Psycho-Educational Research Reviews

participant for 30 minutes and the second 
participant for 80 minutes. The first participants' 
observations were limited to 30 minutes because it 
was not allowed more. This is a limitation for the 
research. Participants and researchers interacted 
with each other in order to obtain the necessary 
data during the observations. 
DATA ANALYSIS 
The analysis of the data was subject to qualitative 
method. Observations were used to identify code 
switching cases within the class. These cases were 
then analyzed according to their degree of being 
able to express their communication and 
information about the subject.
ETHICAL CONCERNS 
At the beginning of the research, the teachers of 
the student to be observed were interviewed and 
information about the research was given. A 
confidentiality agreement was prepared by the 
investigator. This contract mentions the content of 
the research and is signed by the parties, 

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Psycho-Educational Research Reviews | Vol. 9, No. 3 (December 2020) 
78 
committed to compliance with ethical rules and 
not to have special sharings about children. 
VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY 
A note was kept during the observation to ensure 
the validity and reliability of the study. The 
researcher interpreted the data he obtained, 
consistently with each other and with similar 
studies in the literature. The data obtained in the 
study were shared with the participants' teachers. 
The data collected in the research were also 
shared, discussed and exchanged ideas with the 
relevant experts. In addition to these With the aim 
of ensuring consistency, and verifiability, 
precautions such as expert opinion and detailed 
description were taken. 
FINDINGS 
In this section, the findings of two case studies is 
presented. Each case sample is discussed under its 
own title and the proposals for the relevant 
research is made under the same heading. 
CASE/ PARTICIPANT (1): 
The data for this case was obtained from a class 
including international students in a private 
kindergarten. While some of the children have 
Turkish parents, most of them have parents of 
different nationalities. There are two teachers in 
the classroom. One of the teachers is foreign (does 
not speak Turkish) and the other is Turkish but 
speaks English mostly in the classroom. 
A total of 7 students were observed in this class. 
Children were coded as M, O, K, U, L, E and C. M 
is 3 years with American mother and Turkish 
father; O is a 3.5 years old with Italian mother and 
British father; K is 5 years old with Turkish 
parents; U is 3 years old with Turkish parents; L is 
4 years old with Russian mother and Turkish 
father; E is 5 years old with American mother and 
Turkish father; C is 5 years old with Turkish 
parents. 
During observation, a child (E) was focused on. 
Cases will be given from E and L students by the 
researchers. The analysis and interpretation of the 
data was mostly based on the data from the student 
E's speech. The reason for choosing this student is 
that he is much more active and open to 
communication than other children. 
Researcher: How old are you? 
Student E : I don’t know. But for my birthday, i 
have birthday benim doğum günüm çok yaklaştı. 
E: has used code switching in this dialogue. The 
code switching that E makes is an example of the 
inter-sentential switching technique mentioned in 
the literature. He starts with English answer to 
English question, then continues in Turkish by 
switching among sentences. 
Ongoing dialogues have developed in the 
following way: 
L: (shows her dress) bak! 
Researcher: Ne kadar güzel elbisen var ! 
E: Benim de öyle elbisem var. Ama benimki böyle 
purple. Üstünde de böyle çiçekler var, değil mi 
Lo? Ama L’inkisi de böyle. 
In this dialogue E is involved in the conversation 
of her friend L and the researcher, and makes a 
code switching. Although the phrases in her 
conversation are in English and she says the color 
of the dress in English 
Turkish teacher: L’nin annesi Rus babası Türk. 
E: Öğretmenim benim babam Türk mü? 
Turkish teacher: Evet senin baban da Türk. 
E: (turning back to researcher) benim de babam 
Türk. 
Researcher: Peki annen? 
E: Annem Amerikalı. 
In this dialogue E speaks completely in Turkish. 
Then he turns to M who is attracted him and speaks 
English and asks what is in his hand: 
E: is yours?
Goes on after turning to the researcher:
E: Sometimes M cry because ikra always hurt her.
E: continues to talk about M.
E: Always she put dress. She cut all the time 
morning and she very dress dress dress no panth. 
Researcher: Do you also have many dresses? 
E: Yes.

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Psycho-Educational Research Reviews | Vol. 9, No. 3 (December 2020) 
79 
In this dialogue, E speaks completely in English. 
E continues his speech by showing his friend and 
says: 
E: no deyince ne diyor biliyor musun? 
Researcher : Ne diyor? 
E: Gülüyor. 
E: M. 
Researcher : Do you know how old is she? 
E: (showing ‘two’ with his fingers) ” this”
Researcher : Oh really! She is just two years old. 
E: Yes. 
Researcher: All right. What are you doing now? 
Elif: It’s toy. İt’s toy bilgisayar. (bilgisayarın 
tuşunda bulunan kediyi göstererek) look, cat. 
In this dialogue, E continues to answer the 
English question in English while speaking in 
Turkish. In the last expression, he used Turkish 
word by making code switching in the English 
sentence. 
CONCLUSION FOR CASE 1 
In this case, it was seen that occasional code 
switching occurs within the sentences used by the 
observed student. It was seen that code switching 
is done by switching from English sentence to 
Turkish, using Turkish word in English sentence 
and English words in Turkish sentences. This case 
is an example of how code switching is used 
effectively. 
In this case, the student can communicate with 
peers and teachers in both languages and can easily 
express what he thinks about the subject. Having 
teachers and peers who understand the languages 
the students used and the classroom environment 
allowing code switching use enable the student to 
communicate effectively and the student does not 
be encounter with the language barrier. As a result, 
it can be said that there occurred an effective 
learning 
environment 
and 
the 
social 
(communication) skills of bilingual students who 
can use code switching can be supported 
positively. 
CASE/PARTICIPANT (2):
In this case, the data was collected from the 
kindergarten in the Private College. Teachers and 
peers in the class are Turkish and give education 
in Turkish. English is only taught as a branch 
course. The dialogues and interviews of the 
researcher with the student “i” who is 7 years old 
with Portuguese mother and Turkish father are 
presented as examples. The student has been 
observed at different times in 4 different courses 
and activities and except for the course. Since the 
student's communication during the course was 
found to be inadequate, unstructured interviews 
with the student were conducted. The student 
refused to answer in the beginning. The researcher 
spoke English in order to relax the student in his 
speech and said "You can speak English i. I 
understand you when you speak English.”
The dialogues between the teacher and the student 
in the lesson and the researcher and the student 
outside the class are as follows: The Turkish 
language efficiency and examples dialogues 
between the researcher and the student outside the 
class will be given and interpreted. 
The teacher reads a story about the forest and asks 
the children questions about the story: 
Ö: ihsan sen hiç ağaç diktin mi? 
İ: um.. diktim. 
Ö: nereye diktin? 
İ: ummmm…. Ağaç kesenlerde umm.. tehlikeli 
değilmiş. 
Ö: hiç piknik yaptınız mı? Pikniğe gittiniz mi? 
İ: ben gittim. 
Ö: ormanda mı yoksa bahçede mi? 
İ: bahçede 
Ö: beren neye üzüldü ?
İ: umm çünkü ağaçtaki umm çünkü evdeki gitmiş 
uyudularmış yatakta… umm.. 
As seen in the dialogue, when student is asked 
about a specific topic in Turkish, the student is 
having difficulty in answering and making 
meaningless sentences. In doing so, he did not use 
a foreign word or an English word in any 
expression, even if he made some long sentences. 

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Psycho-Educational Research Reviews | Vol. 9, No. 3 (December 2020) 
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This situation has made it more difficult to 
communicate because it communicates with a 
language he is not good at. 
Ö: what do you see in the picture? 
İ: tree. 
Ö: what color is it?
İ: green. 
Ö: and what else can you see? 
İ: hause 
Ö: is your house like this? 
İ: No. 
Ö. What is she doing? 
İ. She is computing. 
In this dialogue that takes place in the English 
course, the student gives only one word answers in 
English to English questions. However, it has been 
observed that he can speak English partly 
smoothly and fluently. In these expressions, 
although there is no code switching or language 
mixing, he has provided much simpler answers far 
below his ability. 
The dialogue with the researcher is given in the 
following example: 
A: Have you any brother i.? 
İ: No. Benim erkek kardeşim p. ve k. 
A: Who are they? 
İ: Umm…
A: they are your brothers? 
İ: Um.. benim abim Ali. Benim N. ablam… umm.. 
A: You can speak english İhsan. I understand you 
when you speak English. 
İ: Do you like pancakes?
A: Yes. 
İ: I like pancakes too. 
A: İts delicious, ja? 
İ: Ja 
İ: at deniz we are swimming. Do you like 
swimming? 
A: Yes, i like swimming. I am swimmer. 
İ: I like too, at the Gaziantep l can swim. 
A: Which style can you swim? 
İ: Babayla… With dady obidik obidik. 
A: Your style obidik?
İ: (laughing) ja. (goes on) I have big truck. My 
birthday i have basketball, lego, big truck very big 
truck. They are singing me “happy birthday 
ihsan”. and tomorrow 8 May anneler günü kutlu 
olsun 
A: tomorrow or yesterday? 
İ: happy mothers day. 
A: What did you do for your momy? 
İ: i give a chocolate. 
A: Did you a buy gift for momy? 
İ: Yes flowers.. 
A: How old are you? 
İ: İ am 7.
A: You are a big boy. Have you any small child, 
baby at home? 
İ: No, we don’t have baby. 
A: Is there someone else at home? 
İ: lale, leyla, Nancy, momy and dad, and i, N. abla, 
E. abla, babanne, all the aile.
İ. Restoranda yemek yedik, fotoğraf çektik, aile 
olduk. 
A: ne zaman gittiniz restoranda, dün mü? 
İ: Hayır 24 nisan da restoranda gittik. 
In the dialogue above, as the student continues to 
speak, he has begun to make more comfortable 
sentences and expresses his ideas clearly. He even 
led the conversation and made the transition to 
different subjects. From time to time he made code 
switching and when he realized that he did not 
suffer from language barrier, he was able to speak 
fluently in Turkish and in English. 
CONCLUSION FOR CASE 2 
One of the examples shows the positive effect of 
the use of code switching and the other shows the 
negative effect. 

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In this example, participant 2 could not 
communicate with code switching due to language 
barrier and classroom environment. His language 
has been interrupted because the student is trying 
to express his / her thoughts about the topic or to 
talk to the target while communicating. The 
students were influenced because of the lack of 
sharing information about the subject and the lack 
of communication with his Turkish speaking peers 
and Turkish speaking teacher. As a result, the 
student was not able to express his / her thoughts 
about the subject. Failure to understand and accept 
the code switching and the mother tongue (by 
peers and teachers) has led to failure in 
communication of the student. 
One of the cases showed positive use of code 
switching, and the other side showed negative. The 
effective/positive (case 1) aspect is the result of 
having appropriate conversational environment 
which allows the use of code switching. In this 
example, the student can communicate with both 
their peers and their teachers in both languages and 
they can express what they think about the subject. 
These effective and ineffective examples are the 
guides showing if the use of code switching in the 
process of language acquisition is harmful or 
useful. 
On the other hand, in the negative case (case 2), 
the use of code switching was the result of the 
interruptions while expressing his ideas about the 
topic or communicating in the target language (not 
being able to share information or the lack of 
communication with Turkish speaking peers and 
teacher) because of language barrier and 
classroom-school environment. Not being 
understood or acknowledged of code switching 
and mother tongue by peers and teachers caused 
failure in students’ communication. 
As in the dialogue below, 
Ö: ağacın kökünün bize ne faydası vardı? (What 
kind of benefit does the root of the tree have for 
us?)
İ: umm faydası…. ( umm.. its benefit..) 
Ö: Ağacın kökleri ne yapıyordu? Neyi tutuyordu? 
İ: umm…şu bir ağaç ormanda toprağındaki …. 
Code switching is usually conducted between the 
Turkish and English languages during the game or 
classroom communication to communicate with 
peers and teachers in the environments where 
bilinguals are located. When the child talks, he can 
use code switching, even if he knows the meaning 
of the word in both languages. This makes him 
communicate more fluently and enrich his 
conversation even more.
DISCUSSION AND SUGGESTIONS 
The results of this study were similar to those of 
Pollard (2002). Pollard (2002) studied with 
Hispanic children in two different classrooms. One 
class is a class that offers bilingual education and 
the other class is only immersion. At the end of the 
observations of the two classes, the immersion 
classes have resulted in more bilingual learners 
experiencing more communication difficulties and 
more vocabulary deficits than the classrooms 
allowing to use both languages. 
Guo and Mackenzie (2015) have investigated 
codes and signs in early childhood. They 
investigated two children, Luke and Jim, just 
started to learn English. As a result of the research, 
it was seen that they could communicate using 
code switching without knowing the language. 
The term code-switching refers to the alternation 
of languages by multilinguals (Albarillo, 2018). 
This concept becomes important, especially in 
countries where more than one language is spoken. 
For this reason, it is seen that theories that will 
facilitate these processes are included in education 
programs and applications. Being bilingual in 
countries such as Turkey where the dominant 
mother tongue is a situation encountered less. For 
this reason, processes that support bilingual 
development are less involved in the education 
system. As seen in Participant 2; it is observed that 
children who are not supported to the code 
switching under the right conditions suffer from 
this situation and cannot acquire a language 
completely. The vocabulary (fewness) and the 
fluency in speech that the learner prevails in 
Turkish should not give the listeners what he 
knows about the subject. In many cases, it appears 
that students have achieved the competency in this 
language later (Pollard, 2002). 

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Psycho-Educational Research Reviews | Vol. 9, No. 3 (December 2020) 
82 
Lin (2008) emphasizes that code switching 
implementations are important if there is more 
than one bilingual child in the classroom. Her 
research is showed that the difficulties and 
problems faced by this field of studies on how this 
field might move forward in the future are 
discussed. The basic research question Albarillo, 
(2018) investigates is whether there are types of 
information activities and places where 
multilingual students code-switch. Another 
important finding by Poplack (2000) is the positive 
attitude of the speakers who code-switched more 
toward their language. The language environment 
of bilingual children is complex and fluid. Does it 
suggest that people who speak and read a language 
are more engaged in that language? It’s difficult to 
tell and is further complicated for multilingual 
people who speak different languages. 
Research has shown that the use of code switching, 
that is, allowing language switching, has a 
supporting role in children's acquisition of a new 
language. This research is especially important to 
show teachers the way they should follow in 
bilingual classrooms.
Under the light of the data obtained from the study, 
bilingualism should be supported starting from 
early ages. The activities related to this should be 
included in the communication skills of the 
students with the programs and activities 
organized by the related departments. Priority 
language preferences should be offered to foreign-
born children. 
REFERENCES 
Ahioğlu, Nihal. “Kültürel - Tarihsel Kuram Çerçevesinde 
Çocuk Gelişimi”.