The Impact of Code-Switched Versus Second Language Only Glossing on ESP Learners' Vocabulary Acquisition and Retention Through Flipped Lexical Instruction with a Focus on the Students' Perception of the Flipped Classroom

This research aims to address the issue of code-switching in ESP classrooms with regards to its use in the glosses that are presented in a flipped course. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of code-switched glossing in a flipped ESP classroom on the students’ vocabulary acquisition and retention with the secondary goal of understanding their attitudes towards code-switched lexical instruction in general. This research also presents how ESP learners perceive flipped vocabulary instruction by gathering data on their attitudes regarding the components of a flipped classroom. To the aforementioned aims, ۷۰ students of Electrical Engineering who enrolled in an ESP course at Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, were randomly put into three groups of code-switched glossing, second language (L۲) only glossing, and an intact one. After a pretest and ten sessions of treatment, a posttest, and a delayed posttest were given with a semi-structured interview between the two, to accomplish the sequential explanatory mixed methods design of the study. The results indicated that although the L۲-only glossing group outperformed the code-switched glossing group in the posttest, this superiority was disappeared in the delayed posttest showing their equal retention of the vocabulary in the long term. The interviews in which approximately ten students from each group participated, manifested a tendency towards the second language only instruction of the vocabulary by the ESP learners and also a major preference of flipped classroom method over traditional courses. The findings of this study suggest that there is at least no harm in using code-switched glosses in flipped ESP courses and provide implications for the teachers and university/institute administrators on the efficiency of the implementation of flipped methodology and the harmlessness of code-switched materials.

کلیدواژه ها:

Flipped Classroom ، Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) ، English for Specific Purposes (ESP) ، Code-Switching (CS) ، Glossing ، Vocabulary Acquisition ، Vocabulary Retention