Code Switching as a Robust Catalyst; a Useful Way to Become a More Strategic Language User

Code switching, or as sometimes is spelled code-mixing (Muysken, 2000), is a widely observed phenomenon especially seen in multilingual and multicultural communities. In ELT classrooms, code switching comes into use either in the teachers’ or the students’ discourse. Although it is not favored by many educators, one should have at least an understanding of the functions of switching between the native language and the foreign language and its underlying reasons. In this paper, it will be tried to clearly provide some basic definitions, elements, functions and classifications of code switching in different fields and disciplines and finally to come up with a general understanding as well as practical applications and uses of this pragmatic tool. This understanding will provide language teachers with a heightened awareness of its use in classroom discourse and will obviously lead to better of instruction by either eliminating it or dominating its use during the foreign language instruction.