Language Matters Code Switching and Tran

The document discusses code switching and translanguaging in education. It notes that code switching, or mixing between language varieties, is a natural part of communication for many multilingual communities. Translanguaging builds on this and views language as a fluid process rather than separate rules. However, code switching was long seen as inappropriate in education and a deficit. In reality, mixing languages has positive effects in diverse classrooms around the world. For translanguaging pedagogy to work, prevailing monolingual ideologies and policies need to recognize linguistic diversity and build on students' cultural and language knowledge and competencies. Recognizing multilingualism as a resource is key to inclusive education for all.

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Language Matters Code Switching and Tran

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Language Matters column, Post Magazine, South China Morning Post

Code switching and translanguaging in pedagogy Pre-print, 3 May 2021

Lisa Lim

Language matters in education. More precisely, languages matter – not just officially recognised ones,
but, crucially, the multilingual repertoires and home language practices of students.

One dimension garnering attention for some decades now is codeswitching or code mixing. This
comprises the routine switching between or mixing of different language varieties in everyday social
interactions – a pattern of flexible multilingualism that the majority of the world’s communities
engage in. You might well do this with family members or friends from different backgrounds, at wet
markets, kopitiams and cha chaan tengs, or on social media and hiphop.

Closely related to and a development of this is translanguaging, a concept emerging in early 2000s in
the field of bilingual education. (The phenomenon has different labels in different subfields and
studies, including codeswitching.) Its name highlights the view of language being a process of
speakers negotiating and producing meaningful output, rather than comprising a fixed set of abstract
rules of pronunciation and grammar. The trans- prefix underscores both the fluidity of practices that
transcend socially constructed categories of language (thus going beyond the switching between
traditionally distinct codes), and the transformative orientation which centres and values multilingual
competence.

Codeswitching/ mixing or translanguaging however has for a long time been deemed inappropriate in
educational contexts, viewed as a deficit mode of interaction, with students considered incapable of
mastering ‘proper’ ‘academic’ language, needing to fill gaps with words or phrases from another
variety. Such a(n ill-informed) view tends to be bolstered by language policies informed by pervasive
monolingual ideologies.

In fact, such multilingual practice occurs in diverse educational contexts worldwide, to positive effect.
Students – and teachers – have been observed using spontaneous mixes or ‘blends’ of Tamil/ English,
or Afrikaans/ English/ Xhosa, or Cantonese/ Putonghua/ English, or English/ Singlish/ Mandarin/
Hokkien. Such pedagogy integrating the diverse language practices of students in the classroom
affords a more empowering learning space and equitable knowledge construction.

Prevailing dominant language policies and ideologies nonetheless present real challenges for practice.
Scholars’ suggestions include more explicit recognition of diversity (e.g. the value of different
varieties of English, including e.g. African American Vernacular English, Singlish), and the inclusion
of material that explores and builds on existing cultural and linguistic knowledge of students, to
reinforce how content learning in school is not incompatible with home competencies.