Accepting and Legitimizing Multilingualism
المؤلف:
Tara Goldstein
المصدر:
Teaching and Learning in a Multilingual School
الجزء والصفحة:
P25-C2
2025-09-23
174
Accepting and Legitimizing Multilingualism
Sometimes for the problem solving or the probability stuff, you know, you know me, right? I think in Chinese. In English, I often have to spend, like, 15 minutes [to understand a problem], right? But in Chinese, I...like...6 minutes or 5 minutes, I can, I can figure out [the problem]. It's really easier.
[Rose Chan, a student in Evelyn Lo's summer finite math class, Interview, July 27, 1994]
As discussed in the Introduction and demonstrated once again in the quote above, the use of Cantonese contributed to the academic success of students from Hong Kong by helping them make links between their own knowledge and the knowledge of their classrooms and school. However, students like Rose Chan, who is quoted, were only able to use their linguistic resource of Cantonese when their teachers supported the use of languages other than English in their classrooms. We explore the way student multilingualism was legitimized by Evelyn Lo, one of the math teachers at Northside. We begin with excerpts from an interview with Mrs. Lo, who not only allowed her students to use languages other than English in the classroom, but also used Cantonese and Mandarin herself. Born in China, Evelyn Lo immigrated to Hong Kong as a child, and then immigrated to Canada as an adult. She was trilingual and her use of Mandarin, Cantonese, and English in the classroom were associated with the various roles she played there. The data comes from observations, tape recordings, and interviews that research assistant Veronica Hsueh and I undertook in Mrs. Lo's summer finite math class. Excerpts from two additional student interviews have been juxtaposed with the data from this site. The interview excerpts, commentary, and pedagogical discussion that appear have been member checked by Evelyn Lo. The interview excerpt begins with me asking Evelyn about the different roles she plays as a teacher.
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