They also think that CS makes their language learning process more accessible with fewer psychological barriers, supporting  conclusion that "the primary role of the students' L1 in the language classroom is lowering affective filters" (p. 147). Their positive perception of the teacher's CS supports  conclusion that language learners prefer the teacher's CS for instructional reasons. It is natural and rational that using the mother tongue in a new learning environment gives positive affective support to beginners.
As seen in the above sections, EFL reading comprehension beginners' perceptions of CS as a teaching strategy is immensely positive compared with their perceptions of the TL-only instruction, which is highly negative. These findings indicate their need, as beginners, of a CS strategy to give them affective support in the classroom, and to serve as a torch that guides them to the unknown meanings of the target language's new vocabulary and difficult concepts, thus making it more comprehensible to them.

Implications, Limitations, and Recommendations
The findings of the study have practical implications for teaching EFL/ESL reading comprehension. Based on these results, EFL teachers might code-switch to EFL beginners' native language to create a more supportive learning environment and make the input that students receive more comprehensible so that they can internalize it quickly. However, teachers should remind the beginner students that this strategy is just to help them understand the new vocabulary and difficult concepts, and that they must concentrate on the target language, using the teachers' CS only to understand the target language. This paper also recommends that EFL teachers should be aware of their students' perceptions of code-switching and code-switch when appropriate.  indicates that teachers' use of CS should be lowered to the minimum to focus on target language learning.
The present study has some limitations that should be addressed in future research. First, the study was conducted on two beginner classes of a reading comprehension course. To support or reject the findings of the study, researchers can further investigate the students' perceptions of CS versus TL-only as an instructional strategy for teaching listening, writing, and speaking skills to beginners. The second limitation is that the study dealt with only female beginners. To complement the findings of this study, researchers can research male Saudi EFL students. A third limitation is obtaining the perceptions of students only. Thus, further researchers can also study the perceptions of both students and teachers on CS versus TL-only instruction in Saudi EFL beginner classrooms. A fourth limitation is that the study was conducted on EFL beginners only. Further researchers can compare between beginners' and advanced learners' perceptions of CS versus TL-only instruction. With more research on CS versus TL-only instruction for teaching beginners, some theoretical conclusions about CS and EFL teaching will arise.