COMMENTARY: TEACHING AND LEARNING IN CANTONESE AND MANDARIN The Fluidity of Language Choice and the Practice of Codeswitching
المؤلف:
Tara Goldstein
المصدر:
Teaching and Learning in a Multilingual School
الجزء والصفحة:
P29-C2
2025-09-24
229
COMMENTARY: TEACHING AND LEARNING IN CANTONESE AND MANDARIN
The Fluidity of Language Choice and the Practice of Codeswitching
As discussed in the aforementioned interview, Evelyn Lo's uses of Mandarin, Cantonese, and English were associated with three roles she played in the classroom: teacher, "helper," and counselor.1 Interactionist sociolinguists tell us that language choice is fluid and that there is a range of choices open to people in their use of language to symbolize various identities. For example, Robert Le Page has explained that people create different ways of talking that resemble those belonging to the groups or roles they wish, from time to time, to be identified with.2 People make different selections among the language practices and roles and identities available to them at different times.
In her role as teacher and authority in the classroom, Mrs. Lo performed particular tasks. She took attendance and sent students who were late to the office to get a late slip. Mrs. Lo also formally presented the math concepts to be studied each day, assigned classroom and homework tasks, designed quizzes and tests, evaluated students' assignments, quizzes, and tests, and dealt with students' questioning or contesting of the mark she had given them on their work. In this role, Mrs. Lo only used English, which was the language of instruction in the school and symbolic of her authority as the class leader and evaluator of her students' work.
After her formal presentation of the math concepts to be studied each day, Mrs. Lo assigned a set of "classroom practice" activities. Students worked on these activities either individually, in pairs, or in small groups, with others seated at their table. It was during these classroom practice activities that students used their primary languages. Mrs. Lo visited each student table and provided assistance to individual students who needed it. Classroom practice was a time period that was clearly carved out of the 4-hour summer math class and always followed Mrs. Lo's introductory presentation. During classroom practice Mrs. Lo assumed a role that research assistant Veronica Hsueh and I called helper. As discussed in the interview, in this role, Mrs. Lo used Cantonese and Mandarin with students if they were "stuck," that is, having difficulty completing a problem.
In her role of counselor, Mrs. Lo provided academic and personal counseling to those students who needed support. The type of counseling she provided during the 5 weeks we visited her classroom included academic advice about working harder in school to a student whom she felt was not working to his or her full potential and career advice to a student trying to make a decision about when and where to go to university. Mrs. Lo also told us that she was speaking regularly to a student who was working on family issues at home. In this role of counselor, Mrs. Lo used English with students who did not speak Cantonese or Mandarin, but often used Cantonese with the Cantonese speakers and Mandarin with Mandarin speakers.
1 See Lin (1988) for similar findings and a discussion of the use of language alternation as a communicative resource to negotiate different roles in the classroom.
2 See Le Page (1968).
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