Code-switching and Learning in the Classroom

Introduction This paper addresses the issue of code-switching in the classroom, and the ways in which the alternate use of codes is related to learning processes, whether linguistic or not. We wish to analyse the roles and functions of the first language (L1) in the second language classroom (L2), at elementary level in two educational contexts: a French school in Spain (SP), and a bilingual programme in French and Italian in the Aosta Valley in Italy (AO). Each programme emphasises the relationships between the languages in contact in very different ways. In the first situation, the French school abroad, all teachers are native French speakers, with little or average competence in Spanish, the native language of most of their students. French is the language used as the main medium of instruction. There is no official guidance as to potential roles of the children’s native language in the mainstream classroom, and teachers usually assume it safer to avoid its use whenever possible, except with younger children (Matthey & Moore, 1997). Specific historical circumstances have led to very distinctive educational choices and language provisions in the second situation. Institutional support has made it possible for the Aosta Valley, Italy, to develop a bilingual programme in Italian and French, involving the primary school system since 1989. The programme was extended to secondary schools several years later (Cavalli, 1998). More specifically, the whole teaching and learning experience is built on the basis of language alternation, with the fundamental idea that the alternate use of both languages reinforces awareness of the free, non fixed relationship between objects and their labels and the necessary ability to separate words and concepts. Language alternation should help promote metalinguistic awareness, through the communicative use of the two languages (Coste, 1994a; Coste, 2000; Coste & Pasquier, 1992; Gajo & Serra, 1999). The two situations are intrinsically interesting because they respectively offer a monolingual and a bilingual view on bilingualism (Gajo, 2000). They accord-