Hi Claudine,
I’m glad to see our Deep Dive on Translanguaging is sparking dialogue and questions! Transfer and code-switching are closely related, and both are practices a teacher is likely to see when trying to uphold translanguaging in the classroom. They capture the ways speakers draw on their knowledge of languages and dialects to communicate. The key difference is that code-switching involves shifting between languages or language varieties, while transfer involves applying knowledge from one language when understanding or using another. Let me try to clarify further.
Code-switching generally refers to an individual shifting from one language to another or from one dialect to another. When a multilingual speaker uses more than one language (sometimes called language- or code-mixing) in the same conversation, in either longer stretches, “¡Ay, dios mio! I can’t believe they lost!” or shorter stretches, “Pass me the ciseaux [scissors], please,” the speaker is code-switching. Code-switching can also mean the speaker considers the audience, environment, or social context and uses this information to adapt how they speak (also called style-shifting). Whether or not you speak another language, you likely adjust things like word choice, pronunciation, or even grammatical structures depending on who you're talking to, often without even realizing it. Consider “Did you want to join us for lunch?” and “You comin’?”
Transfer is when someone uses their knowledge of one language to understand or use another language. For example, I know a little German, so I can sometimes make an educated guess at the meanings of Norwegian words, although I don’t know Norwegian. If I saw a sign outside a building that said apotek, I could accurately guess that it meant pharmacy because it's a cognate (a word that shares a common origin with a word in another language) of the German word Apotheke. As it relates to using another language, speakers also transfer language knowledge by drawing on the language patterns they already know to communicate in another language. For example, a Spanish-speaking child learning English might say, “I have a ball red” instead of “I have a red ball,” applying the Spanish word order in which color adjectives typically follow nouns.
There is some disagreement about whether educators should explicitly teach students to code-switch. Some advocate using contrastive analysis to help students understand differences between their home languages or dialects and standardized English. Others caution that asking students to switch from “how we speak at home” to “how we speak at school” can imply that one language variety is superior. My perspective is that if a student isn't already code-switching, there's no reason to require them to simply for the sake of doing so. Likewise, if students naturally code-switch to communicate, there's no reason to discourage it. Instead, educators should focus on providing strong language models without suggesting that students' existing ways of speaking are inferior.
What should you do when you notice transfer in your classroom? First, recognize that transfer is a natural and expected part of learning another language. Some forms of transfer are clearly beneficial, as in my earlier example of using cognates to understand unfamiliar words. Other forms of transfer may result in what we typically consider errors in the conventions of standard English. Here, how we understand and respond when a familiar language pattern doesn't align with the conventions of English is what matters. A student who pronounces eschool instead of school may be making a really smart transfer by drawing on a familiar Spanish sound pattern. They are likely reflecting the Spanish pattern of placing a vowel before words that begin with an /s/ consonant cluster. This is also where knowing something about a student's language system can be particularly helpful. Rather than simply correcting the pronunciation, you might explain, “In Spanish, words don't begin with /s/ followed by another consonant. That's why escuela starts with a vowel sound. But in English, school begins with /sk/, without a vowel before it.” Of course, you won't always be familiar with the languages your students speak. You can still provide clear explanations and models of English, while continuing to learn about your students' languages with resources like Bilinguistics' World Language Library.
The important thing is to view students’ use of language with an understanding that their knowledge of other languages and dialects is a strength to build on, not a problem to overcome. I hope these examples help you recognize the different ways students draw on that knowledge!
