A “Flip the Switch” Classroom Activity
Wheeler and Swords suggest that contrastive analysis will “help students uncover the systematic and detailed contrasts between the grammar of their home language and the grammar of the school dialect as a tool for learning [Standard English] more effectively”. The first step in this process allows students to distinguish between informal and formal patterns of language. Wheeler and Swords discuss several activities that might introduce students to the concept of formality Links Of London Silver Chain and that will eventually lead students to conscious code-switching. Inspired by their work, my graduate students and I have adapted their activities into a Flip the Switch (Wheeler and Swords 58) lesson that serves to introduce the study of language by asking students to consider their language use and to identify the differences between informal and formal English. Though Wheeler and Swords focus such lessons on culturally defined instances in which students demonstrate language patterns that confuse or conflate informal and formal English, we have expanded successfully this idea to the social adaptation of language into text speak.
To begin the Flip the Switch lesson, teachers ask students to identify settings in which they communicate (e.g., school, church, playground) or individuals with whom they converse (e.g., parents, friends, teachers). After the class has created a comprehensive list of these settings, the teacher, with student input, selects four distinct communication situations. The four categories might include class-room with teacher, MySpace with friend, lunchroom with friend, at home with parent.
Beginning with the first category, the class translates a teacher-created sentence into each of the four settings. For example, the teacher might offer the following: “Hello. How is your day?”
Students identify which, if any, of the categories best fits this utterance. In this case, they might list it under “classroom with teacher.” Then the class translates it into the other situations. For in-stance, the same utterance in the lunchroom might become, “You, what’s up?” At home students might say to a parent, “Hi, Mom, how’s your day going?” Inevitably, when students translate the sentence for a digital communication, they will use text speak, such as, “Hey . . . how r u?”
Once the translations have been written for students to see, the teacher can guide a discussion about the similarities and differences among them. Students might note the more formal tone taken in the classroom and the informal tone used among friends. They might argue that they would use the same language with their parents as with their friends, and this debate will open other points of discussion about contextual use of language.
After the whole-class discussion, the teacher divides students into groups of three to four to conduct the activity again. Each group creates one utterance that might be used in one of the social situations and then translates it to the other three settings. They can share these sentences with the entire Links Of London Earrings class by writing them on the board under the appropriate categories for the rest of the class to see.
A final step to the activity is to have individual students write a sentence in the appropriate language of one of the categories. As individuals read their sentences aloud, the teacher calls on the rest of the class to “flip the switch” to the other categories. The teacher should increase the pace of calling for students to “flip the switch” as the activity continues, helping them to quickly, yet consciously, and code switch.
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