Kathleen Roney, Ed.D., Editor
University of North Carolina Wilmington
Fall 2015
Volume 29
Number 1
Preparing Pre-service Teachers with Effective Classroom
Language Skills:
Examining the Utility of Code-Switching for Enhancing Lesson
Delivery
By
Sharon M. Hunter, Ed.D.
North Carolina A&T State University
Marcia Watson, Ph.D.
Towson University
Tempestt Adams &
Derrick Robinson
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
William McKee
Guilford Technical Community College
Hunter, Watson, Adams, Robinson, & McKee
Introduction
Many of us have our own individual language diversities. For example, we often speak much
differently in front of colleagues versus close friends. We speak much differently in front of
small children versus coworkers. In a sense, we all have utilized a variation of the technique
“code-switching” in our everyday lives. Code switching is where a person switches between two
dialects or languages depending on the parameters of the environment (Beghetto, 2007). In
essence, code-switching is the duality between “home language” and “outside language.”
Mastery of this task is an imperative tool for educators, and its utility is ever growing. The
urgency for pre-service teachers to embrace and implement this dialectic adaptation – especially
with middle grades – is more vital now than ever. Due to recent changes in federal curriculum
legislation, many states now require middle school students to pass a writing test (Dessoff,
2008). Middle grades teachers have the lofty responsibility of preparing students to recognize
language contexts and value the importance of code switching in writing.
It is the authors’ observations that while students should be taught the values of code-switching
for educational attainment and social mobility, pre-service teachers also need to make these
linguistic adaptions upon entering the profession. This is because many pre-service teachers,
such as student teachers or lateral entry teachers enter the teaching profession from university
settings, shifting their individual paradigms from a casual student to a professional teacher. With
the changing trends in education, high-stakes testing, and increasing diversity, pre-service
teachers are now left to examine how language is affected by the changing times.
Not only is the educational landscape changing, but the diversity demographics are as well. This
directly impacts language. In a 28-year enrollment trend study, the U.S. public education system
reflected several shifts in student enrollment by race. More specifically, “…the White population
declined from 80 percent of the total population to 66 percent; the Hispanic population increased
from 6 percent of the total to 15 percent; the African American population remained at about 12
percent” (Aud, Fox, & KewaiRamani, 2010, p. iii). While these trends are reflective of the
changing diversities in the United States, pre-service teacher demographics are not nearly as
diverse. When looking in classrooms today, it is important to note that the majority of public
school teachers are White, and have been for decades (Kunjufu, 2002). In fact, today’s teacher
demographic data suggests that 82 percent of the current teaching force is White (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2013). Although we acknowledge that race matters not in the
equation of an effective teacher, we do assert that the lack of culturally relevant instruction does
impede the effectiveness of teaching (Delpit, 2006; Gay, 2000; Kumaravadivelu, 2012; LadsonBillings, 1994). Language delicately falls under this umbrella of diversity and is one of the most
important tools for learning. For the majority of this article, we focus mainly on English
language diversities and intersect this topic with pre-service teacher training. It is our wish that
pre-service teachers enter the field knowledgeable about how code-switching can be utilized as
an effective pedagogical tool.
Language Use in the Classroom
Technological developments within the 21st century have expanded various forms of
communication. Telephones now offer audio, textual, and video communication modalities,
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while the Internet offers immeasurable ways in which people can communicate. Blogging,
picture messaging, podcasting, and social networking are just a handful of the countless
applications and websites that connect people globally. What has spawned from this rise in
communication options is the lack of dependency on oral communication skills (Turner, 2009).
The “texting language” phenomenon has coded virtually any common phrase and transferred
them into acronyms or shortened phrases. Middle school students are at the crux of this writing
style. For example, words such as “you” and “love” are often coded as “u” and “luv.” Common
phrases such as “what are you doing” and “I’ll talk to you later” are shortened as “WYD” and
“TTYL.” Some phone devices even have options to bypass words altogether by offering
“emojicons,” or pictures to substitute for words, such as a heart symbol instead of the written
word “heart.” While virtually everyone can attest to some benefits to these technological
advances, standardized tests across the nation still expect oral and written language competency
in “Standard English.” This poses an urgent need for educators to consider the changing learning
environments for 21st century learners. Thus, there is a new “code-switch” that has emerged,
including the switch between formal and casual speech and the switch between texting and
spoken language. This produces increasingly difficult environments in today’s classrooms.
Language now must bridge practical, everyday skills with formal, testable skills. Pre-service
teachers must enter the profession navigating very carefully their own uses of language.
Linguists define dialects as language varieties that are typically associated with a group of people
(Godly, Sweetland, Wheeler, Minnici, & Carpenter, 2006). Furthermore, “…contrary to popular
understanding, dialect does not mean a lesser, informal, or ungrammatical way of speaking”
(Godly, et al., 2006, p. 30). Speakers of limited English, grammar and other vernaculars have
continued to be misunderstood, misdiagnosed, disrespected, and under-assisted in their efforts to
add Standard English to their linguistic repertoire. Delpit (2006) revealed in Other People’s
Children that many African American students are misinterpreted through speech and their use
of African American English is often stigmatized as less intelligent. Furthermore, these students
have also seen limited school success and occupational mobility. Rather than drilling the idea of
“Standard English” into pre-service teachers by labeling home language as “wrong,” the authors
recommend teaching pre-service teachers to recognize the grammatical differences between
home speech and school speech so that they are then able to choose the language style most
appropriate to the time, place, audience, and communicative purpose. It is important for teachers
never to stigmatize students’ home language (Godly, et al., 2006). In turn, code-switching
techniques should be encouraged in classrooms for teachers and students to use.
For this section, we use the term “classroom language” to describe the collection phrases
commonly used for communication between teacher and students. For example, "Open your
books to page fifteen,” is a common directive many teachers might say. On the other hand,
questions such as, “May I go to the bathroom” is a common question asked from students. While
research and curriculum is usually placed on the boarder “target language,” such as English,
classroom language can also be an invaluable and teachable way of learning. These everyday
statements, phrases, and questions are all teachable moments that require pre-service teachers to
have mastery of both dialectical versions. For example, when prompted with a question like:
“What that is?” teachers can use these classroom language moments to redirect students with the
standard form of the same sentence, translating to “What is that?” This strays from rudimentary,
rote grammar exercises and mobilizes everyday classroom interactions and teachable
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opportunities. The requirement, however, is for entering pre-service teachers to be mindful of
their own language use in the classrooms.
Classroom language redirection promotes English communication skills that are essential for
mastery of state standardized assessments. In addition, the mutual interaction between students
and teachers adds utility to everyday, classroom conversation, thus involving students in the
lesson and initiating active language learning skills. To redirect vernacular English in the
classrooms, pre-service teachers may need to refresh their grammar and spelling skills. In
addition, pre-service teachers should be cognizant of their use of the aforementioned “texting
language” to ensure proper student mastery. In appropriate “classroom language” situations,
teachers should encourage the awareness of “code-switching” for students, teaching them the
importance of situation and environment on dialectical variations.
A Systematic Approach to Understanding Language Usage in the Classroom
Researcher Kumaravadivelu (2012) focused on the complexities of language, language learning,
and language teacher education. His recent focus centers on post-modern language acquisition
that highlights the inseparable bond between language and culture. In his most recent work,
Language Teacher Education for a Global Society, Kumaravadivelu (2012) unveils the modern
reality of language in a post-modern world. This unites his research about the relevance of
language to critical classroom issues today. The notions of culturally relevant pedagogy and
culturally responsive curriculum, which are important to districts and practitioners, are asserted
through the lens of language learning.
Kumaravadivelu (2012) acknowledges a process known as KARDS, which equips teachers to
becoming more transforming individuals. KARDS is an acronym that stands for: knowing,
analyzing, recognizing, doing, and seeing. Each step is critical for language awareness in
educational settings. Knowing examines knowledge teachers bring to the classroom – including
professional knowledge and personal knowledge (Kumaravadivelu, 2012, p. 12). Knowing is the
first step, stemming from the process pre-service teachers endure as they complete their
programs and field experiences in traditional certification programs. Extending beyond
professional and pedagogical knowledge gleaned from these experiences, knowing also requires
pre-service teachers to utilize their experiences and personal knowledge as well. In this case,
knowledge includes the awareness of language variations and code-switching. Analyzing
examines the teacher’s ability to properly identify student’s knowledge and lack of knowledge as
learning opportunities (Kumaravadivelu, 2012, p. 37). Recognizing is heavily rooted in
recognizing the teacher’s “self” and continues new identify formations (Kumaravadivelu, 2012,
p. 55). Analyzing and recognizing are highly introspective tasks on the part of pre-service
teachers. In action, teachers would participate in critical reflection exercises where they assess
themselves, language experiences, strengths and weaknesses, biases, and growth. Doing is where
the teacher’s realization of self and beliefs are brought into action, using critical pedagogy
(ibid.). In a practical sense, doing often comes in the form of teaching for pre-service educators –
most often this is exhibited through “student teaching.”
The last stage, seeing, connects past experiences with current conditions through seeing-in,
seeing-at, and seeing-that (Kumaravadivelu, 2012, p. 99). Seeing is a highly introspective
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process, but one that is plausible for teachers in classrooms. Seeing requires a high level of
reflection and is the critical application of all of the other components of the model. For preservice teachers, moving across KARDS to accomplish “seeing” requires them to first
understand that the entire KARDS process is a continuum, which must be revisited as necessary.
The implementation of the KARDS model is possible, and is imperative for today’s increasingly
diverse classrooms. Pre-service teachers are capable of achieving the reflexivity in the KARDS
model as suggested by Kumaravadivelu (2012). Most pre-service teachers bring their own
unique sets of knowledge to classrooms, including their 21st century knowledge of vernacular
language and texting language. We propose, however, that Standard English also be brought to
the classroom to ensure student mastery on state examinations. As mentioned, with many preservice teachers entering the profession from casual college settings, vernacular and Standard
English must continuously be repositioned. The outline of the KARDS model couples
curriculum and pedagogy with an overarching awareness of language and language diversity. In
order to effectively exhibit the KARDS model, language must be at the center of lesson planning
and instructional development. It is through communication and inquiry that both students and
teachers build effective classrooms (Kumaravadivelu, 2012).
Implementations and Recommendations
To make the KARDS model more practical for pre-service teacher education programs, we have
created four guiding principles for implementation: (a) confidence, (b) interest, (c) reinterpretation, and (d) legitimation. These guiding principles have been drafted to help foster
more practical usage of the KARDS model in middle school classrooms. Using the
aforementioned principles, pre-service teacher experiences can enhance the development of
instructional effectiveness, which can be applied across multiple disciplines, content subjects,
and cultures. The key benefit in the proposed principles is that both conventional and cultural
language can be integrated in a way that strengthens students without sacrificing the dignity of
communities or compromising the quality of education.
Confidence
Teacher confidence is often connected to the concept of teacher efficacy. Eckert (2013) notes
that teacher efficacy, which is a teacher’s perception of their preparedness, is the function of two
types of efficacy: (a) personal teacher efficacy, and (b) general teacher efficacy. Where personal
teacher efficacy determines the teacher’s ability to engage in and construct learning
opportunities, general teacher efficacy is associated with a teacher’s ability to encourage success
across situations or contexts (Eckert, 2013, p. 77). Research suggests that African American
children, for example, develop a learning behavior, as early as preschool, which seeks peer help
for academic needs and teacher help for social needs (Farris-Watkins, 2002). As a result,
observers and researchers have long noted a communal and relational learning behavior observed
among students from pre-dominantly African American communities (Durodoye & Hildreth,
1995; Farris-Watkins, 2002; Hilliard, 1992). Failure to embrace learning behaviors of the
communities that teachers serve can create a mismatch between teacher and learning that can
diminish the confidence of the teacher. For effective code-switching to be implemented,
immersion into the total lived experience of the community, beyond the school walls, is
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necessary. Developing confidence in pre-service teachers requires that teacher preparation
programs create experiences that account for the academic and social learning environment of
students.
Therefore, it is recommended that teacher preparation programs extend field experience training,
which is often relegated to student teaching, to include community field experiences as well. Just
as the student teacher has a supervisory teaching mentor at school, pre-service teachers should
also have community mentors that assist with helping them to experience and understand the
child in multiple settings. This experience also builds what Garcia (2004) terms as family
involvement teacher efficacy, the ability or willingness to engage family and community in the
learning experience of the student. Applied to the KARDS model, the confidence principle
increases the pre-service teacher’s ability to engage in knowing and analyzing. In broadening the
personal and professional knowledge of pre-service teachers, as well as their ability to identify
academic and social strengths and opportunities for growth, the confidence principle also
increases a teacher’s ability to engage in seeing, as they match broader experiences with the
current classroom conditions (Kumaravadivelu, 2012).
Interest
If you have no interest in your tasks, then you will not enjoy them, you will not try hard, and you
will not gain observable success. Studying within a concerted interest increases contextual
understanding and stimulates the prolonged passion for learning. This is where the importance of
mastering both content and pedagogy are important. Taking an interest in developing both
instructional areas is vitally important. Teachers who are able to identify and tailor learning to
the interest of students create a greater opportunity to develop authentic differentiation and
integrate language arts strands across disciplines. For example, the middle school language arts
teacher that discovers a student’s love of hip-hop music can employ readings, newspaper
clippings, videos, and music billboard statistics to introduce hip-hop as a catalyst for poetry,
figurative language, and social action. As the students learn the language of their interests, it is
also integrated into content language. The transference of discipline specific language into
student language also represents a form of “code-switching,” which is an effective way to deliver
instruction.
It is therefore recommended that teacher preparation programs, particularly through methods
courses, build the teaching repertoire of the pre-service teachers. Two activities can achieve this
goal. First, teacher educators can implement an ongoing assignment where pre-service teachers
choose three non-discipline interests for which their mission is to provide a weekly post/writing
that demonstrates the integration of their discipline to at least one interest. Writing or posting
such output further engages the pre-service teacher in language acquisition and usage. Second,
teacher educators can also pose a fictitious student profile, that identifies their interests, and
challenge the pre-service teachers to develop lessons, activities, materials, or learning
experiences that integrate the student interest with their discipline. As a weekly challenge, this
activity helps pre-service teachers with thinking about their discipline with their students in
mind, while broadening their own view of their discipline. Applied to the KARDS model, the
Interest principle integrates analyzing and recognizing through training teachers to identify
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student knowledge and interests and identifying the proper learning context with which to
engage in doing actions that increase language arts skills across disciplines.
Re-Interpretation
The principle of re-interpretation represents a paradigm shift in communication. It employs codeswitching as a legitimate source of learning and asserts that there is no universal standardization
of language. What is conventional, or “standard English,” is simply one legitimate way of
language utilization. One example that can capture this principle would be utilizing a game such
as jeopardy in a lesson for students to practice translating home language into standard or
professional English. Another activity is the Interactive Notebook, which comes in many
variations. The interactive notebook involves the transformation of a standard spiral notebook
into a communication platform between students and teachers. Through this model, students are
able to identify their own code-switching usages, which will better equip them for upcoming
state assessments. The logistics of the notebook are as follows: first, divide the notebook into
two sections; second, have students label each section: (a) the artistic left side, and (b) the
conventional right side. With a notebook open to the second sheet, have students visualize the
back of the previous page as the artistic side, and place vocabulary on the conventional side.
Then individually (or within a group), the student can provide his/her interpretation, or coding,
of the vocabulary on the artistic side. The artistic side allows the learner to use written or visual
interpretations of the vocabulary. Allowing the learners to present their re-interpretations can
also strengthen the learners’ presentation skills and provide the teachers with greater insight into
the thinking of their learners. This process can also be done in reverse, from artistic to
conventional, on many topics as well. By offering the learner the opportunity to re-interpret
language from or to conventional language, we are strengthening the vocabulary through
advanced synonyms, antonyms, and analogies while empowering the learner as an agent of
learning.
It is therefore recommended that teacher educators adopt the re-interpretation principle as a tool
to enable teachers to broaden their ability to recognize opportunities to build effective
communication and code-switching strategies. Teacher educators can provide both the research
(Shavelson & Stern, 1981; Waldman & Crippen, 2009) and the practical experience of the
interactive notebooks as a tool for discipline-specific and non-discipline language development.
The re-interpretation principle connects most directly to the recognizing, doing, and seeing
portions of the KARDS model.
Legitimation
While it is easy to accept that every discipline has its own language, it is necessary to accept that
each culture has its own language. As technology offers more platforms for learning to take
place, it too has developed its own language. To truly accept these premises means to legitimate
language across discipline, culture, and platform. Fortunately, a language arts curriculum is both
an independent academic discipline and an interdisciplinary subject. As the aforementioned
classroom demographics constantly change, successful delivery of instruction must be multidisciplinary, multi-cultural, and multi-sensory to compete with a world that is already moving in
that direction. Middle school language arts teachers have the opportunity to deliver instruction
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that shapes other content subjects. In one language arts lesson, for example, students have the
ability to learn about persuasive writing, create and administer student opinion polls within the
school, calculate averages, and present written and oratory findings on a virtual platform! The
power of language arts is undisputed, and a necessity for all other subjects; however, mastering
language diversity and communication is vitally important for both students and teachers to
grasp.
It is recommended that teacher preparation programs become laboratories for creating
renaissance teachers that legitimate language arts across discipline, culture, and platform.
Teacher educators must provide pre-service teachers with the practice space to increase their
literacy and versatility from Edgar Allen Poe, Zora Neal Hurston, and the scientific method to
online citizen journalism, video production, and sports box statistics. The legitimation principle
directly applies to each aspect of the KARDS model, because it substantiates language diversity.
Pre-service teachers that are trained to legitimate language across disciplines, culture, and
platform extend their personal and professional ability to identify learning opportunities for
students. Teachers mastering this concept create lessons and activities that connect past and
present experiences with future growth.
The KARDS model is no easy task. It is our recommendation that both pre-service and
experienced teachers participate in daily journaling to record moments of language frustration.
This act might seem trivial, but it allows for honest moments of teacher assessment, and
uncovers preconceived beliefs about language in the classroom. As teachers recognize
opportunities within lessons for re-interpretation, this principle inspires the level of learner
agency that moves the learning experience into action and reflection.
Conclusion
In this article, we have provided practical strategies for pre-service teachers to implement into
their everyday classrooms. In summary, the immediate practicality and frequency use of
classroom language helps students appreciate English and develop their language confidence.
Through the appreciation of students’ home language, pre-service teachers can help themselves
and their students master and appreciate the utility of standard language, which is connected to
social mobility. This is not to imply that all pre-service teachers need to target one hegemonic,
standardized way of speaking English, but simply to recognize that students often speak
differently depending on the audience. This acknowledgment is immeasurably valuable for all
educators to understand, especially pre-service teachers entering the profession.
In reality, current systems of socioeconomic stratification have imposed a system in which the
command of “standard” or white middle-class English has become a requirement for success in
the professional world. However, the proficiency in normalized English should not discredit the
utility of vernacular English. In a practical sense, pre-service teachers should be equipped with
knowledge of both vernacular English and “standard” English. While the former is important for
cultural relevancy, the latter is imperative as well. The high-stakes standardized testing
environment festering currently in public school classrooms nationwide, is not concerned with
vernacular usages of language; meaning, the standardized version of English proficiency is
testable and enforced. Since students are required to master these components for state
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achievement tests, it remains imperative that pre-service teachers have English proficiency in
order to masterfully teach students.
One suggestion that the authors propose is for pre-service teachers to not only be dialectically
aware, but compassionate towards all students’ language variations. This is indeed a form of
diversity! In closing, while the urgency for students to grasp the utility of their own vernacular
awareness, pre-service teachers also play an integral role in the fostering of effective
communication skills with urban students. Educators must urgently recognize their roles as a
vital link in student language mastery and achievement.
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Turner, K. H. (2009). Flipping the switch: Code-switching from text speak to standard English.
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Sharon M. Hunter is a Clinical Faculty Member at North Carolina A&T State University. Email:
smhunter@ncat.edu
Marcia Watson is Assistant Professor at Towson University. Email: mjwatson@towson.edu
Tempestt Adams is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Email:
tadams51@uncc.edu
Derrick Robinson is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Email:
drobin60@uncc.edu
William McKee is Director for Assessments and Testing at Guilford Technical Community
College. Email:wfmckee@gtcc.edu
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