Turn-taking, power asymmetries, and the positioning of bilingual participants in classroom discourse

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Abstract

Educational policies in Britain regarding the languages of minorities of migrant origin have been primarily assimilative, apart from a brief period from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s when there was intense interest in cultural diversity. However, since the mid-1980s, a minimal form of bilingual education provision has been developed and has come to be known as ‘bilingual support.’ This provision is mostly organised for bilingual learners in inner-city schools in the early years of primary education and serves as a means of facilitating minority-language students' social transition to school and eventual access to an English-medium education. In a number of areas of Britain, this form of educational support is provided by low-status staff or ‘bilingual teaching assistants’ who speak both English and the language of the minority students. Practices vary from school to school, but for the most part, bilingual teaching assistants are positioned as marginal to the main action of the classroom, which is defined and orchestrated by monolingual English-speaking teachers. This article provides a detailed analysis of discourse practices in such classrooms and describes specific ways in which bilingual staff are positioned by the organisational and discursive practices of monolingual teachers.

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