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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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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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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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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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”.
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