The Fiat Pointer Volume 14 | Page 23

son in the first language and then moving into the second and back. Cook( 1991) describes that this practice makes the lesson as communicative as possible and is like the ' New Concurrent Approach '( NCA) presented by Rodolpho Jacobson. The approach helps teachers to balance the use of language switch at certain key points, such as during important concepts, when students are getting distracted, during revisions or when students are praised and told off. Based on this view, switching may be used as an effective teaching strategy for second language learning( Skiba, 1997). Skiba( 1997, p. 10) delineates the function of code-switching and claims that it allows the students to become autonomous over a period. whereby the teaching is reciprocated from the teacher to the student. Cook( 1991) suggests that the use of codeswitching in the classroom would provide for a bilingual norm whereby codeswitching is seen to be acceptable method of communication. Students then would feel comfortable switching languages within normal conversations providing for a bilingual society. It has also been outlined that codeswitching may facilitate language development as a mechanism for providing language samples and may also be utilized as a teaching method for teaching second language. Jacobson ' s
Cook( 1991) describes that this practice makes the lesson as communicative as possible and is like the ' New Concurrent Approach '( NCA) presented by Rodolpho Jacobson. The approach helps teachers to balance the use of language switch at certain key points, such as during important concepts, when students are getting distracted, during revisions or when students are praised and told off. Based on this view, switching may be used as an effective teaching strategy for second language learning( Skiba, 1997).
( 1983) view is that languages are best mixed in the classroom by codeswitching, if languages are separated
then teachers must teach each subject twice once in English and once in Spanish. Moreover, language separation is based on content and then it will be impossible to decide which subject should be taught in which language. Per Jacobson ' s( 1983, p. 5) NCA, teachers should be permitted to use intersentential code-switching. Jacobson fears that in intra-sentential switches a child is not exposed long enough to any one language and then it would be difficult for him to derive the grammatical, semantic and lexical rules of both English and Spanish. Thus, with the settlement of these issues, both teachers and students can establish classroom discourse in accordance with the requirement of the EFL language learning paradigms. McLaughlin, Blanchard and Hammink( 2000, p. 14) maintain that codeswitching significantly enhances the expressive capacity of an individual; and Genesee, Paradis and Crago( 2004) also urge educators to recognize the communicative and metaphorical values of code-switching. Code-switching, according to these researchers is a device of‘ great semantic power’. Hammink( 2000) further clarifies that children who codeswitch are expanding their codeswitching strategies from the merely communicative to the rhetorical, and a well-informed educator can assist in this development, just as he / she assists the development of other communicative capacities of his / her students. The need for a better understanding of code-switching phenomenon among classroom teachers is also emphasized by Valdes-Fallis( 1978) in these words:“ An understanding of code-switching is especially important for those classroom teachers whose students include Spanish / English bilinguals”( p. 124). Very little has been said about the characteristics of bilingual speakers who habitually alternate between two languages in their communities. According to Aguirre( 1988), language alternations or codeswitching in the classroom are obvious and unavoidable with culturally and linguistically diverse children and special educators should regard language alternations as a communicative strategy employed by the students learning a second language. Unfortunately, a true understanding of language alternation behaviors is a phenomenon still not understood by professionals in education and it may be perceived as a controversial issue( Baker, & Jones, 1995). However, it is the consensus of many in the field of bilingual education that it is a normal occurrence, and its use as a language choice in instruction is perfectly legitimate( Brice, 2000). Hammink( 2000, p. 8 cited in Macswan 1999, p. 47) clarifies its significance and claims that children’ s attitudes toward codeswitching are greatly affected by the attitudes of their caregivers. Recognition on the part of teachers of the expressive power of code-switched discourse and the sophisticated linguistic knowledge required to effectively employ the mode, should serve to alter the prejudicial opinions they have about the practice. It was observed by Haugen( 1987) that codeswitching was consistently ranked as least acceptable by teachers. Moreover, bilingualism itself is very poorly understood by most educators and for that reason much of literature available to guide the classroom teaching misrepresents language mechanism( Gulzar, 2010). The researchers agree with these comments that bilingualism is misunderstood by educators and course developers and due to this teacher misrepresents language pro-
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