Rough Draft

Rough Draft:

In America there is the stigma that those who do not perform adequately in Standard English literacy do not have an understanding of the English language. The same is true of the opposite, when Americans visit foreign countries they often times have little understanding of the language and expect that the people in the area will have some sort of understanding of English. Unfortunately this can also been seen in the classroom. There are many examples throughout time where students are belittled due to their lack of understanding of the English language or using their own language to fill in the gaps. To cope with this social stigma and discrimination, English language learners use code switching. In the article by Chad Nilep he describes code switching and its application “Code switching is defined as the practice of selecting or altering linguistic elements so as to contextualize talk in interaction. This contextualization may relate to local discourse practices, such as turn selection or various forms of bracketing, or it may make relevant information beyond the current exchange, including knowledge of society and diverse identities.” First it is important to understand and analyze how immigrants and foreign students adjust to socio-cultural norms, it is just as important to examine the counterpart, analyzing American language learners experience picking up socio-cultural norms of another country. In this paper code switching and its application will be examined in order to create an understanding of how to use code switching in the classroom. By understanding how students adapt their language to their environment, it will be clear to see the advantages of incorporating student’s language into the classroom.

            In history code switching has been used differently than bilingualism. This is because of how we define code switching. It is “ the practice of selecting or altering linguistic elements”. This means that one can code switch between two types of English’s, where as bilingualism is defined as being fluent in two different languages. This is where dialects come to fruition; dialect is defined by Merrian-Webster as “a form of a language that is spoken in a particular area and that uses some of its own words, grammar, and pronunciations” (Merrian-Webster). In the classroom student’s dialect will arise, and sometimes students will belittle other students because their way of speaking isn’t congruent with the social norm. It is easy to recognize when students code switch, they attempt to adjust to the environment around them. This can be more commonly seen in comparing discussion language with academic writing on the same discussion topics. Students are able to switch from a more social type of English, to a formal type of English.

Next Paragraph: foreign English language learners ability to code switch

Next Paragraph” American Students ability to code switch from standard to social spoken foreign language, also show how someone can adjust to two different dialects of the same Language I.e. France French vs Quebec French.