It has been noted by observers , that one of the biggest factors in the diminishing fluency in the use of the English language, as the second language in the Philippines, is codeswitching or codemixing. According to Poplack (1973) Codeswitching is a rapid and momentary shifting from one language to another. It can be found in one single sentence. There are different kinds of codeswitching. 1. Intersentential Codeswitching, for example, “Don’t open your books. Makikita kayo ni ma’am.” 2. Tag Switching, for example,”Mahirap ang exam,di ba? 3.Intrasentential switching for example,”Ipapasa daw natin ang Performance Outputs tomorrow.”
Observations revealed that codeswitching is mostly heard in some exclusive private schools . Some even tagged this as’ Colegiala English.’There are some reasons why teachers and students tend to codeswitch in the classroom: 1. To facilitate communicating and understanding with others 2. They are influenced by the people around them.3.They are nervous4. It is a force of habit 5. They are not reminded. 6. Difficulty in explaining a situation or a concept. 7. To express themselves in an understandable way. 8. Use for a comfortable level with the teachers and classmates. Continuous steps should be made in order to improve and enrich the teaching of both Filipino and English,so that the two languages will not be undertaken by the preference for Taglish or Engalog codeswitching.
There are local and international studies that claim that allowing classroom codeswitching posters a positive learning environment, it makes challenging matter comprehensible to students remedy the poor language competence of interlocutors.
However, according to Myers and Scotton(1993), they do not approved allowing codeswitching ,because it is an obvious symptoms and sources of psychological stress; it is a stressor, and according to Canagarajah (1993), it will be a clash of languages; still others say that codeswitching should be conditional in Mathematics,Physics and Filipino. Classrooms are strong
Training grounds for second language acquisition, but the question is, with the advent of code
Switching, can we still hold the title of the third largest English speaking country in the world?
By: GERMAN MAGPOC QUINTANA | TEACHER I | Asuncion Consunji Elementary School | SAMAL DISTRICT
