FL code-switching in the L1 environment among early-aged monolingual learners: a pilot study

Code-switching has recently become an interesting phenomenon to study because it is a part of the developmental processes, as well as the result of the use of, and exposure to, multiple languages. For this reason, code-switching usually occurs during foreign language teaching and learning, “especially when studying English based on the different backgrounds and reasons” (Yusuf, 2009). Accordingly, code-switching can be examined from various viewpoints such as the form, location, patterns, conditions, and functions, in relation to the use or the roles of the L1 and L2 or FL in the classroom, the former being most often referred to. This paper aims to determine the conditions for the use of code-switching in a quite different situation, namely, among very young learners conceived of as monolinguals who happen to switch to English (FL) in the L1 classroom environment. The article opens with a brief characterization of code-switching, defining its most frequent forms and functions, and a description of bilingual and monolingual code-switching contexts, an emphasis being put on the role of L1 in the language adaptation process and switching. The study, composed of a questionnaire distributed among 5 kindergarten teachers in public kindergartens in Poland, has shown bits and pieces of code-switching to be observed among four groups of Polish children (early-aged monolinguals), and their “linguistic behaviors” on a daily basis in the kindergarten classroom. What has been hinted at ranges from the exact situations of switching to language samples, presented according to age, and possible reasons for the current state of affairs.