Developing the ability to speak in a foreign language is an arduous task. This is because it involves the mastery of different language subsystems, simultaneous focus on comprehension and production, and the impact of a range of social factors. This challenge is further compounded in situations in which learners have limited access to the target…

This paper showcases a case study documenting the intended and actual language practices of a Japanese-English bicultural family. The study focuses on a family consisting of a Japanese father, Australian mother, son and daughter living in Japan. The parents were interviewed by questionnaire to determine their intended language practices. The…

Addresses the issue of code switching in the classroom and analyzes the roles and functions of the first language in the second language class. The observation of intra-sentential code switching shows complex learning ad communicative strategies and emphasizes the need to better understand these strategies and their role in the learning process.…

This paper examines the use of impoliteness by Spanish-English bilingual pre-adolescents as a resource for accomplishing identities in spontaneous conversational interactions in an elementary school setting. The theoretical approach employed integrates the concept of relational work (Locher 2004; Locher and Watts 2005), which is based on Goffman's…

Focusing on code-switching from conversation analysis and sociolinguistic perspectives, this paper examines interactions between 10-12-year-old language learners of immigrant origin and locally born students as they are engaging in verbal pair work. All are students attending language classes in state primary schools in Barcelona in which Catalan…

In this article, I explore language practices in Nigerian primary school classrooms against the backdrop of the policy of mother tongue education. Findings from the study show that there is a classroom bilingual practice that is rather unstructured in terms of curricular application and levels. The study shows that rather than implementing the…

Discusses the brain mechanisms mediating the switching of languages in bilingual subjects. To ascertain the brain mechanisms mediating the control of language switching, switching was examined in a bilingual patient with frontal lobe damage and impaired control processes. (Author/VWL)

Addresses the question of how the mind represents two languages in simultaneous bilingualism. Reviews theories of intrasentential code switching, focusing on the minimalist approach. Concludes that evidence from code switching suggests that bilinguals have discrete and separate lexicons for the languages they speak, each with its own principles of…

This paper presents the results of a small-scale study of codeswitching (CS) between Chinese and English in primary English classrooms with a view to informing classroom interaction with young learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). It analyzes CS of two teachers participating in the Primary English Curriculum Innovation (PECI) project in…

Reviews current research in three domains of bilingual acquisition: pragmatic features of bilingual code mixing, grammatical constraints on child bilingual code mixing, and bilingual syntactic development. Examines implications from these domains for the understanding of the limits of the mental faculty to acquire language. (Author/VWL)

Studies intrasentential codeswitching (CS) phenomena at two levels of abstraction: the level of lexical-conceptual structure and the level of predicate-argument structure. Argues that lemma congruence checking between languages involved in intrasentential CS at these two levels is a fundamental organizing principle governing intrasentential CS…

Contemporary best practices in the profession encourage teaching as much as possible in the target language, but when university faculty were observed teaching Spanish, the majority spoke English during instruction and many engaged in frequent code switching (alternations) between English and Spanish. Findings indicate that instructors used…

Proposes that interlanguage constructions are driven by different types of morphemes, and argues that the reason why morphemes are not acquired at the same rate is that they are projected differently from the mental lexicon. Claims that early IL forms are the consequences of the learner's incomplete acquisition of the abstract lexical entries of…

Discusses the incidence of codeswitching in primary schools in South Africa and examines the speakers' motivations for employing codeswitching. The discussion is informed by current theoretical frameworks in codeswitching research. Implications of codeswitching for education in South Africa are considered. (Author/VWL)

As English progressively becomes the global language, many native English speakers move to foreign countries to work as English teachers. However a review of the literature reveals that there is little research on their actual performance compared to the non-native local English teachers. This comparative case study examines pedagogic practices of…