Code-switching: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:04, 10 May 2025

Revision as of 17:07, 10 May 2025

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Despite the advantages to code-switching in the classroom, research has shown that bilingual children seem to have more of a disadvantage compared to their monolingual peers.<ref name="Cornell Gonzales" /> For example, many of them are required to write or speak in English in American schools, rather than writing and speaking in their native languages.<ref name="Cornell Gonzales" /> Ena Lee and Steve Marshall state that "many students are required to write or speak in English, causing them to push away their other known languages that make up a huge part of their identities."<ref name="Lee-2012" /> Oftentimes, children speak their native language at home whenever they are around their family, and then once they leave their homes they speak in English. According to Barbara Mellix, the switch in language causes a person to be careful and aware of their surroundings in order to know when it is acceptable to speak a certain language. On the contrary, whenever they feel comfortable around someone, they tend to code-switch and speak in a mixture of two languages or more.<ref name="Lee-2012" /><ref name="García-2018" /><ref name="Mellix" /> The adaptation to standard English language can be quite difficult for bi/multilingual speakers and [[Multilingual writer]]s because they can feel unsupported and discouraged by the educational systems. Code-switching occurs very naturally and is hard to control for those who are fluent in more than one language.<ref name="García-2018" />

During class writing activities, bi/multilingual students are often times faced with [[Writerwriter's block]] because they are constantly thinking in more than one language, making it difficult to narrow down their ideas so that they can be expressed in a single language. It has been noted that [[English grammar]] is one of the most important yet most difficult topics in English, which even monolingual students struggle with. Code-switching makes it very difficult to follow all of standard English grammar rules because students' brains are constantly wanting to switch from one language to another, making it harder for students to formulate good grammatical sentences.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zuhriyah |first1=Mukminatus |title=Problem-Based Learning to Improve Students' Grammar Competence |journal=Register Journal, Language & Language Teaching Journals |date=1 June 2017 |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=48–61 |doi=10.18326/rgt.v10i1.48-61|doi-access=free }}</ref> According to Barbara Mellix, bi/multilingual writers can oftentimes feel "diminished"<ref name="Mellix" /> or "embarrassed"<ref name="Mellix" /> whenever they are forced to solely stick to standard English because they are afraid to be wrong and stand out in a negative way compared to their monolingual peers.<ref name="Mellix" />

=== Neuroanatomy ===