On Language, Authority, and a Schoolwide English-Only Policy
المؤلف:
Tara Goldstein
المصدر:
Teaching and Learning in a Multilingual School
الجزء والصفحة:
P97-C5
2025-09-30
213
On Language, Authority, and a Schoolwide English-Only Policy
Engaging students in issues of language, identity, and discrimination, however, is difficult work that can rub against our individual understandings of authority and roles in the classroom. Key to Ms. Edgars' success in facilitating Evelyn's journey was her willingness to work with languages other than English in her classroom. This meant living with the discomfort of not being able to listen in on or understand everything her students said. Because understanding everything students say is central to retaining power and authority in the classroom, Ms. Edgar's work with Evelyn depended on her being able to share power and authority with her students. For Ms. Edgars, sharing linguistic power and authority did not rub against her understanding of her role as an art teacher. Working with languages other than English did not prevent her from "opening doors" for her students. In fact, it facilitated this work.
However, not all teachers believed that working in languages other than English was in their students' best interests. Several mathematics teachers, one who was Japanese-Canadian and two who were White, Anglo-Canadians, explained that listening in on their students' conversations while they were solving assigned math problems was key to confirming that their students had understood the material that had been presented. Unlike Mrs. Lo, they did not speak any of the languages their students spoke. In order for them to understand their students' conversations, the conversations had to be in English. Because being able to confirm students' understanding of math concepts was central to their understanding of their role as math teachers, these teachers, like Mrs. Yee and others, experimented with English-only policies in their classrooms. They also lobbied the principal for a schoolwide language policy that would give their individual classroom policies even more authority. Unlike Mrs. Yee's English-only classroom policy (described in chap. 3), which was based on a pedagogical desire to provide students with more practice and could be negotiated with multi lingual students for use in particular learning contexts, the schoolwide policy the mathematics teachers called for was not intended to be flexible. It was intended to ensure that only English was spoken in Northside classrooms. Such a policy would prevent teachers from creating "private" spaces, off center stage of the classroom floor, in which student multilingualism could be promoted. A schoolwide English-only policy was never created because the principal of the school felt that it could not be implemented without engaging in a power struggle between students and teachers that would not serve either group well. As well, the principal was responsible for implementing the school board's, Language for Learning Policy, which supported student multilingualism despite the desire of some parents, teachers, and students for classroom English monolingualism.
As was mentioned in the Introduction, one of the core assumptions underlying the policy was the assumption that all students needed opportunities to think critically about the social values and status assigned to different languages by various groups in our society and to explore issues of bias and stereotyping related to language and culture. This was exactly the kind of work that Ms. Edgars and Evelyn Yeung had undertaken together. Such work wouldn't have been possible if there had been a schoolwide policy in place that insisted that English be the only language spoken in all Northside classrooms.
The fact that a group of well-respected and successful teachers at Northside (their students were renowned for their success in national and international math competitions) were actively resisting the school board's Language for Learning Policy by calling for a schoolwide English-only policy shows that language policies that work toward collaborative relations of power and authority are not easily implemented. Successful implementation of the school board language policy at a school like Northside would have meant that those teachers who didn't speak the same languages as their students had all agreed to share power and authority in their classrooms in ways they had never done before. It would have also meant that teachers had all agreed to think about their roles in new ways and engage with such questions as "Are there other ways for teachers to check for student understanding without insisting that all students speak English while completing their math problems?"
As a teacher educator whose role is to assist my own students in educating across linguistic differences, what I have learned from my research in Leslie Edgars' classroom is that working effectively in multilingual schools means rethinking traditional learnings and desires around authority in the classroom. It means asking new questions around "classroom management." It means struggling with the vulnerability that comes with sharing power. It means working with students in new ways—ways that are unfamiliar and untested. As mentioned earlier, it also means learning to recognize the discriminatory discourses with which high school students might be struggling. The following activities for further reflection and discussion allow my students and me to begin to do this work together.
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