My blog post on slang in language education sparked a conversation with my professor. He mentioned and shared an article about code-switching, something I heard about before but was still fuzzy on its meaning. So I read the article shared by my professor and I found an interesting article from NPA that really helped to paint a more practical picture compared to the academic paper written by Bhatti, Shamsudin and Said.
I can appreciate both types of writing because they both help me understand more about a topic, in this case code-switching.
The article by Bhatti, Shamsudin, and Said, “Code-Switching: A Useful Foreign Language Teaching Tool in EFL Classrooms” offered an in-depth look at switching as a language construct. They, of course, define code-switching which is where a speaker of two (or more) languages will often alternate between the two languages in a way that suits their needs. Their article continues on to breakdown the code-switching into different part based on the speakers purpose of the switch in language, such as methodological functions or social functions. One aspect that caught my attention was “tag-switching”; which is where one might use the same word to mean different things such as checking for understanding by saying “alright?” or “agree?” and having students respond in the affirmative “alright” or “agree”. This was interesting to me because this is something I do regularly in my classroom without even thinking about it; now, I can understand how that might cause a bit of confusion for an English Language Learner.
The second article I read was from NPR and it was titled “Five Reasons Why People Code-Switch” by Matt Thompson. I linked it here, because it is definitely worth the read! I found this article really interesting because it lists five reasons why people code-switch, but it also provides personal stories and accounts as first person support. As a native English speaker, I found the personal stories to add the extra emphasis. The five reasons are as follows:
1. Unintentional – when the speaker just slips in between the two languages without realizing or meaning to do it.
2. Socially – the speaker wants to fit in to their social environment.
3. Necessity/Advantageously – the speaker uses code-switching to not only fit into their surroundings, but they also use it to try and get things they want.
4. Secrecy – the speaker wants to communicate with someone else without everyone knowing what they are talking about.
5. Expressions – the speaker uses code-switching to communicate a point more effectively; a certain je ne sais quoi for example.
The stories that go along with each of these reasons are humorous and gave me, as the reader, an insight into what it feels like to code-switch because I felt like I could relate to each of the stories. I can also see how this is an important skill set for my students. These are just five very common reasons for code-switching and there are plenty of other ways in which speakers would want to or need to switch languages.
Bhatti, A., Shamsudin, S., & Said, S. (2018, May 14). Code-switching: A useful foreign language teaching tool in EFL classrooms. Retrieved March 03, 2021, from http://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v11n6p93
Thompson, M. (2013, April 13). Five reasons why PEOPLE CODE-SWITCH. Retrieved March 03, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/13/177126294/five-reasons-why-people-code-switch