Language Teaching

http://journals.cambridge.org/LTA

Additional services for Language Teaching:

Email alerts: Click here
Subscriptions: Click here
Commercial reprints: Click here
Terms of use : Click here

Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research
Marilyn Martin­Jones

Language Teaching / Volume 33 / Issue 01 / January 2000, pp 1 ­ 9
DOI: 10.1017/S0261444800015123, Published online: 12 June 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0261444800015123

How to cite this article:
Marilyn Martin­Jones (2000). Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research. Language Teaching, 33, pp 
1­9 doi:10.1017/S0261444800015123

Request Permissions : Click here

Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/LTA, IP address: 132.203.235.189 on 30 Apr 2013
Survey article
Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research'
Marilyn Martin-Jones University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK

Classroom-based research in bilingual settings" is
now entering its third decade. Its origins lie in stud-
ies which were carried out in bilingual education
programmes in the United States in the latter half of
the 1970s. Over the course of the last twenty years or
so, research in this area has taken a number of signifi-
cant theoretical and methodological turns. These
developments have been partly due to the interdisci-
plinarity of the work undertaken and to intersecting
currents of influence from fields of social science
research which began to emerge in the 1970s, partic-
ularly conversation analysis, interactional sociolin-
guistics and microethnography.They are also due to
the gradual diversification of research sites. As
research began to be taken in different historical
locations and in different educational contexts in
Africa, Europe, North America (including Canada),
South America, South and South East Asia, we began
to see different kinds of research questions being
asked.
Early developments
The first significant breakthroughs were made when
researchers began to work with audio-recordings of
classroom interactions and when analyses took a
Marilyn Martin-Jones is Professor ofBilingualism and
Education at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth
(email: mqm@aber.ac.uk). Her main interests lie in the
following areas of research: (1) codcswitching in bilin- work was constrained by the approach adopted to
gual classroom discourse; (2) bilingual litcraq' practices discourse analysis. Analyses were oriented toward
and the uses of texts in home and school contexts; and
(3) the processes involved in implementing language
education policies in multilingual settings. Most of the
research that she has undertaken has been of a qualita-
tive, ethnographic nature. She has directed research pro- the functions
jects in both school and community contexts. Her work
has been published in edited collections and in journals
such as Language and Education, The Journal of
Multilingual and Multicultural Education, The
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
and Applied Linguistics. In 1996, she co-edited (with paper which appeared in: N. H. Hornberger and D. Corson (eds)
Monica Heller) two consecutive issues o/Tinguistics and (1997), Research Methods in Language and Education
Education, on the theme: 'Education in multilingual
settings: discourse, identities and power'. Most
recently, she has been working on a book (co-edited until
Kathryn Jones) entitled: Multilingual Literacies:
Reading and Writing Different Worlds (to be pub-
lished shortly byJohn Benjamins).
more linguistic turn. Researchers such as Milk
(1981, 1982), Sapiens (1982) and Guthrie (1984)
were among the first to adopt a more linguistic
approach in their work. Milk and Sapiens focused on
the Spanish/English discourse of Mexican-American
teachers in two different secondary schools in San
Jose, California. Guthrie conducted a comparative
study of two teachers (one bilingual and one mono-
lingual) working with Chinese learners in a
Californian elementary school. These researchers
gave particular prominence to the analysis of class-
room discourse functions. Their aim was to throw
light on the ways in which teachers and learners
were getting things done bilingually. They were also
concerned about the language values being transmit-
ted to the learners through the communicative prac-
tices of the teachers. In their analyses of their
audio-recorded data, they drew on descriptive
frameworks developed by linguists who were work-
ing on monolingual discourse. For instance, Milk
(1981) used an adapted version of the classroom dis-
course model proposed by Sinclair and Coulthard
(1975). The original inventory of 22 classroom dis-
course acts compiled by Sinclair and Coulthard was
adapted so as to focus on the patterns of code-
switching in the data.
I discussed the methodology of these studies
(along with some of the research findings) in an ear-
lier research review (Martin-Jones, 1995), so I will
not replicate this here. I will just note here that this
cataloguing and quantifying. The focus was still on
individual acts rather than on the sequential flow of
classroom discourse. The main preoccupation was
with teacher talk, and the analysts' interpretations of
of teachers' utterances tended to be
privileged.
In monolingual and bilingual classrooms, teachers
and learners exchange meanings with each other in
1
This is a much enlarged and considerably revised version of a
(Vol. 8, Encyclopedia of Language and Education), Kluwer
Academic Publishers: Dordrecht, The Netherlands. An earlier
draft was included in the Occasional Papers in Language and
Urban Culture (Paper 10), Centre for Applied Linguistic
Rescarch.ThamcsValley University, London, UK.
u
Although I have employed the term 'bilingual' throughout this
review, I am not excluding multilingual settings where more
than two languages or language varieties are used.

Lang.Teach. 33,1-9. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2000 Cambridge University Press 1
Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research
intricate and highly routinised sequences of interac-
tion.They attend to each others' contributions to the
interaction and, in a bilingual setting, they also attend
to each others' proficiency in the languages involved
in the interaction. What was still lacking in the early
studies of bilingual classroom talk was an account of
what Mehan has called: 'the mutual synchronization
ofbehaviour'(1981:40).
The interactional turn: major
developments
The late 1970s saw a surge of interest in the dynamics
of spoken interaction. The impetus for this was the
seminal work of Erving Goffhian (1967, 1981) and
the development of the new social science fields
ofethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1972), conversation-
al analysis (Sacks, ScheglofF& Jefferson, 1974), interac-
tional sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 1982) and
microethnography (Erickson & Shultz, 1981). The
impact of these approaches to the analysis of talk was
already evident in studies of bilingual classroom dis-
course conducted in the early 1980s (see, for example,
Zentella, 1981; Erickson & Mohatt, 1982; Erickson et
al., 1983 and Moll et al., 1985 ). Attention shifted away
from the communicative functions of individual utter-
ances to the sequential structures of classroom dis-
course. The focus was now on the joint enactment of
teaching and learning by bilingual teachers and learn-
ers rather than just on teacher talk. The contexts for
teaching/learning were no longer seen as given but as
constituted through interaction and therefore contin-
ually open to change and negotiation.
This concern with the situated and sequential
nature of classroom discourse has continued to be a
central feature of most research carried out in bilin-
gual settings. With the diversification of research sites
in the late 1980s and early 1990s and with the refine-
ment of approaches to the study of bilingual
codeswitching (Auer, 1984,1990,1998; Heller, 1988),
considerable advances have been made in this field. In
the first section below, I will give examples of studies
which have foregrounded the situated nature of bilin-
gual classroom talk, drawing attention to the ways in
which meanings are negotiated moment by moment
in bilingual classroom interactions. In the second sec-
tion, I will look at research which has focused on
timing and synchrony in classroom interactions, and,
in particular, on the accomplishment of cultural con-
gruence. In the third section, I will turn to analyses of
recurring patterns of codeswitching, particularly
those which recur across sequential structures of
classroom discourse (e.g., initiation-response-evalua-
tion sequences). I will show that the identification of
such patterns of codeswitching has led researchers to
look for explanations beyond the immediate context
of the interaction, beyond the school, in the wider
social and political context.
My decision to organise this part of my review
into three separate sections does not imply that these
dimensions of bilingual classroom discourse are
unrelated. In fact, most of the studies referred to
below take account of all three dimensions of bilin-
gual discourse: its situatedness, synchrony and
sequentiality. Since the scope of this review does not
permit a full account of each of the studies men-
tioned or detailed examples of real classroom dis-
course practices, I refer readers to the researchers'
own accounts. I have also been selective in the range
of studies mentioned. The field is growing rapidly.
The range and quality of the work undertaken to
date is impressive. I have tried to capture some of this
range in the studies selected.
Foregrounding the situated nature of bilingual
classroom talk
The interactional sociolinguistic approach developed
by John Gumperz (1982) has been particularly influ-
ential in studies of classroom discourse carried out in
bilingual settings, especially his notion of 'contextual-
ization cue' (1982:131). According to Gumperz, con-
textualization cues are any choices of verbal or
non-verbal forms within a communicative encounter
which interlocutors recognise as 'marked', that is,
choices which depart from an established or expected
pattern of communication. Contextualisation cues
range from phonological, lexical and syntactic choices
to difFerent types of codeswitching and style shifting.
They also operate at the prosodic, paralinguistic,
kinesic and gestural level. An interactional sociolin-
guistic approach to classroom discourse analysis fore-
grounds the ways in which teachers and learners
draw on contextualisation cues and on the back-
ground knowledge that they bring to difFerent com-
municative encounters. (Background knowledge is
' also characterised in this research literature as frames,
scripts, schemata, structures of expectation or mem-
bers' resources.) These cues and knowledge resources
are seen as the key means by which participants in
bilingual teaching/learning encounters negotiate
their way through an interaction, make situated infer-
ences as to what is going on and work out their
respective discourse roles.
There is now a growing body of classroom-based
research on the use of codeswitching as a contextuali-
sation cue. We now have ample examples in the
research literature of teachers using code contrast as a
resource for demarcating difFerent kinds of discourse:
to signal the transition between preparing for a lesson
and the start of the lesson; to specify a particular
addressee; to distinguish 'doing a lesson' from talk
about it; to change footing or make an aside; to distin-
guish quotations from a written text from talk about
them; to bring out the voices of difFerent characters in
a narrative; to distinguish classroom management
utterances from talk related to the lesson content.
 Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research
When codeswitching occurs in classrooms as a
contextualisation cue, it frequently co-occurs with
other cues, particularly prosodic cues or non-verbal
cues such as a change in eye gaze direction or ges-
tures.This may well be a distinctive feature of bilin-
gual classroom discourse, particularly in situations
where teacher talk predominates.
Teachers codeswitch to get their points across but
they also attend to the language proficiencies and
preferences oTthe learner(s). Auer (1984) provided a
useful distinction between two kinds of codeswitch-
ing which enables us to take account of this. He
identified two main orientations to the use of code
contrast as a contextualisation cue: discourse-related
and participant-related codeswitching111. Discourse-
related switching is speaker-oriented: it serves as a
resource for demarcating different kinds of utter-
ances or stretches of discourse within an interaction-
al sequence. Participant-related switching is
hearer-oriented: it takes account of the hearer's lin-
guistic preferences or competences. Although this
distinction was first formulated in community-based
research on bilingualism, it is particularly relevant to
the analysis of bilingual classroom discourse and has
been taken up by researchers in different educational
settings (Arthur, 1995, 1996; Baiget-Bonany, 1999;
Martin, 1996, 1997, 1999a/b; Martin-Jones, 1995;
Mejia, 1994,1998;Nussbaum, 1990).
Participant-related codeswitching predominates in
some bilingual classrooms, especially in primary
school contexts (see Arthur 1995,1996;Bunyi 1997;
Martin, 1996, 1997, 1999a/b; Merritt et al., 1992;
Ndayipfukamiye, 1996; Zentella 1981).These are set-
tings where those involved in classroom conversa-
tions have different communicative repertoires and
linguistic abilities. In such settings, teachers and
learners are continually adjusting their use of lan-
guage to accommodate one another as they try to
make sense of each others' contributions. Thus, par-
ticipant-related codeswitching occurs when teachers
provide translations, reformulations, clarifications and
explanations for learners. It also occurs when teach-
ers try to make links between the cultural content of
lessons and learners' life-worlds outside the class-
room (Canagarajah, 1995; Ndayipfukamiye, 1996).
Or, it can be manifested in occasional switches in
teachers' discourse (e.g., on question tags) aimed at
encouraging contributions from learners or check-
ing on understanding (Arthur, 1996). (I will look at
this particular use of codeswitching in greater detail
later on in this paper).
As Nussbaum (1990) points out, teachers and
learners can engage in participant-related code-
switching. She suggests that partipant-related
codeswitching can serve as a 'heterofacilitative' or
'self-facilitating' resource. It can serve as a 'heterofa-
cilitative' resource when speakers (e.g., teachers) who
1
Auer (1990) uses the term'code alternation".
have greater proficiency in a language than their
interlocutors anticipate that their interlocutors will
not understand what they are about to say and there-
fore switch to another language to facilitate commu-
nication. It can serve as a 'self-facilitating' resource
(e.g., for students) if used to avoid making errors or
to fill lexical gaps.
Most of the research so far has been carried out in
classroom contexts where teacher-led discourse pre-
dominates, so the evidence of spontaneous
codeswitching by learners as a self-facilitating strate-
gy is still rather slim. Certainly, teachers' attitudes to
learner switching vary considerably: some studies
describe classrooms where learners' persistent use of
the first language is accepted by teachers because this
enables learners to make contributions (see
Camilleri, 1996; Lin, 1990,1996; Rubagumya, 1993,
1994). In other classrooms, learner codeswitching is
either discouraged or proscribed. Arthur (1996)
describes the discourse rules of the two primary
classes she studied in Botswana as follows:
'Codeswitching from English to Setswana as a facili-
tative strategy was used exclusively by the teach-
ers...The discourse rules internalised by the learners
deny them the freedom to use their first language as
a means to increase their participation' (1996: 24-5).
In yet another context, Canagarajah (1995) reports
that learners in English classes in Jaffna switched into
Tamil in secretive exchanges when their teacher was
not paying attention. In this way, they helped each
other to make sense of the lesson content.
These different uses of code-switching as a con-
textualisation cue have been documented in diverse
bilingual learning environments. However, as Auer
(1990) points out, it is impossible to compile a com-
prehensive inventory of the functions of codeswitch-
ing. The number of possible functions is infinite.
Speakers are continually creating new ways of draw-
ing on code contrast as a communicative resource.
The aim of studies in this area should instead be to
provide detailed accounts of the specific interactional
practices that have evolved in particular classroom
settings in particular cultural and historical contexts.
Because of the fine-grained nature of the interac-
tional sociolinguistic approach to the study of bilin-
gual classroom interaction, extensive use is made of
audio-recording. Particular teaching/learning events
are transcribed and analysed in detail. A further dis-
tinctive feature of this approach is that care is taken
not to privilege the analyst's interpretation of the
meanings generated by codeswitching. In most stud-
ies of this kind, the researchers check their interpre-
tations by asking the participants in the events
recorded to listen to the audio-recording.The aim is
to achieve as much convergence as possible between
the participants' understandings of what was going
on in the event and those of the analyst.
Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research
Investigating the accomplishment of the class, how closely they positioned themselves
synchrony in bilingual interactions with regard to the learners and the rhythm and the
timing of the classroom activities. Erickson and
The microethnographic approach to social interac- Mohatt showed that the Odawa teacher's style was
tion (Erickson & Shultz, 1981) was developed along- more congruent with the interactional conventions
side the early work in interactional sociolinguistics. that the children were familiar with in home and
There is a similar emphasis on the situated and community contexts. However, this teacher's style
sequential nature of classroom discourse. By the early was also shown to be quite variable: she moved in
1980s, recommendations were being made about and out of different ways of teaching. In addition,
how this approach might be applied to studies in Erickson and Mohatt found that, during the course
bilingual classrooms (Mehan, 1981; Moll, 1981; Moll of the year, there were signs of changes in the style of
et al., 1985;Trueba & Wright, 1981). the non-Odawa teacher: she accommodated more to
Microethnographic studies focus especially on an Odawa style as the year went on.
rhythm, timing and the manner in which different The second study was conducted by a team of
participants succeed in synchronising their contribu- researchers in two first grade classes of a bilingual
tions with those of others. Particular attention is education programme in Chicago (s*ee Cazden et al.,
given to the ways in which non-verbal cues co- 1980).The teachers and learners in these classes were
occur with verbal ones and to the manner in which all Mexican-Americans. The classes were positively
these constellations of cues are interpreted. As evaluated by parents who opted for bilingual provi-
Hornberger (1995) noted in her recent review of sion for their children whenever possible. In this
ethnographic and sociolinguistic research in educa- study, the aim of the investigators was to provide a
tional settings, microethnography preserves some of detailed microethnographic account of the interac-
the elements of earlier work in the ethnography of tional styles of these two successful bilingual teach-
communication (e.g.,Hymes, 1968).The focus of the ers. Whilst there were differences between the
interpretive work is on key events and the participant teachers in their approach to classroom organisation,
structures within them. However, microethnograph- there were also similarities in the ways in which they
ic research aims to achieve detailed insights into the managed the classroom interactions. According to
interactional processes which unfold in such events Cazden et al. (1980), the teachers had a culturally-
while the work in the tradition of ethnography of specific style which conveyed carino (affection).This
communication focused more on the constituent was manifested in particular constellations of verbal
components of speech events. and non-verbal cues in the teacher-learner interac-
The methodology of microethnographic studies tions that were video-recorded.These cues included:
overlaps with that developed in interactional soci- use of terms of address which were familiar to the
olinguistic work. In fact, the two areas of work are children, frequent use of diminutives, regular
often thought of as one and the same. However, reminders to the children that they should observe
microethnography involves more use of video- community norms of respeto (respect), references to
recording. This is because of the emphasis given to the families known to the teacher and non-verbal
capturing the full range of non-verbal contextualisa- expressions of carino.
tion cues which co-occur with verbal cues at partic- '
ular moments of the interaction. The transcription
work is also more detailed because of the need to Describing and accounting for patterns of
take account of non-verbal cues. codeswitching across the sequential
Microethnographic work in educational settings structures of classroom discourse
has been particularly successful at drawing attention As I have already indicated, Mehan (1981) was one
to cultural congruences (or incongruences) which of the first to call for qualitative ethnographic
emerge in interactions between teachers and learn- research in bilingual education classrooms. In an
ers. I will briefly mention here two illustrative studies early paper on this topic, he emphasised the contin-
carried out by Erickson and colleagues.The first was gent nature of classroom discourse. He noted that
an early comparative study of two first grade teachers young learners not only learn lessons but also have to
working with Native Canadian children on an learn the complex interactional routines of each
Odawa reserve in Canada (Erickson & Mohatt, classroom. Different teachers engage in different
1982; Mohatt & Erickson 1981). One teacher was practices. Practices also vary across different types of
from the local Odawa community and the other was teaching/learning events. In the same paper, Mehan
not. This study involved participant observation and also noted that, in bilingual classrooms, learners have
close analysis of video-recordings made over the the additional challenge of working out the local
course of a year in the two teachers' classrooms. The codeswitching practices. He stressed the need to take
aim of the analysis was to identify the salient features account of learners'contributions to teaching/learn-
of the interactional styles of the two teachers. It ing exchanges, even when the talk is heavily teacher-
focused on the ways in which they moved around dominated, in order to gauge how well bilingual
 Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research
children are faring with the communicative chal-
lenges of bilingual classroom life.
Since this paper by Mehan (1981), there has been
considerable interest in the accomplishment of reci-
procity in bilingual classroom exchanges and in the
management of turn-taking in more than one lan-
guage (Martin, 1996, 1997, 1999a/b; Mejia, 1994,
1998; Zentella, 1981).The focus of studies in this area
of work has been on tracking codeswitching across
the sequential structures which recur in particular
types of teaching/learning event (e.g., Initiation-
Response-Evaluation (IRE) exchanges), trying to
establish if any patterns of codeswitching predomi-
nate and trying to account for these patterns. In the
pages which follow, I will describe in some detail five
studies, carried out in different sites, which illustrate
particularly well the types of insights which can be
gleaned from this type of research.
A study by Zentella (1981) focused specifically on
the ways in which teachers and learners attended to
each others' language choices when taking turns in
their classroom conversations. Her study was based in
two classes in a transitional bilingual programme in
New York: one third grade and one sixth grade class.
The learners and teachers were all of Puerto Rican
origin. For the children in the third grade class, this
was their first experience of a bilingual programme.
Despite the novelty of the experience of bilingual
schooling, most of the children were already attuned
to the patterns of codeswitching associated with dif-
ferent classroom events by the time the research
began. They distinguished with ease the ritualised
teacher/learner exchanges from more spontaneous
one-to-one classroom conversations with adults. In
the more ritualised Initiation-Response-Evaluation
exchanges, the dominant pattern observed in these
classrooms was that the learners followed the teachers'
Table 1. Language choices in teacher-student exchanges in two primary classrooms (adapted from Zentella,
1981:119)
Conventions governing Teacher
language choices initiation language*
1. Teacher and student: English
"Speak what you are
spoken to" or "follow the Spanish
leader"
2. Teacher:"Follo\v the English
child"
Spanish
3. Teacher:"Include the English
child's choice and yours"
Spanish
*Thc teachers also code-switched for translation during initiations
choice of language. When initiating exchanges, the
teachers' choice of language was most often deter-
mined by: (1) the language in which the lesson was
'supposed' to be taught; and (2) their perception of the
linguistic capabilities of the children being addressed.
In fact, the learners in these two classes varied con-
siderably in their linguistic capabilities: some were
dominant in English and some in Spanish. This
uneven distribution of competences was revealed in
occasional 'marked' switches away from the language
of the preceding exchanges. On occasions such as
these, the teachers responded in one of two ways:
either by following the child's choice of language or
with a mixed utterance, part Spanish/part English.
Table 1 below shows Zentella's summary of the inter-
actional patterns which recurred across her corpus of
bilingual discourse. The first pattern documented in
Table 1 is the one which predominated, interrupted
only by occasional codeswitches in teacher initiations
when reformulations were provided.
What emerged from Zentella's study was a clear
picture of the ways in which teachers and learners
attended to each other's language choices and dealt
with the problem of unevenly distributed compe-
tences. The teachers' switching was clearly motivated
by their concern to facilitate comprehension. As one
of Zentella's teachers put it:'Sometimes I have to be
bouncing from one language to the other...but that's
the only way sometimes they'll understand' (1981:
119).
Zentella's analysis of the code-switching practices
in her audio-recorded corpus was grounded in the
ethnographic work she had carried out in the two
classrooms. She found that the two teachers in her
study had clearly contrasting patterns of code-
switching. In approximately eight hours of recorded
classroom interaction, one teacher code-switched
Student Teacher
reply language evaluation language
English English
Spanish Spanish
Spanish Spanish
English English
Spanish Code-switching
English Code-switching
Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research
127 times and the other only 26 times. Zentella was Lin showed that the teachers' acceptance of responses
able to explain these differences in the bilingual dis- from students in Cantonese served as a means of
course of the two teachers because she had built up a empowering the students to contribute to the co-
profile of their language histories, their educational production of the body of knowledge officially sanc-
backgrounds, their values and their attitudes to bilin- tioned for that lesson. However, at the same time, the
gual communication in the classroom. She also pattern of codeswitching between English and
described in detail the circumstances in the classes in Cantonese in the teachers' contributions to these
which they were teaching. exchanges gave clear messages to the learners about
I turn now to a second study carried out in a very the relative value of English and Cantonese as a lan-
different setting. Lin (1990) investigated patterns of guage of learning. Lin dubbed this type of bilingual
code-switching in English language lessons in classroom communication: 'Cantonese-annotated
Anglo-Chinese secondary schools in Hong Kong. English academic monolingualism' (1996: 70). She
Four different classes were audio-recorded. They argued that 'the main purpose of using Cantonese
were all large classes and the interactions between (LI) is not to establish bilingual knowledge of acade-
teachers and learners were again predominantly mic terms but to expediently annotate English (L2)
teacher-led. There was frequent code-switching key terms, key statements, or texts for students who
between English and Cantonese because the learners have limited English linguistic resources' (ibid).
had considerable difficulty understanding and using A further pattern of codeswitching identified by
English. Lin in this corpus was frequent codeswitching into
Lin made audio-recordings of selected teaching/ English on single lexical items, usually key terms for
learning events and looked closely at the bilingual the lessons recorded.There was no parallel pattern of
interactional work that the teachers and learners switching into Cantonese in stretches of English dis-
were doing in different events. She observed that the course. Lin (1996) argued that this provided further
teachers made ample use of Cantonese in teaching evidence of the dominance of English as the lan-
English vocabulary and grammar and noted that they guage of academic learning.This pattern of switch-
did so 'in highly ordered patterns of alternation ing on single lexical items or key terms has been
between English and Cantonese' (Lin, 1990: 115). documented in many studies of bilingual classroom
The predominant pattern of alternation observable interaction (e.g., Martin, 1996, 1997, 1999a/b;
in the discourse of one of the teachers was as follows: Martin-Jones, 1995; Mejia, 1994,1998), especially in
first, the teacher introduced a grammar point in locations where there is a sharp differentiation in sta-
English (the pupils' L2 or second language), then tus between the languages or where most of the texts
repeated the point and/or elaborated on it in used and produced are in the dominant language
Cantonese (their LI or first language).Then, key ele- (Camilleri, 1996; Martin, 1996,1997,1999a/b).
ments were reiterated in English (L2). Lin (1990: The fourth study I will consider here was carried
116) commented as follows on the consistency of out by Jo Arthur (1995;1996) in two primary schools
this routine in the teachers discourse: in Botswana. I have already made brief references to
It is unlikely that these patterns have evolved only by accident. this study earlier in this paper. The focus was on
Rather they seem to reflect the teacher's response to some con- classes where English is the official medium of
flicting demands on her. On the one hand, they reflect her instruction. In this context, Setswana, the national
attempt to fulfill the requirement of teaching L2 grammar in L2; language, is the medium of instruction for the first
that explains why she always presents the examples and teaching four years of schooling. The teacher talk in the
points in L2 first and last. On the other hand, they reflect her
attempt to ensure thorough understanding of the teaching points
English medium classes that Jo Arthur observed and
by reiterating and elaborating them in LI between the L2 initial audio-recorded was characterised by frequent
and final presentations (the L2-L1-L2 sequence). switching into Setswana on question tags such as ga
ke re? (equivalent to English, 'isn't it?) or lo a bona?
In a later study, Lin (1996) conducted a second ('do you see?'). The learners responded to these
stage analysis of a corpus of bilingual data gathered in prompts with a chorusing of minimal responses (usu-
an earlier study by Johnson (1983,1985).These were ally a mixture of the English 'yes' or the Setswana ee).
audio-recordings which had been made in five con- The teachers in these classes were clearly engaging
tent lessons (geography, history, maths, science and in participant-related codeswitching, encouraging
social studies). Again, Lin investigated the distribu-
their pupils to participate actively in the daily recita-
tion of Cantonese (LI) and English (L2) across the
tion routines. However, according to Arthur (1996),
Elicitation-Response-Evaluation structures of the
the learners were not permitted to use Setswana, at
classroom routines. She found that the following pat-
least not while they were engaged in the main busi-
tern predominated:
ness of'doing the lesson'. In order to capture the
Teacher - Elicitation (L2-L1) interactional dynamics of this class, Arthur used a
Students - Response (LI) theatrical metaphor. She made a distinction between
Teacher - Evaluation (LI -L2) (Adapted from Lin, 'centre-stage' and 'back-stage' language use. She
1996:72) argued that the pupils were "merely actors in the
 Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research
joint 'staging' of ritualised question-and-ans\ver per-
formances" whereas "as directors and co-actors" the
teachers were entitled to use Setswana, the 'back-
stage language' (1996:17).
Such recitation routines are common in teacher-
fronted classrooms around the world, but they are
particularly prevalent in large classes in poorer coun-
tries (AdendorfF, 1993; Arthur, 1996; Chick, 1996;
Chick & Hornberger, forthcoming; Ellis, 1987). In
multilingual settings, where the distribution of lin-
guistic competences is very uneven, such routines are
likely to involve some codeswitching. Arthur argues
that communicative practices such as these are traces
of institutional conventions which developed during
the colonial era.
The final study I turn to now is one that I carried
out in Britain with Mukul Saxena in the early
1990siv. It involved three years ethnographic work in
two inner city primary schools in the North West of
England.These were schools where a majority of the
children spoke a Pakistani variety of Panjabi and
where, on entering school, a significant proportion
of the children needed some support with the learn-
ing of English as a second or third language. In both
schools, bilingual classroom assistants had just been
appointed to work alongside monolingual English-
speaking class teachers in the reception classes (the
first year of primary schooling). The two classroom
assistants we worked with spoke Panjabi, Urdu and
English and one had a fluent command of written
Urdu.
The main focus of our study was on the bilingual
routines emerging in the two classes where teach-
ing/learning events were conducted bilingually. We
audio- and video-recorded different types of bilin-
gual teaching/learning events across the curriculum.
As part of the wider study, we traced the patterns of
codeswitching across turns in one particular type of
bilingual teaching/learning event: these were events
where the bilingual assistants were working 'in tan-
dem' with the monolingual teacher. These included
story-telling sessions, maths and science activities,
and teaching/learning events which involved practi-
cal hands-on experience, such as baking, art work
and seed-planting.
What was common to all these 'jointly managed'
teaching/learning events was that the monolingual
teachers assumed the principal speaking rights. As we
have shown in detail elsewhere (Martin-Jones, 1995;
Martin-Jones & Saxena, 1996), the monolingual
English-speaking teachers allocated turns to the
bilingual assistants when they felt it necessary for
their words to be reformulated in Panjabi. They
n
This project was based in the Centre for Language in Social
Life, Lancaster University, UK, from 1989-1992. It was entitled:
'Bilingual Resources in Primary Classroom Interaction'.
Funding was provided by the Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) as part of a broader ESRC initiative on
'Education for a Multicultural Society*.
interrupted the contributions made by the bilingual
assistants and took the floor, turning the classroom
conversation back to English whenever they deemed
it to be appropriate. The patterns of codeswitching
across turns were thus primarily shaped by the
monolingual participants in these events. Although
we had established through our interviews with
them that both monolingual teachers were commit-
ted to encouraging the bilingual assistants to develop
ways of working bilingually in class which would
have concrete benefits for the bilingual children, they
were actually constraining the contributions that the
bilingual assistants were able to make in Panjabi to
joint teaching/learning activities such as these. In the
events we observed and analysed, the bilingual prac-
titioners were being positioned as assistants through
the discourse practices of their monolingual col-
leagues, while at the same time quite clear messages
were being given to the children about the relative
value of the languages being used and about the sta-
tus of each bilingual assistant within the classroom
hierarchy.
Future directions?
As I have endeavoured to show in the previous sec-
tion, research which focuses on the dynamics of
interaction has given us a much better understanding
of the range and complexity of the cultural and
communicative processes at work in bilingual and
multilingual classrooms. We now have powerful ana-
lytic tools for our accounts of teaching/learning
events that are accomplished bilingually (or, indeed,
with more than two languages or language varieties).
As research sites have diversified, we have had broad-
er and richer insights into the ways in which bilin-
gual teachers and learners draw on the verbal and
non-verbal resources available to them within the
communicative cycles of classroom life.
Future studies in this area are likely to move in
one of two broad directions: (1) there will be
research which continues to refine the analytic tools
developed so far, probing yet further the dynamics of
bilingual classroom interaction and perhaps throwing
more light on the way in which codeswitching con-
tributes to the scaffolding of joint knowledge con-
struction; (2) there will also be research which takes a
more critical turn, grounding micro-analyses of
bilingual discourse practices within wider social and
historical accounts. I am using the term 'critical' here
in the sense of aiming to reveal links between bilin-
gual discourse practices, ideologies about legitimate
forms of bilingualism or monolingualism and the
reproduction of asymmetrical relations of power
between groups with different languages and differ-
ent forms of cultural capital. (For examples of studies
conducted in this more critical vein, see the collec-
tion of papers edited by Martin-Jones and Heller,
1996).
Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research
Reviewing general trends in research on tice in English second language teaching, Capetown: Maskew
codeswitching, Gal (1992) drew a distinction Millar Longman.
between two broad research goals: (1) aiming for ERICKSON, F. & MOHATT, G. (1982). Cultural organization of
participant structures in two classrooms of Indian stu-
universalising explanations which 'focus on the per- dents. In G. D. Spindler (ed.), Doing the ethnography of
spective of the speaker and listener' (1992:135); and schooling: educational anthropology in action, New York:
(2) aiming for historically contextualised explana- Holt.Rinehart &Winston.
tions. Pursuing the second goal means taking ERICKSON, F. & SHULTZ, J. (1981). When is a context? Some
account of the perspectives of the speaker and listen- issues and methods in the analysis of social competence.
In J. L. Green & C. Wallat (eds.), Ethnography and language
er but also attempting to interpret and explain bilin- in educational settings, Norwood, NJ:Ablex, 147-60.
gual discourse practices with reference to their GAL, S. (1992). Concepts of power in the research on
specific social and historical location. Research in codeswitching. Papers from the codeswitching summer school,
bilingual classrooms also appears to be moving in Pavia (Italy), September 9-12, 1992 (European Science
these two broad directions: with some researchers Foundation Network on Codeswitching and Language
Contact), European Science Foundation, Strasbourg,
concentrating on providing fine-tuned analyses of
France, 135—51.
how teachers and learners accomplish lessons in two GARFINKEL, H. (1972). Remarks on ethnomethodology. In J.
languages; while others also try to explain why the Gumperz & D. Hymes (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics:
codeswitching practices observed in particular his- the ethnography of communication, New York: Holt,
torical locations are the way they are. Rinehart & Winston.
GOFFMAN, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: essays on face-to-facc behav-
iour. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
References — (1981). Forms of talk. Oxford: Blackwell.
GUMPERZ.J.J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge
ADENDORFF, R. (1993). Codeswitching amongst Zulu-speaking University Press.
teachers and their pupils: its function and implications GUTHRIE, L. F. (1984). Contrasts in teachers' language use in a
for teacher education. Language and Education, 7,141-62. Chinese-English bilingual classroom. In J. Handscombe,
ARTHUR, J. (1995). Policy, practices and pedagogies: a case study of lan- R. A. Orem & B. P.Taylor (eds.). On TESOL 1983: the
guage in Botswana primary classrooms. Unpublished Ph.D. question ofcontrol, TESOL, Washington, D.C.
thesis, Lancaster University. HELLER, M. (ed.) (1988). Codeswitching: anthropological andsodolin-
— (1996). Codeswitching and collusion: classroom interaction guisticperspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
in Botswana primary schools. Linguistics and Education, 8, — (1996). Legitimate language in a multilingual school.
1,17-34. Linguistics and Education, 8,2,139-57.
AUER, P. (1984). Bilingual conversation. Amsterdam: John HORNBERGER, N. (1995). Ethnography in linguistic perspective:
Benjamins. understanding school processes. Language and Education,
— (1990). A discussion paper on code alternation. Papers for the 9,4,233-48.
workshop on concepts, methodology and data, Basel, January HYMES, D. (1968). The ethnography of speaking. In J. Fishman
1990. (European Science Foundation Network on (ed.), Readings in the sociology of language. The Hague:
Codeswitching and Language Contact), European Science Mouton De Gruyter, 99-139.
Foundation, Strasbourg, France, 69-87. JOHNSON, R. K. (1983). Bilingual switching strategies: a study of
— (ed.) (1998). Codeswitching in conversation: language, interaction the modes of teacher-talk in bilingual secondary school
and identity. London: Routledge. classrooms in Hong Kong. Language Learning and
BAIGET-BONANY, E. (1999). Codcsuitching in the EFL classroom in Communication, 2,267—85.
Catalonia. Unpublished MA thesis, MA (by Research) in — (1985). Report of the ELTU study of the oral medium of instruction
Language Studies Lancaster University. in Anglo Chinese secondary school classrooms. Faculty of
BUNYI, G. (1997). Multilingualism and discourse in primary Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
school mathematics in Kenya. Language, Culture and LlN, A. (1990). Teaching in two tongues: language alternation in foreign
Curriculum, 10,1,52-65. language classrooms (Research Report No. 3), City
CAMILLERI, A. (1996). Language values and identities: Polytechnic of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
codeswitching in secondary classrooms in Malta. — (1996). Bilingualism or linguistic segregation? Symbolic
Linguistics and Education, 8,1,85—103. domination, resistance and codeswitching. Linguistics and
CANAGARAJAH, A. S. (1995). Functions of codeswitching in ESL Education, 8,1,49-84.
classrooms: socialising bilingualism in Jaflha. Journal of MARTIN, P.W. (1996). Codeswitching in the primary classroom:
Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 16,3,173—95. one response to the planned and unplanned language
CAZDEN, C. B., CARRASCO, R M MALDONADO-GUZMAN, A. A. & environment in Brunei. Journal of Multlingual and
ERICKSON, F. (1980). The contribution of ethnographic Multicultural Development, 17,2/4,128-44.
research to bicultural bilingual education. In J. E. Alatis — (1997). Accomplishing lessons bilingually in three primary class-
(ed.). Current issues in bilingual education: Gcorgetouti rooms in Negara Brunei Darussalam: insights into the
University round table on languages and linguistics, Dwibahasa programme. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis,
Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Lancaster University.
CHICK, K. (1996). Safe-talk: collusion in apartheid education. In — (1999a). Close encounters of a bilingual kind: interactional
H. Coleman (ed.), Society and the language classroom, practices in the primary classroom in Brunei.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 21-39. International Journal of Education and Dnvlopment, 19,
CHICK, K. & HOIWUERGER, N. (forthcoming). Co-constructing 127-40.
school safetime: safetalk practices in Peruvian and South — (1999b). Bilingual unpacking of monolingual texts in two
African classrooms. In M. Heller and M. Martin-Jones primary classrooms in Brunei Darussalam. Language and
(eds.), Voices of authority. New York: Elsevier. Education, 13,1,38-58.
ELLIS, R. (1987). Using the English medium in African schools. MARTIN-JONES, M. (1995). Codeswitching in the classroom: two
In D. Young (ed.), Bridging the gap between theory and prac- decades of research. In L. Milroy & P. Muysken (eds.).

8
 Bilingual classroom interaction: A review of recent research
One speaker, tuv languages: cross-disciplinary perspectives on contexts: the social construction of lessons in two lan-
codeswitching, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, guages. In M. Saravia-Shore & S. Arvizu (eds.), Cross cul-
90-111. tural and communicative competencies: ethnographies of
MARTIN-JONES, M. & HELLER, M. (eds.) (1996). Linguistics and educational programs for language minority students, Council
Education, 8, 1 & 2, two Special Issues on 'Education in on Anthropology and Education.Washington, D.C.
Multilingual Settings: Discourse, Identities and Power', NDAYIPFUKAMIYE, L. (1996).The contradiction of teaching bilin-
1-228. gually in post-colonial Burundi. Linguistics and Education,
MARTIN-JONES, M. 8C SAXENA, M. (1996). Turn-taking, power 8,1,35-18.
asymmetries, and the positioning of bilingual partici- NUSSDAUM, L. (1990). Plurilingualism in foreign language classes
pants in classroom discourse. Linguistics and Education, 8, in Catalonia. Papers front the uvrtehop on the impact and con-
1,105-21. sequences of codeswitching. (European Science Foundation
MEHAN, H. (1981). Ethnography of bilingual education. In H.T. Network on Codcswitching and Language Contact), European
Trueba, G. P. Guthrie & K. H.Au {eds.), 36-55. Science Foundation, Strasbourg, France, 141—63.
MEJIA, A-M. DE (1994). Bilingual teaching/learning civnts in early RUUAGUMYA, C. M. (1993). Tlic language lulucs ofianzanian sec-
immersion classes: a case study in Cali, Colombia. Unpublished ondary school pupils: a case study in the Dar-es-Salaam region.
Ph.D. thesis, Lancaster University. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Lancaster University.
— (1998). Bilingual storytelling: code switching, discourse con- — (ed.) (1994). Teaching and research language in African classrooms.
trol and learning opportunities. TESOL Journal, 7, 6, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
4-10. SACKS, H., SCHEGLOFF, E. & JEFFERSON, G. (1974). A simplest sys-
MERRITT, M, CLEGHORN, A, ABACI, J. O. & BUNYI, G. (1992). tematics for the organisation of turn-taking in conversa-
Socialising multilingualism: determinants of codeswitch- tion. Language, 50,696-735.
ing in Kenyan primary classrooms. Journal of Multilingual SAPIENS. A. (1982). The use of Spanish and English in a high
and Multicultural Development, 13, 1 & 2,103-21. (Special school bilingual Civics class. In J. Amastae & L. Elias-
issue on Codcswitching, edited by C. Eastman.) Olivares (eds.), Spanish in the United States: sociolinguistic
MILK, R. (1981). An analysis of the functional allocation of aspects, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Spanish and English in a bilingual classroom. California SlNCLAlR.J. M. & COULTHARD, R. M. (1975). Towards an analysis
Association for Bilingual Education: Research Journal, 2, 2, of discourse: the English used by teachers and pupils. Oxford:
11-26. Oxford University Press.
— (1982). Language use in bilingual classrooms: two case stud- TRUEBA, H.T, GUTHRIE, G. P. & Au, K. H. (eds.) (1981). Culture
ies. In M. Hines & W. Rutherford (eds.). On TESOL '81, and the bilingual classroom: studies in classroom ethnography.
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
(TESOL),Washington.DC, 181-91. TRUEBA, H.T. & WRIGHT, P. (1981). A challenge for ethnographic
MOHATT, G. & ERIKSON, F. (1981). Cultural differences in teach- researchers in bilingual settings: analyzing Spanish-
ing styles in an Odawa school: a sociolinguistic approach. English classroom interaction.Jourmj/ of Multilingual and
In H.T.Trueba, G. P. Guthrie & K. H.Au (eds.). Multicultural Development, 2,243-57.
MOLL, L. E. (1981). The micro-ethnographic study of bilingual ZENTELLA.A. C. (1981). Ta bicn,you could answer me oi cualquicr
schooling. In R.V. Padilla (ed.), Ethnopcrspcctivcs in bilin- idioma: Puerto Rican codeswitching in bilingual class-
gual education research III, Eastern Michigan University, rooms. In R. Dunn (ed.), Latino language and communicative
Ipsilanti. bchaiHor, Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation,
MOLL, L. E., DIAZ, E., ESTRADA, E. & LOPEZ, L. (1985). Making 109-32.