This study is intended to understand teaching quality of English student teachers when they conduct their teaching practicum. Teaching quality is conceptualized based on the principles of effective teaching resulted by teacher effectiveness studies. Thes


IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    317  

 

 

EFL Teacher’s Code Switching in the Social Emotional 
Learning Context 
 

LINGGA AGUSTINA SUGANDA
1
, ISMAIL PETRUS

2
, AND ZURAIDA

3
 

 

Abstract  

The use of Indonesian, besides English, in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) 
classrooms is common in Indonesia. This case study investigated the code switching 
used by the EFL teacher in the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) context. It was 
conducted in the English SEL model class at a secondary school in Indonesia. The 
data were collected using observation, interview, Social Emotional Competence 
Questionnaire (SECQ), and a SEL self-reflection tool. The results highlighted that 
(1) code switching is the medium of instruction used by the EFL teacher to 
accommodate all the teaching and learning activities in the social-emotional learning 
context, (2) using code switching in the EFL classroom discourse is one of the 
teacher social emotional competencies, and (3) code switching has a positive role to 
build teacher and students‟ social-emotional skills. Teachers who code switch can 
strongly support the growth of academic and social-emotional skills in EFL learning 
context. 

Keywords 
Code switching, EFL, social-emotional learning, teacher 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
1  Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang, Indonesia: 

linggasuganda@fkip.unsri.ac.id 
2  Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang, Indonesia: 

ismailpetrus@fkip.unsri.ac.id 
3  Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang, Indonesia: 

zuraida@fkip.unsri.ac.id 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    318  

 

 

 
Introduction 

 

Lack of systemic support and flexibility and limited or ineffective use of resources, 
including staff, make the challenges of low performing disadvantaged schools difficult to 
meet (OECD, 2017). There is no common understanding or definition across OECD 
countries of which schools are disadvantaged and performing at low levels. As each national, 
and even regional, context is unique, the criteria used are very diverse. For example, in 
Indonesia the data of the quality map from the Educational Profile of South Sumatra for 
junior high school level (2018) highlighted the low standards of learning process, evaluation, 
and learning results of the educational quality in 2016. Meanwhile, in 2017 the standard of 
graduate and the standard of teachers and educational staffs are two among the lowest 
standard quality, in which only 38% teachers are certified while 62% are not. This shows that 
both teachers and students are facing problem in relation to the national education quality 
standard. Moreover, schools nowadays are challenged to educate students coming from the 
multicultural and multilingual environments with much more complex social-emotional 
experiences. Student coming from different social and cultural background tends to struggle 
to accept and to be accepted by his/her surroundings.  

Therefore, teachers and students nowadays need social-emotional skills to overcome 
these challenges. In school context it is necessary to build students‟ social emotional 
competence to increase their learning, achievement and characters as good social and 
emotional skills help students to gain quality of life which includes a good academic 
achievement during school (Wirajaya, Suganda, & Zuraida, 2019; Alzahrani, Alharbi, & 
Alodwani, 2019).  Moreover, teachers‟ social emotional competencies may also important. 
According to Jennings and Greenberg (2009), these skills help teachers to reduce their stress 
and burnt out in the classroom context. Teachers who are skillful socially and emotionally 
will develop and encourage positive relationships with their students, design lessons to build 
students‟ strengths and abilities, build and implement positive characters to promote intrinsic 
motivation, train students to handle conflict, encourage cooperation among students, and 
become role models for creating a prosocial environment. Moreover, teachers also make 
important contribution for their students‟ social emotional development, which is hoped to 
have long lasting effects until adulthood as teachers teach their students social emotional 
skills which are related to their cognitive development to be focused, fully attentive, 
motivated, engaged, and to enjoy their work (Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004). 
Therefore, to successfully implement these practices for students, teachers must also have 
appropriate social emotional skills.  

One of the social emotional skills that teachers should have can be focused on how 
they handle depressing situations that can happen in classrooms and how they communicate 
with students effectively (Brackett et al., 2009). How teachers communicate with the 
students, which can be referred as teacher language, is believed to be one of the important 
social teaching practices for accommodating students‟ social, emotional, and academic skill 
development in the classroom (Yoder, 2014). Schools nowadays need to support appropriate 
culture and climate for both teachers and students in developing their social-emotional 
competence by implementing Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in the school. SEL ideally 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    319  

 

 

takes place in schools that collaborate actively with family and community environments to 
support and provide chances for students to develop and apply these social and emotional 
competencies. 

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a 
non-profit organization that shares knowledge of highly qualified evidence based SEL, has 
identified five important sets of interconnected cognitive, affective, and behavioral 
competencies or the types of social and emotional skills for students from preschool to 
secondary school to develop (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011). 
These five skills include the ability to understand feelings and have self-confidence 
(self-awareness); respect and understand others, including respect the differences between 
people (social awareness); manage emotions and be able to set goals and stick to them 
(self-management); choose wisely and thoughtfully (responsible decision making); and work 
together, communicate, make friends, and resolve conflicts (relationship skill).  

In short, SEL involves the processes where students and adults develop fundamental 
social and basic competencies for identifying and managing emotions, setting and achieving 
positive goals, feeling and showing empathy for one another, building and keeping positive 
relationship with one another, and making responsible decisions. It is inevitably necessary 
for schools to integrate the strategies of social emotional learning into the curriculum used 
nowadays due to the growing awareness about the significance of social and emotional 
development for the beneficial effects on students and teachers‟ practice (Martinez, 2016). 
SEL programs even in short term can enhance students‟ self-confidence, improve their 
involvement in school, including their test results, and decrease behavioral problems while 
promoting desired behaviors (Greenberg, Domitrovich, Weissberg, & Durlak, 2017). 
Moreover, teachers‟ belief about SEL is related to their perceived efficacy for classroom 
management and engagement with students (Goegan, Wagner, & Daniels, 2017). Therefore, 
it is believed to be necessary to have a well-planned and well-implemented SEL program in 
Indonesia.  

Meanwhile, Indonesia is known as a multilingual country, where most of the people 
are bilingual, in which they use their mother tongue and Indonesian language as their second 
language. The third mostly used language in Indonesia is English since it is one of the 
compulsory subjects in the classroom discourse although it is still seen as a foreign language 
in Indonesian context (Suganda, Loeneto, & Zuraida, 2018). The English teachers and their 
students usually use the switching and/or mixing between English, Indonesian, and the 
mother tongue in the classroom discourse. This presents the fact that the use of code 
switching occurs as a natural phenomenon in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) 
classroom discourses in Indonesia (Suganda et al., 2018). Code switching refers to “the 
mixing, by bilinguals (or multilinguals), of two or more languages in discourse, often with no 
change of interlocutor or topic” (Poplack, 2001, p. 2062). Thomason (2001, p. 262) argued 
that code switching is “the use material from two (or more) languages by a single speaker 
with the same people in the same conversation that includes both switches from one 
language to another at sentence boundaries (intersentential switching) and switches within a 
single sentence (intrasentential switching). The latter is sometimes called code mixing.” Code 
switching and code mixing are generally defined as the alternating use of two languages and 
have often been used vice versa (Anastassiou & Andreou, 2017). Therefore, in this study the 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    320  

 

 

term code switching also refers to some discourses claimed by other researchers as code 
mixing.  

In teaching and learning context Lin (2008) defines classroom code switching as 
using more than two linguistic codes alternately by any of the participants in the classroom, 
such as teachers and students. It can be referred as “the alternate use of the first language 
and the target language as means of communication by foreign language teachers” (Üstünel, 
2016, p. 29). In Indonesian EFL context, the use of code switching as a medium of 
instruction can serve as a beneficial conversational strategy to facilitate learning (Suganda et 
al., 2018) as Caparas and Gustilo (2017) also believe, “Allowing code-switching in class can 
promote greater interactivity because it widens comfort zone for students to participate 
more, aiding their second language learning (p. 357)”. Code switching has been found to play 
an important role in giving positive contribution for English language teaching and learning 
process (Jingxia, 2010; Bhatti, Shamsudin, & Mat Said, 2018). 

The teachers‟ use of code switching can be related to their social-emotional 
competence as Yoder (2014) declares, “Teachers should use their language to encourage 
students‟ effort and work, restate what the student did and what he/she needs to do for keep 
improving. Teachers‟ language should encourage students how to monitor and regulate their 
own behavior, rather than just telling students how to behave,” which are similar to the 
affective function of code switching (Muttsson & Burenhult, 1999). The scarcity in the 
literature on code switching related to social emotional competence and the significance of 
findings that could increase the understanding of language use in relation to the social 
emotional skills in Indonesian educational context justify the need for this study, which aims 
to examine (1) the phenomenon of code switching used by the EFL teacher in the EFL 
model classroom that implemented SEL strategies and (2) how it relates to building the 
teacher and students‟ social emotional competencies. 

 
Literature Review 
 
Code switching 
 
Code switching can be defined as “the alternation of two languages within a single 

discourse, sentence, or constituent” (Jamshidi & Navehebraim 2013). It is a usual 
phenomenon that happens in bilingual societies in which people have the chance to use two 
or more languages for communicating. As those who can speak more than one language, 
bilinguals can switch code and use their languages as resources to find better ways to convey 
meaning. Bullock and Toribio (2009, p.2) point out several functions of code-switching 
namely, to fill linguistic gaps, express ethnic identity, and achieve special discursive aims 

In the classroom of foreign language teaching, code switching refers to teachers‟ 
choice of languages, which are the foreign language being taught and the society‟s language 
(Simon, 2000, p.312). The teachers in such situation who Macaro (2005) called as bilingual 
teachers are usually non-native speakers of the target language, and they have the same 
mother tongue as their students‟. Muttsson and Burenhult (1999) categorize the functions of 
teacher code switching as topic switch, affective functions, and repetitive functions. Topic 
switch usually occurs because the teacher switches the language due to the topic being 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    321  

 

 

taught, such as when teaching grammar or new knowledge to students. Affective functions 
happen when the teacher declares his/her emotion to form a relationship with the students. 
While, repetitive functions are used by the teacher to clarify the meaning of words, while 
emphasizing on the content for better understanding (Sert, 2005). 

The act of code switching is believed as resources to scaffold students‟ learning in a 
foreign language classroom (Choi & Leung, 2017). Many studies consistently find that using 
first language in foreign language classrooms is beneficial for students in terms of both 
cognitive and emotional development. First, it helps students to engage with complex tasks 
at a deeper level and with more self-regulation of learning (Anton & Dicamilla, 1999), and it 
functions as a scaffold for understanding a lesson when students have limited English ability 
(Hall & Cook, 2012). Second, it lowers the affective barriers of students with lacked 
confidence in using the foreign language and empowers them if their mother tongue is 
marginalized in the wider social context outside of the classroom (Canagarajah, 2013). 

Mahboob and Lin (2016) even demanded to integrate students‟ first languages into 
theorization and practice of foreign language teaching. Therefore, in EFL teaching context, 
teachers usually switch code in class because they consider their students‟ not fully fledged 
language proficiency, and the first language is mostly conducted when teaching grammar and 
abstract concepts (Cheng, 2013). Code switching was found beneficial for both teachers and 
students in making clarification, repetition, recapitulation, and socialization (Adriosh & Razi, 
2019) to bridge the communication during teaching and learning process (Nurhamidah, 
Fauziati, & Supriyadi, 2018), in which different frequency of code switching employed by 
teachers and students also occurs for social and pedagogical functions (Muslim, Sukiyah, & 
Rahman, 2018). However, some researchers disagreed with the use of code switching in the 
classroom context. Macaro (2005) believed that code-switching should be banned as the 
EFL teaching usually aims at maximizing both the teacher‟s input and the students‟ output 
(target language acquisition) as well as to reduce out-dated methods like the 
grammar-translation method. In sociocultural context, code switching has been viewed as a 
sign of laziness and sloppiness, even attributed as language deficiency (Hussein, 1999; Iqbal, 
2011). 

 
Social emotional learning 
 
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) refers to the process of integrating thoughts, 

feelings, and behaviors to be aware of oneself and others, make responsible decisions, and 
manage the behaviors of oneself and others (Elias et al., 1997). Students‟ ability to learn well 
depends not only on instruction, but also on factors such as the school climate, sense of 
belonging with peers, positive relationships with educators, and the feedback they receive. 
Therefore, schools nowadays are increasingly implementing school-wide SEL policies and 
curricula to foster teacher and student caring relationships, student cooperation and conflict 
reduction, a greater sense of school safety, and the social-emotional skills development in 
students, teachers, and school leaders (Greenberg et al., 2003; Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & 
Walberg, 2004). 

Meanwhile, teachers who play the most important role in classroom settings have a 
significant opportunity to influence their students‟ positive development using not only the 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    322  

 

 

content of their instruction but also their social interactions and relationships quality with 
them, such as how these teachers manage the behavior in the classroom and model social 
and emotional processes (e.g., Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Larasati, 
Suganda, and Jaya (2019) also found that teachers‟ social emotional competence (SEC) had a 
significant positive correlation and contribution to their students‟ learning motivation. 
 

Methodology 
 

This experimental case study was done in the seventh grade English class that was 
served as a classroom model implementing the social emotional learning (SEL) in a junior 
high school in South Sumatra, Indonesia. There were three main steps in the implementation 
of SEL strategy in the classroom model. First, students practiced „Silent Sitting‟ by sitting in 
a relaxing posture and eyes closed, while at the same time the teacher would read a story 
with positive moral value to set them prepared for the lesson. Second, in the whilst activity 
teacher mostly used balanced teaching and collaborative learning strategies, such as asking 
open-ended questions, giving variety of possible answers for students to select, having 
students to repeat for checking their comprehension, having students to work in groups 
(large or small), in pairs, or individually, having role-plays and games. Third, students were 
asked to write reflective journal after they finished their class every week. 

The three social-emotional learning strategies were integrated with the materials 
from the Indonesian 2013 national curriculum. The SEL strategy was implemented to 
enhance the students‟ five social emotional skills. Self-awareness and self-management were 
assumed to enhance from Silent Sitting and writing reflective journal because in these two 
activities each student was asked to work individually to calm their minds and reflect 
silently, so that they could comprehend their own feelings, have more confidence, and 
appropriately control their emotions. In addition, social awareness, responsible decision 
making, and relationship skills were assumed to be gained from in the collaborative learning 
activities where students kept interacting with their teacher and peers. They practiced social 
awareness by cooperating, working in groups, and taking turns. They also practiced 
decision-making and teamwork cooperation skills through discussion activities. 

The data of this study were taken from classroom observation, students‟ Social 
Emotional Competence Questionnaire (SECQ), teacher interview, and teacher 
self-reflection tool developed by Yoder (2014). These instruments were analyzed 
qualitatively and quantitatively. The qualitative procedures were used in the data analysis 
from the classroom observation and interview to describe the code switching used in the 
classroom in relation to the social emotional competence to explain the study results. The 
teacher‟s use of code switching found during the observation was transcribed and grouped 
based on the use, and each extract was analyzed by associating them with the concept of 
social and emotional competence. The results from the interview were also transcribed and 
grouped. Meanwhile, the data from the questionnaire and self-reflection tool in the 
quantitative procedures were also used to support the qualitative analysis. They were 
described statistically to indicate the degree of both the students and teacher‟s social 
emotional competence. 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    323  

 

 

The English teacher (T1) recruited for this study agreed to participate and involve in 
the total of 16 meetings of 80 minutes implementation of the English social emotional 
learning strategy. She was teaching the class model using the procedure that included the 
three main steps explained before. The classroom observations were conducted for three 
times 80 minutes. The first observation was conducted in the first meeting and used to 
indicate the students‟ characteristics and attitudes before SEL strategies implementation. The 
second and third observations were conducted in the 8

th
 and 16

th
 meetings respectively. The 

results from the three observations were used to identify the code switching used by T1 
during her teaching, and they were compared to distinguish any changing of attitude or 
behavior after experiencing SEL classroom discourse. 

A semi-structured interview with T1 was used to obtain her perceptions and reasons 
of using code switching in relation to her own and her students‟ social emotional skills. The 
SECQ was administered to the students to identify their level of social emotional 
competence after using SEL strategies in the class. Meanwhile, the teacher‟s self-reflection 
tool from Self-Assessing Social and Emotional Instruction and Competencies: A Tool for 
Teachers (Yoder, 2014) was administered to know how T1 reflects her social and emotional 
skills. The issues of validity and reliability of the instruments were gained through 
triangulation of multiple data sources including the observations, questionnaires, interviews, 
and self-reflection tool. 

 
Findings 
 
The results of the classroom observation 
 
The results from the classroom observations indicated that T1 used both Indonesian 

and English, and she mostly switched and/or mixed the two languages when communicating 
with students in her class. 

 
Table 1. The frequency of the languages used by the teacher 
 

Languages 
Classroom Observations 

1 2 3 Average 

Code Switching 48.37 46.86 36.6 43.94 

Full Indonesian 46.27 41.11 42.07 43.15 

Full English 5.36 12.03 21.33 12.91 

 
Table 1 presents the average of a more dominant use of full Indonesian (43.15%) and code 
switching (43.94%) between English and Indonesian than the use of full English (12.91%). 
T1 mostly spoke and explained in Indonesian and used English only to recall (1) the specific 
utterances as part of the teaching materials, (2) the vocabulary from the previous meetings, 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    324  

 

 

and (3) the general everyday expressions for greetings, parting, complimenting, such as „good 
afternoon‟, „goodbye‟, „keep quite‟, „any questions?‟, „thank you‟, and „good job‟.  
 
Moreover, the motivational stories read by T1 in the „Silent Sitting‟ session were all in 
Indonesian. Code switching was found mostly during the whilst-activity involving the 
collaborative learning strategies in the classroom. T1 used code switching for communicating 
with the students while they were having large or small group discussions, as well as 
individual exercises.  
 
Figure 1. Functions of code switching  

 
 

Figure 1 shows that T1 switched from English to Indonesian for topic switch (68.62%), 
affective function (21.33%), and repetitive function (10.05%). In terms of purpose T1 mostly 
code switched for topic switch, which is to explain the content of the material discussed as 
seen in the following extract: 
 

“My brother sama my sister its family … anggota keluarga.” [T1] 
[My brother and my sister are members of family … family member.] 

 
Meanwhile, the other main factor T1 code switched from English to Indonesian language 
was the affective function. She wanted to warn and/or remind the students about their 
behaviors in the class. The affective function is directly related to the social-emotional 
competence of both the teacher and the students. Extracts 2, 3, and 4 are some examples of 
the affective function conducted. 

 
“Next, S11.” [T1] 
[being quite because he was afraid to speak in front of the class] [S11]  
“S11, tidak ada yang tidak bisa. Mengerti kata Doki tadi kan? Dia melompat. Kawannya mati, 
dia masih brush… Ayo cepat, S11!” [T1] 
[S11, nothing is impossible. Did you understand what Doki said? He kept 
hopping. His friend died, but he kept trying… Come on, S11!] [T1] 
[talking and whispering to one another] [Ss] 

10.05 

68.62 

21.33 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    325  

 

 

“Yang lain… kalau mau dihargai, hargai teman kalian. [T1] 
[Class, if you want others to appreciate you, appreciate your friend. 
[silence] [Ss] 
 
[talking about the bubble gum stuck on the chair in the classroom] [Ss] 
 
Which chair? Bangkunya mana? Saya tidak mau ada yang memakan permen karet di kelas ini 
ya… Siapa lagi yang memakan permen karet? Permen karet itu ada bungkusnya kan? 
Bungkusnya itu kamu simpen di saku. Nanti kamu pake lagi buat buang permen karetnya. 
Bukan ditempel di bawah meja. [T1] 
[Which chair? Where is the chair? I don’t want any of you to eat bubble gum in 
the class, okay. Who else ate bubble gum? The bubble gum has its plastic 
wrap, right? Keep the wrap in your pocket. Use it again later to wrap the 
bubble gum that you want to throw away. Don’t stick it on the table!] [T1] 
 
[silent] [Ss] 
 

The switch from English to Indonesian in Extract 2 showed T1 encouragement to S11 for 
trying to practice speaking in front of the class and reminding other students to appreciate 
S11 and not to be ignorant with their surroundings. While, in Extract 3 the code switching 
was used by T1 to teach and warn her students for keeping their classroom clean. In brief, 
the classroom observation results showed that T1 dominantly code switched between 
English and Indonesian for having a better communication with her students especially 
when delivering the material/topic of discussion. She always used general English 
expressions but switched and/or mixed English and Indonesian when trying to ensure about 
the students‟ comprehension on her explanations. Then, giving warning and advice is the 
second dominant attempt from T1 for communicating positive values to her students in 
which she chose to switch to Indonesian language every time she got angry, gave warning, or 
motivated the students.  

T1 switched mostly to Indonesian language as a medium to communicate with the 
students. It was to give feedback and motivation. Comparing the first to the third 
observation, the switching between English and Indonesian occurred slightly the same in 
which T1 used English to express the vocabulary related to the topic and/or material and 
she used Indonesian language to mostly maintain their interaction, like when having simple 
conversation and joking. In relation to SEL context, the first to the third observations 
showed that T1 had become very used to the teaching procedure in the SEL classroom 
model. She walked around the class and communicated in Indonesian language with some 
switching to English to most of the students while they were discussing in groups. The 
students looked enthusiastic as they kept responding to T1 in both English and Indonesian 
and they voluntarily raised their hand to answer questions. Moreover, the warm and friendly 
interactions occurred among teacher-students and students-students were identified asT1 
kept giving encouragement and motivation for her students. She provided feedback, 
motivation, and warmth smile to the students; and the students showed more positive 
attitudes, such as being more focused, braver to ask and talk to T1, and more motivated. It 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    326  

 

 

was different from the first observation, in which the students mostly kept quiet and T1 had 
to keep calling their names and force them to answer questions. 
 

The results of the teacher interview and self-reflection 
 
The semi structured interview with T1 showed that the main reason causing her to 

use code switching is the students‟ English competence, so she used more Indonesian and 
code switching for topic switch to give instruction and teach the material and/or topic more 
effectively and efficiently. She stated that her students become more enthusiastic and have 
higher spirit to study compared to her previous experience where her students mostly felt 
burdened by English lessons because they were afraid of not understanding the English 
language used by their teacher. Moreover, T1 believed that Indonesian language must be 
used for making her students more focus and enabling them to comprehend the content of 
the motivational stories in the „Silent Sitting‟ session because there were always moral values 
available from each of the story. T1 worried that this main purpose could not be gained if 
she chose to read the motivational stories in English. In addition, T1 also admitted that her 
Indonesian language was specifically used when she wanted to remind or warn her students. 
She wanted to make her statements more precise, so that her students would directly 
understand her intention. Moreover, she gave advice and reminded her students using 
positive utterances and avoided using high pitch and negative utterances. 

 
Table 2. Some extracts from the interviews 
 

Questions Response 

Do you code switch during the teaching 
and learning process in the class? 

Yes, I mix English and Indonesian language. 

When do you switch from English to 
Indonesian language? 

Explaining topic/material of the lesson 
Clarifying words or instruction 
Showing emotion and building relationship with 
students (anger, happiness, and reminding students‟ 
mistake) 

What is the effect of your code-switching 
use on students‟ comprehension on the 
lesson? 

Students can understand the given material. When given 
exercises, they can grasp the material faster. 

What is the effect of your code-switching 
use on students‟ characters/attitudes? 

Students become more enthusiastic and have higher 
spirit. 

 
The teacher self-reflection tool was used as the instrument to collect the data of the teacher‟s 
social-emotional competence. It consisted of a list of statements served as the teacher 
self-assessment test, followed by a follow-up written interview questions for gaining more 
information on her perception towards her social-emotional competence. 
 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    327  

 

 

 
Table 3. Teacher self-reflection on her instructional practice 
 

No. Instructional Practice Score/Total Score Mean Score 

1. Youth-Centered Problem Solving 27/36 0.75 

2. Teacher Language 13/12 1.08 

3. Responsibility and Choice 16/16 1 

4. Warmth and Support 21/28 0.75 

5. Cooperative Learning/Group Learning 19/20 0.95 

6. Group discussions 12/20 0.6 

7. Self-Reflection and Self-Assessment 28/24 1.17 

8. Balanced Program Practices 15/20 0.75 

9. Encouraging Grit and Persistence 13/16 0.81 

10. Competence Building-Modelling, Practicing, Feedback, 
and Coaching 

18/20 0.9 

 Total score  8.76 

 
The results of the self-test as presented in Table 3 showed that T1 had an average mean 
score of 8.76 in the implementation of SEL-based instructional exercises.  She got 
'Self-Reflection and Self-Assessment' and 'Teacher Language' as the highest scores because 
she assumed that they were related to social skills, especially in relation to the language of 
instruction used. For example, T1 always gave motivation to her students including in the 
activity of writing journal. According to T1, after experiencing SEL in the class model, the 
students behaved better, more polite, and more respectful. She also assumed that students 
had seen her as a teacher who was quite pleasant and understanding. She also believed that 
the use of diverse learning strategies with more communication and feedback for students 
would be able to facilitate the improvement in the implementation of SEL in her class. 
 
Table 4. Teacher’s social emotional competence score 
 

Social Emotional Competence Score/Total Score Mean Score 

Self-awareness 13/16 0.81 

Social awareness 8/16 0.5 

Self-management 12/16 0.75 

Relationship skills 11/16 0.69 

Responsible decision making 11/12 0.92 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    328  

 

 

 
Table 4 shows that T1 obtained the highest score in responsible decision making (M=0.92) and 
self-awareness (M=0.81) skills, but the lowest score in self-management skill. Reflecting on the 
score, T1 claimed that her social-emotional skills were still not too good. She did not 
consistently filter out her own personal goals; and her emotional control techniques were still 
ineffective. T1 assumed that having better and efficient reflection on her previous learning 
activities could facilitate the improvement of her self-management skill. T1 also 
acknowledged that some of the implementation of this social emotional learning was still less 
optimal, especially on the practice of emotional control (silent sitting) and the large group 
activities because they were not regularly carried out. It happened because of the demands of 
the curriculum to complete the material and to conduct the conventional periodic 
evaluations (written tests and quizzes). 

 
The results of students’ social-emotional competence questionnaire 
 
Table 5 showed that the mean score for the students‟ SEC is 83.86 with the standard 

deviation of 14.554, and most of the students (71.4%) were in moderate category. The data 
merely reflect the students‟ existing SEC during the study or when data were taken. 

 
Table 5. The students’ SEC score distribution 
 

Interval Category Number of Students Percentage Mean Std. 

25 – 71 Low 5 14.3% 

83.86 14.554 72 – 97 Moderate 25 71.4% 

98 – 125 High 5 14.3% 

 
In relation to the five types of SEC, Table 6 shows that the highest mean score was 
self-awareness (M = 3.69), followed by responsible decision making (M = 3.51), 
self-management (M = 3.23), relationship skills (M = 3.19), and social awareness (M = 3.13). 
Most students had higher self-awareness and responsible decision-making skills than the 
other three skills. 

 
Table 6. Students’ SEC overall mean score 
 

Social Emotional Competence Mean 

Self-awareness 3.69 

Responsible decision making 3.51 

Self-management 3.23 

Relationship skills 3.19 

Social awareness 3.13 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    329  

 

 

 
Discussion 
 
This study indicated that the percentage of the teacher‟s use of full Indonesian 

(43.15%) and code switching (43.94%) is very similar or almost equal. Her focus of using the 
certain medium of instruction was to explain the topic or material of the lesson, to clarify her 
words or instruction, and to show her emotion (i.e. anger, happiness, and reminding 
students‟ mistake) and build relationship with students as Brock-Utne (2007) claims, 
“Students engage in meaningful conversations and build on prior knowledge through the use 
of a familiar language in which English as the only medium of instruction inhibits effective 
English learning and interaction, but using the first language to clear misunderstanding, 
reduce confusion and thus facilitate learning can be considered a valuable communicative 
and pedagogical strategy.” Furthermore, these results highlighted that the teacher 
consciously chose which language to use during her teacher-student interaction. In relation 
to the social emotional competence, this study showed that the teacher possessed 
appropriate responsible decision making and self-awareness skills as seen in the results of her 
self-reflection assessment. Teachers‟ code-switching is one of the teacher‟s positive efforts 
because they have a special responsibility to support student motivation and learning 
including through the provision of warmth and engagement, optimal structure, and 
autonomy support (Furrer, Skinner, & Pitzer, 2014). 

Meanwhile, this study‟s results also showed that the teachers‟ second dominant reason 
for her code switching was affective reason, which is specifically for building a positive 
teacher-students relationship. To make students feel safe and comfortable with her, the 
teacher should build a strong relationship with the students from time to time by showing 
respect, listening to, talking to, and making eye contact with them during daily 
communication (Alzahrani, Alharbi, & Alodwani, 2019).  

Regarding to the teacher-students relationship as the aspect of a positive learning 
environment, code switching assists teachers to foster a better relationship with students 
(Moghadam, Samad, & Shahraki, 2012) meaning that teachers can build positive 
relationships with individual and groups of students in diversity, communicate clearly, work 
together, resolve conflicts, and seek helps from one another. Bhatti et al (2018) also claim, 
“Teacher code-switched to maintain discipline, translate new words and build solidarity and 
intimate relationship with the students before, during and after the lessons” (p. 93). The 
affective reason of code switching is believed to be closely related to two among the five 
SEC, namely social awareness and relationship skills. Social awareness covered how to take 
perspective, empathy, respect diversity, understand social and ethical norm for behavior, and 
recognize family, school, and community supports. While relationship skills involved how to 
build relationships with various different individual and groups, communicate clearly, work 
cooperatively, resolve conflicts, and seek for help.  

Moreover, using positive encouraging utterances and statements in the affective 
reason is assumed to be more effective than using high pitch and negative discouraging 
utterances and statements. By doing so, the teacher was also building the students‟ positive 
characters as the teacher who performs code switching is choosing certain cultural and 
linguistic behaviors to build social emotional competence with their students (Hollie, 2011). 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    330  

 

 

A good teacher was responsible to build students social emotional competencies by giving 
warning and reminder to students for behaving well, and the teacher intentionally 
code-switched while doing them. It means that the teacher‟ use of code-switching leads to 
the teacher‟s own social emotional competencies that contribute in building the students‟ 
social emotional competencies, too. Therefore, the teacher‟s use of code switching in the 
classrooms is believed to play a positive role to build teacher and students‟ SEC within the 
classroom discourse. 

Meanwhile, the result of the SEC questionnaire showed that the majority of the 
students (71.4%) had moderate social-emotional competence. Self-awareness and 
responsible decision making were two among the competencies with the highest mean score 
meaning that most of the students were good enough in understanding and managing 
emotions, setting and achieving positive goals, feeling and showing empathy for others, 
establishing and maintaining positive relationship, and making responsible decisions. It is 
assumed that the students could recognize their emotions, emotional patterns, and 
tendencies and know how to produce and use emotions such as joy and enthusiasm to 
motivate learning within themselves and others, and they demonstrate prosocial values and 
make responsible decisions based on the assessment of factors including how their decisions 
might affect themselves and others (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Moreover, the results also 
showed that students had enough competencies in self-management, relationship skills, and 
social awareness meaning that they had enough skills in knowing how their emotional 
expressions could affect their interaction with others. Therefore, they knew how to manage 
their emotions, behavior, and relationships with others.  

Overall, these five skills are believed to help students in creating a conducive and 
effective learning English environment. This shows that the social emotional learning 
classroom model worked well to provide better environment for students to enrich their 
social emotional competence including for developing understanding and empathy (Husaj, 
2016) and coping with difficulties more successfully by improving skills and mindset 
(Yeager, 2017). Furthermore, the use of code switching in the classroom discourse can be 
considered as one of the teacher‟s social emotional competencies because T1 recognized her 
tendencies to code switched while interacting with her students as the high 'Self-Reflection 
and Self-Assessment' and 'Teacher Language' scores in her self-reflection assessment result 
showed that she knew how to reflect and assess her social skills including the skills related to 
the language of instruction she used. She was aware that her use of code switching can affect 
her interaction with the students, including in managing the behavior and relationships 
among them as “teachers‟ social and emotional skills influence student behavior, 
engagement, attachment to school, and academic performance, and teachers who are skilled 
at regulating their emotions report less burnout and more positive affect when teaching” 
(Durlak, et al, 2011). 

 
Conclusion 
 
This study indicated that code switching is the medium of instruction used by teacher 

to accommodate all the teaching and learning activities in the social-emotional learning 
context. Using code switching during the teaching and learning process is one of teachers‟ 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    331  

 

 

social emotional competencies. Building a positive and warm relationship with students is an 
important function of code switching made consciously by the teacher in the 

social-emotional learning context to build the students ’social emotional skills.  
Moreover, this study also provides support that teachers‟ use of code switching in the 

social emotional learning contexts can be a promising strategy to promote students‟ social 
emotional, behavioral, academic outcomes, and positive classroom climate. Academic and 
social emotional learning has become the new standard as the basics in education that 
students should obtain during their school experiences nowadays. Caring relationships and 
challenging but warm classroom and/or school environment are the foundation of an 
effective, sustainable academic and social-emotional learning. Therefore, the switch between 
Indonesian and English in the EFL classrooms plays a positive role to build the social 
emotional competencies of teachers and students. The teachers conducting code switching 
can be particularly supportive for the growth of academic and social-emotional skills in EFL 
context. However, it should be part of a deliberate and balanced approach, in which teachers 
design and plan clearly for when to use each language and what specific goals they want to 
obtain. When using code switching in the context of SEL, teachers insist on having a better 
communication, reminding, and motivating the students to have good SEC. However, this 
initial study is still incomplete and needs to be extended to understand how it might give 

impact on the students ’social-emotional competencies if conducted in regular classes that 
do not implement Social Emotional Learning strategy. These are also essential next steps to 
pursue if we think of the benefits in implementing social-emotional learning strategy for 
supporting students‟ positive learning in terms of academic and characters/personalities. 
Therefore, it is suggested for other researchers to conduct more qualitative and quantitative 
studies on this topic. 

Disclosure statement  

 
The authors declare that there is no potential conflict of interest in relation to the 

publication of this article. 
 

Acknowledgments  

The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance and cooperation from the 
English teacher, students, and staffs in the school participating in this study starting from the 
process of pre-survey to the data collection; and the financial support (Sriwijaya University 
Science, Technology, and Arts 2019 Grant) from Sriwijaya University Research and Public 
Service Institution. 
 
References 

Adriosh, M., & Razi, O. (2019). Teacher‟s code switching in EFL undergraduate classroom 
in Libya: Functions and perceptions. SAGE Open, 1-11. 

Alzahrani, M., Alharbi, M., & Alodwani, A. (2019). The effect of social-emotional 
competence on children academic achievement and behavioral development. 
International Education Studies, 12(12), 141-149. 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    332  

 

 

Anastassiou, F., & Andreou, G. (2017). Factors associated with the code mixing and code 
switching of multilingual children: An overview. International Journal of Linguistics, 
Literature and Culture, 4(3), 13-26. 

Anton, M., & Dicamilla, F. J. (1999). Socio-cognitive functions of L1 collaborative 
interaction in the L2 classroom. The Modern Language Journal, 83(2), 233-247. 

Bhatti, A., Shamsudin, S., & Binti Mat Said, S. (2018). Code-switching: A useful foreign 
language teaching tool in EFL classrooms. English Language Teaching, 11(6), 93-101. 

Bullock, B. E., & Toribio, A. J. (2009). Themes in the study of code-switching. In B. E. 
Bullock & A. J. Toribio (Eds.). The Cambridge handbook of linguistic code-switching (pp. 
1-17). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Brackett, M. A., Patti, J., Stern, R., Rivers, S. E., Elbertson, N. A., Chisholm, C., et al. (2009). 
A sustainable, skill-based approach to building emotionally literate schools. In M. 
Hughes, H. I. Thompson, & J. B. Terrell (Eds.), Handbook for developing emotional and 
social intelligence: Best practices, case studies, and strategies (pp. 329-358). San Francisco, CA: 
Pfeiffer. 

Brock-Utne, B. (2007). Language of instruction and student performance: new insights from 
research in Tanzania and South Africa. International Review of Education, 53, 509-530. 

Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. New 
York, NY: Routledge. 

Caparas, P., & Gustil o, L. (2017). Communicative aspects of multilingual code switching in 
computer-mediated communication. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(2), 
349-359. 

Cheng, X. (2013).Research on Chinese college English teachers‟ classroom code-switching: 
Beliefs and attitudes. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 4(6), 1277-1284. 

Choi, T.H., & Leung, C. (2017). Uses of first and foreign languages as learning resources in a 
foreign language classroom. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 14(4), 587-604. 

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). 
The impact of enhancing students‟ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of 
school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82, 405–432. 

Elias, M. J., Zins, J. E., Weissberg, R. P., Frey, K. S., Greenberg, M. T., Haynes, N. M., . . . 
Shriver, T. P. (1997). Promoting social and emotional learning: Guidelines for educators. 
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 

Furrer, C. J., Skinner, E. A., & Pitzer, J. R. (2014). The Influence of Teacher and Peer 
Relationships on Students‟ Classroom Engagement and Everyday Motivational 
Resilience. National Society for the Study of Education, 113(1), 101-123. 

Greenberg, M. T., Weissberg, R. P., O'Brien, M. U., Zins, J. E., Fredericks, L., Resnik, H., & 
Elias, M. J. (2003). Enhancing school-based prevention and youth development 
through coordinated social, emotional, and academic learning. American Psychologist, 
58, 466-474. 

Goegan, L. D., Wagner, A. K., & Daniels, L. M. (2017). Pre-service and practicing teachers‟ 
commitment to and comfort with social emotional learning. Alberta Journal of 
Educational Research, 63(3), 267-285. 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    333  

 

 

Greenberg, M. T., Domitrovich, C., Weissberg, R. P., & Durlak, J. A. (2017). Social and 
emotional learning as a public health approach to education. The Future of Children, 
27(1), 13-32. 

Hall, G., & Cook, G. (2012). Own language use in language teaching and learning. Language 
Teaching, 45(3), 271-308. 

Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2001). Early teacher-child relationships and the trajectory of 
children's school outcomes through eighth grade. Child Development, 72, 625-638. 

Hollie, S. (2011). Culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and learning: Classroom practices for 
student success. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publising, Inc. 

Husaj, S. (2016). Social emotional learning (SEL). European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 
1(3), 168-171. 

Hussein, R. F. (1999). Code-alteration among Arab college students. World Englishes, 18(2), 
281-289. 

Iqbal, L. (2011). Linguistic features of code-switching: A study of Urdu/English bilingual 
teachers‟ classroom interactions. International Journal of Humanities Social Science, 1(4), 
188-194. 

Jamshidi, A., & Navehebrahim, M. (2013). Learners‟ use of code switching in the English as 
a foreign language classroom. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 7(1), 
186-190. 

Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The prosocial classroom: Teacher social and 
emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of 
Educational Research, 79, 491–525. 

Jingxia, L. (2010). Teachers‟ code-switching to the L1 in EFL classroom. The Open Applied 
Linguistics Journal, 3(10), 10-23. 

Larasati, A., Suganda, L. A., Jaya, H. P. (2019). Indonesian English teachers‟ social-emotional 
competence and students‟ English learning motivation. Indonesian Journal of English 
Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 4(1), 83-94. 

Lin A.M.Y. (2008). Code‐switching in the classroom: Research paradigms and approaches. 

In N. H. Hornberger (Ed), Encyclopedia of Language and Education (pp. 3464-3477). 
Boston, MA: Springer. 

Macaro, E. (2005). Code-switching in the L2 classroom: A communication and learning 
strategy. In E. Llurda (Eds.), Non-native Language Teachers: Perceptions, Challengers and 
Contributions to the Profession (pp. 63-84). New York, NY: Spring Science. 

Mahboob, A., & Lin, A. (2016). Using local languages in English language classrooms. In H. 
Widodo & W. Renandya (Eds.), English language teaching today: Building a closer link 
between theory and practice (pp. 25-40). New York, NY: Springer International. 

Martinez, L. (2016). Teachers‟ Voices on social emotional learning: Identifying the 
conditions that make implementation possible. The International Journal of Emotional 
Education, 8(2),6-24. 

Moghadam, S. H., Samad, A. A., & Shahraki, E. R. (2012). Code-Switching as a medium of 
instruction in an EFL classroom. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2, 2219–2225. 

Muslim, Sukiyah, H., & Rahman, A. (2018). A study of teachers and students‟ code switching 
in EFL classroom setting. Journal of English Language Teaching, 5(1), 21-33. 



IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| 
|Vol. 5| No. 2|Dec|Year 2021| 

 

 

|E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index|    334  

 

 

Muttsson, A. F., & Burenhult, N. (1999). Code switching in second language teaching of 
French. Working Papers, 47, 59–72. 

Nurhamidah, Fauziati, E., & Supriyadi, S. (2018). Code-switching in EFL Classroom: Is it 
good or bad? Journal of English Education, 3(2), 78-88. 

Poplack, S. (2001). Code Switching: Linguistic. In N. Smelser&P. Baltes (eds.), International 
Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (pp. 2062-2065). Elsevier Science Ltd. 

Sert, O. (2005). The function of code switching in ELT classrooms. The Internet TESL 
Journal, 11. 

Simon, D. (2000). Towards a new understanding of code-switching in the foreign language 
classroom.In R. Jacobson (Eds.), Code-switching Worldwide II (pp. 311-342). Berlin: 
Mouton de Gruyter. 

Suganda, L. A., Loeneto, B. A., & Zuraida. (2018). Teachers‟ Use of Code Switching in 
Indonesian Context. Script Journal: Journal of Linguistics and English Teaching, 3(2), 111–
126. 

Thomason, S. G. (2001). Language contact: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University 
Press. 

Üstünel, E. (2016). EFL Classroom code-switching. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Wirajaya, G., & Suganda, L. A., & Zuraida. (2019). Indonesian students  ’social -emotional 
competencies and their English academic achievement. Journal of Education and 
Learning,13(2), 163–169. 

Yeager, D. (2017). Social-emotional learning programs for adolescents. The Future of Children, 
27(1), 31-52.  

Yoder, N. (2014). Self-Assessing Social and Emotional Instruction and Competencies: A Tool for 
Teachers. Washington: American Institutes for Research. 

Zins, J. E., Weissberg, R. P., Wang, M. C., & Walberg, H. J. (Eds.). (2004). Building academic 
success on social and emotional learning: What does the research say? New York, NY: Teachers 
College Press. 

 
Biographical Notes 
 
LINGGA AGUSTINA SUGANDA is a faculty member of English Education Study 

Program, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sriwijaya. 
ISMAIL PETRUS is an assistant professor in English Education Study Program, 

Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sriwijaya. 
ZURAIDA is an assistant professor in English Education Study Program, Faculty of 

Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sriwijaya.