Explicit Reflection upon Language and Code-Switcliing in EFL Classroom Discourse J.M. Cots & E. Baiguet ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to describe the interactional and pedagogical relevante of episodes of explicit reflection upon language (i.e. the presence of metalinguistic and metacomunicative comenis) and code-switching between the fust and the foreign language. These are two @es of linguistic phenomena which appear very frequently in EFL classroom discourse and that are seen by the authors as closely interrelated. From an analytical point of view, the study stands within the field of discouse analysis. The data analyzed have been obtained thorugh the n~ethod of participant observation and consist of five hours of recorded and transcribed EFL classroom discourse. Introduction The notion of explicit reflection upon language has been a very important object of discussion in the last ten years in the field of language teachingllearning, especially under the labels of Language Awareness (LA) and Knowledge About Language (KAL). Appropriated by theorists, practitioners and researchers, these terms have increasingly appeared in a widening range of academic and educational contexts in the last decade. However, its nature and status, along with the way in which it should be implemented in the classroom, still remain the cause of considerable controversy and disagreement among the experts. Thus, when exarnining the various interpretations of Language Awareness, we find that Hawkins (1984:4), the pioneer of the British Language Awareness Movement, conceives Language Awareness as a "bridging subject" which should be jointly taught by English and foreign Ianguage teachers across the curriculum. Among other things, he intends language awareness to provide a meeting place and coinmon vocabulary for the different fields of language education, to facilitate discussion of linguistic diversity, and to develop listening skills as well as confidence in reading and motivation for writing. Donmall (1985:7), in turn, provides a more general, and therefore less easy to implement, definition of the term. According to this author, "LA is a person7s sensitivity to and conscious awareness of language and its role in hurnan life". The development of such