Learning in Two Languages: Interactional Spaces for Becoming Bilingual Speakers

Abstract

Through a sociolinguistic analysis of interactional spaces created by the teachers and students at one 50/50 dual immersion school, this study examines how teachers present and implement this school's language policy and how these practices are reproduced and transformed through the language choices of the students in their daily interactions. The analysis shows that strict enforcement of the instructional separation of the two languages may emphasise a division of interactional spaces and language groups where only Spanish or English is used. The findings illustrate how the teachers and certain children are becoming marked as speakers of either Spanish or English and how their thickening identities may consequently limit the opportunities to socially interact in and practice the second language at this school site. Unless focused efforts are assigned to the creation of interactional spaces where both English and Spanish are used interchangeably by the same speaker for various purposes, we argue that simply ‘learning in two languages’ may not necessarily lead to interactional spaces that foster the development of bilingual speakers.

Keywords:

• bilingualism
• dual immersion language education
• identity
• language use
• kindergarten students

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant from the Office of Academic Preparation and Equal Opportunity at the University of California, Santa Barbara and by a University of California Academic Senate Research Grant. We wish to give special thanks to Dr Jason Raley, Eva Oxelson and Rassami Souryassack for their work in the ethnography from which these data were collected and especially for their engagement in thoughtful discussions throughout the development of this paper. We are also grateful to the teachers and students at ‘Mi Escuelita’ school for allowing us to be a part of their daily lives. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. Responsibility for any shortcomings is our own.Author(s): John J. Gumperz ∣ Jenny Cook-Gumperz

Notes

1. Proposition 227, which eliminated bilingual education programmes in California, was passed in 1998.

2. Within each number line, English translations for the spanish discourse are provided. The focus of the translations was on capturing the basic meaning of the speakers’ message rather than literal translation.

3. All names are pseudonyms.

4. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for raising the possibility that the thickening of identities may be an outcome of ‘a normal state of development [among children at this age level] and not a categorisation that is socialised by a school or dual language program’.