Code-Switching on Command: The Dominant and Nondominant Language Practices of Students and Teachers in Secondary English Classrooms

• In Event: Transgressive Language Practices: Taboos, Boundaries, and Linguistic Agency in the Classroom

Abstract

Speakers of nondominant languages or registers are often subject to prejudice and degradation in educational settings. For example, speakers of African American vernacular English (AAVE) are often negatively stereotyped as “ghetto” or low class (Alim, 2004) and teachers often repair these language variations in class. And yet, research shows the benefits of language programs in the United States that embrace students’ various language registers (Howard, 2010; Orellana & Reyolds, 2008). This paper documents the language patterns of interaction between Latino and African American and their teachers in secondary English classrooms when students utilized a non standard variation of English.

Educators can validate students’ linguistic repertoires of practice within the classroom by incorporating their cultural and linguistic practices as a means to engage students in the curriculum and school (Gutierrez & Rogoff, 2003). Similar to the “cultural modeling” (Lee, 1995) approach, teachers can look to literacy practices that use nonstandard registers and languages as a way to link students’ experiences outside of school with their academic experience. In this manner, educators can treat nondominant language registers as linguistic capital (Yosso, 2005) and provide a learning environment where all students feel more readily able to participate in the project of learning.

This study utilizes an ethnography of communication methodology (Hymes, 1974) to examine how language practices mediate student participation and learning. This paper draws data from a larger ethnographic study of everyday cultural practices of Latino and African American male youth that attend two college preparatory high schools. Fieldnotes, audio recordings, video-recordings of two English classrooms were collected over the course of one school year to allow for an analysis of classroom discourse situated in two English classrooms (Cazden, 2001).

Patterns of communication in literary class discussions demonstrated that students’ ranged in their use of language registers. Students use of non Standard English variations reaffirmed their identification with peers (Norton, 1998) and with a teacher who also utilized nondominant language during classroom discussions. Students code-switched and style shifted between non Standard English and to academic Standard English when prompted by a teacher (Alim 2004, Zentella 1997). A key finding of this study focuses on how moments of repair to standardize English language practices truncated literary discussions and dialogue. Students also mimicked or “performed” Standard English during class discussions, while others often remained silent and disengaged from class discussion. Lisa Delpit (1998) contends students will, over time, react negatively to excessive repairs to their language style often resulting in classroom of disengaged students.

A focus on language practices in secondary classrooms is of utmost importance as policymakers and school leaders look for ways to create schools that are both college preparatory but inclusive of multicultural identities of students (Oakes, Rogers, Lipton, & Morrell, 2000). Research maintains the importance of classroom discussions an important element for secondary English classrooms (Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran, 2003). In particular, we need to better understand how teachers can utilize students’ everyday language practices to better engage students in classroom discussions and help them make meaning of content.

Author

• Ursula S. Aldana, Loyola Marymount University