The Effect of Teaching Experience on Iranian EFL Teachers' Use of Code Switching: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Study

This study examines the effect of teaching experience on Iranian English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers' use of code switching through the lens of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Specifically, it investigates how code switching realizes ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions. Participants were ۱۰ Iranian EFL teachers from a private language institute, divided equally into experienced (>۵ years) and inexperienced (<۵ years) groups. Data comprised ۱۵ hours of audio-recorded classroom talk, analyzed quantitatively using chi-square analysis. Results revealed a significant association between experience and metafunctional distribution. Inexperienced teachers employed code switching predominantly for interpersonal purposes, whereas experienced teachers used it primarily for textual functions. Ideational code switching was least frequent across both groups. These findings suggest that teaching experience shapes the functional deployment of L۱, with experienced teachers using code switching more strategically for discourse organization and inexperienced teachers relying more heavily on code switching to manage the interpersonal dimensions of classroom discourse.

کلیدواژه ها:

Code Switching ، Systemic Functional Linguistics ، Teachers' Talk ، Teaching Experience