User:Ingrid Farias Ballen

=Code Switching in a Pre-school Class.=

Introduction
In the classroom there are a lot aspects involve in teaching and learning process with children, code-switching is one of them. In this present exercise I describe two experiences where code-switching is a part of the language acquisition of a foreign language. Here code-switching is analyzed as an effective teaching, learning and a communicative strategy in the classroom.

Context
The context of this exercise is a pre-school group where there are 28 students, 13 girls and 15 boys. They are between 5 and 6 years old.

Their English language program is focused on communicative competence while their language mastery (Spanish) is seen as the key content learning and academic achievement but language learning is not separated from content learning. In preschool, children spend part or all of the school day learning a foreign language. It is a partial immersion program because while it operates on the total immersion principle, only a portion of the curriculum is presented in the foreign language, children exhibit a high degree of code-switching.

This exercise shows some examples where code-switching were use as a strategy in the classroom to communicate needs, ideas, concepts learned and enthusiasm to participate in a game. This examples are transcriptions of audio-tape recordings. Topic: Mains of transportation. Goal: The students will be able to identify the new vocabulary.
 * Example 1:

Activity: A game. The game is called TIC-TAC-TOE. The group is divided in two groups x and circles. The teacher choose a student from each group and she says: Daniela, Where do you want the X?, and the girl answer I want the X on the car. The teacher put the X on the picture. After that we change the turns for each group. Note: The students can not help their partners with the vocabulary because they will lose their turn.


 * 1	Teacher:	Andrea, Where do you want the X?
 * 2	X group
 * Student 6 :	I want the X on the car.
 * 3	Teacher:	Manuel, Where do you want the O?
 * Silence, please.
 * 4	O group
 * Student 5:	Teacher, en el tren.
 * 5	Teacher:	In English, please.
 * Silence, Please
 * 6	Student 5:	Pero no me acuerdo.
 * 7	Teacher:	I am so sorry. You lost your turn.
 * Amor perdiste el turno.
 * 8	Teacher:	Nathalia, Where do you want the X?
 * 9	X group
 * Student 18:	mmmm.. boat, Miss.
 * 10	Teacher :	Nathalia use the complete sentence. I want the X on the boat.
 * 11	Student 3:	I want the X on the boat, en el barco Miss.
 * 12	Teacher:	Brandon, Where do you want the O?
 * 13	O group
 * Student 23:	On the bicycle.
 * 14	O group:	Ahhhh! Brandon por su culpa, ellos van a  ganar.
 * 15	Teacher:	Sofia, Where do you want the X?
 * Sorry. Santi. Open the door, please.
 * 16	Student - :	Miss que si le puedes prestar las tijeras bonitas a Miss Lucerito.
 * 17	Teacher 	Toma mi amor.
 * Ok. Babies. Hand up Hands down.
 * 18	X group
 * Student 23 :	mmmm.. I want the X on the motorcicle, Miss
 * 19 	X group:	TIC –TAC –TOE, TIC –TAC –TOE, TIC –TAC –TOE


 * Example No. 2


 * 1	S: Miss May I go to the bathroom, please? Tengo chichi.
 * 2	T: You can go to the bathroom. Do not speak in Spanish, baby.

Example No. 3

Topic: Science vocabulary. Goal The students will be able to review the science vocabulary learnt.

Activity: The game is called “REACH THE STAR”. The class is divided in three groups. Each group has a color. The teacher chooses a student from each group to take a star. The child mimics the draw found in the star and his group guesses the word. The teacher selects another student to do a complete sentence including the vocabulary learnt.


 * 1.	Students:	Reach the star!, Reach the star! Reach the star...
 * 2.	Teacher :	O.K. babies. Let’s play. You know the rules.
 * Se acuerdan de las reglas?
 * This group is blue, this is yellow and this one is red.
 * 3.	Teacher : 	Bueno amores, hands up, hands down, hands up, hands
 * down.  Let’s begin with blue color.
 * Silence, please. Shhhhhh.
 * Please, come here Manuel, take a star.
 * 7.	Student 5	Guauu! Guauuu!.
 * 8	.Blue group:	Dog, dog, dog.
 * 9.	Teacher:	Ok., please mmmmmmm.. Daniela, do the complete sentence.
 * 10.	Student 25:	The dog is a living thing.
 * 11.	Teacher:	Very good Dani. Now the yellow group.  Please, come here Alejandra.  Take a star.
 * 12.Students:Alejandra!, Alejandra!, Alejandra!
 * 13.Teacher:	Do not scream, please. Sin barras.
 * 15.Students	Yes Miss
 * 16.	Yellow group:	Taking a shower,
 * 17.	Student 11:	No, no, eso no es, otra vez. .....
 * 18.	Yellow group:	Watering plants, wash your hands.
 * 19.	Student 11:	No, es una cosa, es, es....
 * 20.	Teacher :	Alejandra you can not speak, please, only mimic. Silence, please.
 * 21.	Student 11	Miss ya no sé como ...
 * 22.	Teacher 	Amores es una palabra, es un recurso natural que usamos para watering plants, washing the hands, taking a shower.
 * 23.	Yellow group.:	W a t e r.
 * 24.	Teacher:	Silent, Ok., please, mmmm Nicolás.
 * 25.	Student 20:	The water is in the river. The water is a non living thing.
 * 26.	Teacher:	Ah... Babies, esta sonando la alarma del simulacro, recordemos, primero mantener la calma, segundo hacer la fila sin empujarse y por último ahh... ya llegó Fredy el niño de décimo,  Let’s go, let’s go, hands back please.

Analised
The example (in blue) shows how the students or the teacher want to be sure to the idea or intervention was understood by the teacher or the students.

The children are capable of understanding English and using it in informal situation as in a game class. Children frequently use both languages freely in their answers.

The teacher switches languages to emphasize and clarify and to address children in the classroom.

Some switching was also accompanied by a different intonation and body languages or gestures making the meaning more clearly.

The teacher switches to Spanish when she paraphrases something she had just said in English.

Conclusion
Code switching is viewed as a part of the acquisition of the foreign language process, an effective tool to communicate ideas or concepts in a classroom setting and in this case children want to take part in innovate classroom activities. "The students must understand the new language item and they need to practise in it in order to be able to used" (Atkinsson, 1993)