The Filipino community in Spain is one of the oldest immigrant groups in the country, however, to date, there is only one other previous study on Filipino immigrants’ learning of Spanish (Salazar Lorenzo, 2008). The growth... [ view full abstract ]
The Filipino community in Spain is one of the oldest immigrant groups in the country, however, to date, there is only one other previous study on Filipino immigrants’ learning of Spanish (Salazar Lorenzo, 2008). The growth of these Filipino communities, particularly in Madrid and Barcelona, can be attributed to the Spanish Civil Code allowing Filipinos to obtain Spanish citizenship after a shorter period of residency in the country than the usual ten years.
The imposition of native-like competency and the preference for the use of the target language as common practice in the language classroom has subsequently resulted to the stigmatization of the L1 in language learning. Translanguaging, however, underlines “both the complex language practices of plurilingual individuals and communities, as well as the pedagogical approaches that use those complex practices” (García & Li Wei, 2014: 20).
This paper presents a study on the codeswitching practices by Filipino students in a Spanish class for immigrants in Barcelona. Data on codeswitching were gathered in two class sessions, using non-participant observation with audio recordings, as well as an open-ended questionnaire administered to the students.
The results of this study revealed that the students switched from Spanish to other languages for various reasons; additionally, certain differences in the codeswitching functions were also found upon comparison of the questionnaire results with the oral data. Basing on these differences, I posit that the codeswitching practices of the students is translanguaging as Garcia (2009: 45) defines it: “multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds.” The results of this study contribute to the growing body of work that discourages exclusive use of the target language, respects the attributes specific to multilingual learners and supports the use of L1 and other languages in the classroom.
References
García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
García, O. & Li Wei. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Salazar Lorenzo, D. (2008). Propuesta curricular para la enseñanza de español L2 con fines laborales a inmigrantes filipinos. Dosieres Segundas Lenguas e Inmigración, (4).
