Code Switching Case Study

Melody is the only child, when she was born, her mother was 37 years old. She was born in Honduras in a remote area. Melody father’s past away 2 month before she was born, so she only lived with her mother. Melody’s mother, never went to school, although she wanted to go to school her parents couldn’t afford it, but it was her determination to not let Melody crossed the same path she did. She was determine to work hard, to give Melody the best she could, she long for her daughter to receive a good education, and some day play an special role in their society. The language they only spoke was Spanish. Once Melody finished her middle school, one afternoon her mother came into her room with a letter in her hand. She placed the envelope inside
Melody was given the opportunity to go to America to complete he secondary education. It was hard for her mom to let her girl go, but she knew this was the beginning of great doors opening for Melody so she allow her to go. Melody is currently in Los Angeles, and yes, there is a large population of Latinos in this area, but Melody tries to communicate using her second language more often. What she does some times when she needs to communicate with others, is what is referred to as Code-Switching. On page 72 through Brown (2007) we learnt about the importance and the role that Code Switching play, “Most bilinguals, engage in code-switching, which refers to the act of inserting words, phrases, or even longer stretches of one language into the other, especially when communicating with another bilingual” Although Melody can now dominate the English language well, doesn’t mean she didn’t have hard times in learning it. Learning a second language takes courage as the learner can feel awkward when wants to express something, but due to the language barrier is not able. When an English learner is around native English learner, they would feel a bit sorry or shy, for not engaging fully into their communication, or at times, they struggle at choosing the right sentence structures, and vocabulary, they might be slow at doing it, and feel bad to make those around them hesitated. When Melody was just starting to learn English back in Honduras, she didn’t have electricity in her house, but to make her mother proud she would study with a candle light for 2 hours every day after finishing with all of her other homework. At home she only lived her mom, who knew 0% English, but Melody was determined to improve so she talk to herself and the objects she saw in front of her, that was her way of practicing and it worked! Melody use to write down many questions and she would ask her English teacher after the class was