Language Policy and Practice in Almost-Bilingual Classrooms

ABSTRACT

This study explores language policies in “almost-bilingual” classrooms, in which most but not all students share a home language. Teachers who are bilingual face a dilemma in these settings. Should they draw on shared linguistic expertise to benefit the majority while excluding a few, or should they forego significant benefits for most in the interest of equity? This qualitative study examines the classroom language policies and practices of one English-as-a second-language (ESL) teacher at a majority-Latino high school. Drawing on field notes, interviews, and systematic teacher reflection, the authors identify a collection of multilingual practices across ESL and sheltered content courses: translated texts, “translanguaging from the students up,” and concurrent translation. They discuss the benefits and drawbacks of these policies for Spanish speakers and “singletons”—students with no same-language peers—to offer pedagogical and policy insights for meeting the diverse and sometimes-conflicting needs of students in multilingual classrooms.

KEYWORDS:

• Almost-bilingual
• classroom language policy
• translanguaging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ All names of people and places are pseudonyms, with the exception of Philadelphia and the teachers mentioned by name in the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by an Engaged Scholarship Research grant from the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility at Swarthmore College.