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English, Spanish, and code-switching use in the ESL classroom: An ethnographic study.

SelectedWorks Author Profiles:

Alejandro Brice

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1998

Abstract

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the schools, and English as a second language (ESL) teachers currently face the challenge of how to best provide instruction for students who are learning English. The purpose of this study was to describe the results of a qualitative study performed in an ESL classroom to determine teacher and student functional uses of language (i.e., pragmatics), particularly language involving code-switching and code-mixing use. The data for this study were gathered via classroom observations and interviews with the ESL teacher and ESL teacher aide in an elementary school with a 30% Hispanic/Latino population. Overall, the ESL classroom appeared to be teacher directed as evidenced by a high degree of questioning, commands, feedback, and informatives. Of all the instances of code-switching and code-mixing, none were judged to be grammatically inappropriate for either English, Spanish or the combined switched/mixed language form. The authors have developed a clinical intervention approach focused on Real, Experiences, Acknowledgment and Language (REAL). Taken from the data, REAL can be used by both SLPs and teachers to make language more meaningful.

Comments

Abstract only. At this time, full-text article is available only through licensed access provided by the publisher. Published in Journal of Children's Communication Development, 19(2), 11-20. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.

Language

en_US

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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