Teachers' Code-Switching in Bilingual Primary Education

Abstract

Code-switching is a linguistic phenomenon that is widespread among the bilingual communities of primary school learners. Despite the school administrators' disapproval, teachers commonly resort to this practice as a pedagogical tool to facilitate the dual-focused aim pursued through the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach. The present chapter aims to explore the most significant theoretical contributions concerning code-switching in bilingual settings, with an emphasis on its pedagogical functionality in primary education. Data on code-switching were mainly gathered through the bibliographic databases Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. This literary review categorizes the functions reported by scholars into two broad categories: code-switching as a conceptual-understanding facilitator, focused on mathematics attainment, and code-switching as an interpersonal facilitator, divided into classroom management and affective development. The results point to the need to regulate its use and acknowledge the practicality of code-switching among bilingual school populations.