‘Medium of instruction’ vs. ‘medium of classroom interaction’: language choice in a French complementary school classroom in Scotland

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to account for language choice and alternation phenomena we have observed in a French complementary school classroom in Scotland. In this classroom, talk can be conducted in French (the official medium of instruction), in English (the other language in contact) and in both French and English. A critical review of the literature has revealed that current studies of bilingual classroom talk are conducted either from a 'local order' perspective or from an 'overall order' perspective. While the local order perspective is indifferent towards the phenomena we have observed in the target classroom, the overall order perspective can account only for part of the data, namely, cases where talk is conducted in the medium of instruction. Therefore, drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, this paper suggests an alternative view. Building on Gafaranga, we demonstrate that the notion of 'medium of classroom interaction' is a more appropriate 'scheme' for the interpretation of the bilingual practices we have observed.

Doing English-Only Instructions: A Multimodal Account of Bilingual Bangladeshi Classrooms

“…Accordingly, instances of language alternation were drawn from different classroom situations in which the teachers are lecturing, instructing or otherwise interacting with the students. In the next step, these collections were built according to the medium of interaction (Bonacina & Gafaranga, 2011). For the purposes of the present analysis, five episodes with the same group of students were drawn from different lessons, including Agriculture, Bangladesh and General Studies, Mathematics, General Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).…”

“…As they point out, the medium of instruction can only account for the participants' conduct in instances where the language practice and prescribed language policy are in congruence. Where this is not the case, Bonacina & Gafaranga (2011) propose the term medium of classroom interaction. Based on this distinction, they have found three modes of talks -(i) L2 base code with L1 alterations, (ii) L1 base code with L2 alterations and (iii) mix of the two languages.…”

“…This extract is an example of 'L2 base code with L1 alterations' (Bonacina & Gafaranga, 2011). Here, the teacher's verbal actions are in English, save for the tagged-on particle in line 6.…”

“…In an effort to understand the language practices of bilinguals in educational contexts informed by a language policy, Bonacina and Gafaranga (2011) proposed a distinction between the 'Medium of Instruction' (i.e., the prescribed, expected, normative language policy) and 'Medium of Classroom Interaction' (the actual oriented to the code of the participants). As they point out, the medium of instruction can only account for the participants' conduct in instances where the language practice and prescribed language policy are in congruence.…”

“…The study seeks to find out how a prescribed language policy that is operating at the school informs classroom instruction. To do so, it uses the distinction between medium of instruction and medium of interaction, introduced by Bonacina & Gafaranga (2011), to examine how participants to instructional exchanges orient their actions to the language policy as well as to locally emerging interactional challenges. Through multimodal conversation analysis the study shows how participants sustain, suppress or even overlook the medium of instruction in the service of doing instruction.…”