Abstract
In multilingual secondary classrooms across the Cagayan Valley, language choice represents both a pedagogical challenge and an instructive site of communicative negotiation. This study examines the pedagogical functions and discourse structures of code-switching in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms across selected public secondary schools in Isabela, Philippines. Drawing upon an integrated framework combining Sinclair and Coulthard’s Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) model and Ferguson’s functional taxonomy of classroom code-switching, this qualitative discourse study analyzes twenty-four hours of transcribed audio and video recordings of Grade 9 and Grade 10 English lessons. The corpus reveals that code-switching between English, Tagalog, and Ilokano functions systematically rather than haphazardly, serving three predominant functions: curriculum access (lexical glossing, conceptual clarification, and metalinguistic explanation), classroom management (discipline, boundary-marking, and instructional pacing), and interpersonal mediation (affective filter reduction, humor, and rapport building). While official curricular mandates emphasize target-language immersion, pedagogical code alternation operates as a vital scaffolding mechanism that preserves communicative momentum and deepens literary and grammatical comprehension. These findings challenge persistent monolingual orthodoxies in Philippine secondary education and advocate for intentional, structured translanguaging frameworks in regional teacher preparation programs.
