An examination of teachers’ language policing in EFL young learner classrooms in Turkey

Abstract

This study explores the instances when teachers employ language policing (Amir, 2013) in the Turkish EFL young learners’ context. Language policing studies are scarce in EFL young learners’ classrooms. Hence, this study is an attempt to address the gap in the literature concerning EFL young learners’ contexts from the expanding circle and contribute to the code switching literature. Data consists of 270-minute video recordings from three different classes in two private schools in Turkey and it was analysed using Conversation Analysis. Results show the presence of Turkish, English, as well as a bilingual medium before and after the policing was initiated through formulaic expressions. Unlike some secondary school contexts where the English-only policy is enforced with a strict rewards and punishment policy (Amir & Musk, 2013), speaking Turkish and the bilingual medium for the most part of the lessons was not corrected by the teachers in the current study. These findings have implications for teaching EFL to young learners, language policing and code switching in secondary contexts.