Student Responses to English-Only in the Classroom
When we asked Mrs. Yee's students about their feelings toward the English-only policy in their classroom, we heard mixed views. On one hand, many Cantonese-speaking students welcomed the policy as a tool for helping them practice English, the language of academic and political power, both inside and outside of school. On the other hand, the enforcement of the policy was sometimes seen as embarrassing, as the following interview excerpt with Cantonese-speaking student Cathy Lee illustrates:
Tara: What are your feelings about English-only policies and the different ways that teachers try and enforce that rule?
Cathy: Like, the teacher who makes this policy is, like, good for us. Well, I'm thinking it's good for us because it will motivate ourselves to speak more English, because the teacher is trying to help us improve our English. Like speaking skills, especially. It's good. Like, I think it's good but—It's good to set a policy, but—It's—What I'm thinking is—is that it's not good that you not set a policy—right? Okay? You understand what I'm talking about?
Tara: Tell me a little more.
Cathy: Because, you would naturally speak Chinese when you—when you are not in an English policy rule—like—class. So I don't think—I don't really mind that you speak Chinese in the hall, but I would prefer more [people] to speak English in the class.
Tara: And you think it's the policy that helps you, helps everybody to do that?
Cathy: Yeah. If you have a policy in the class where you have to speak in English—like, this is a policy. You can't change it, right?
Tara: Right. So if you speak Cantonese—ah, usually with your friends—and then you change to English, then they think you're showing off. But in the classroom, if there is an English language policy, everybody knows you are just obeying the policy—
Cathy: Yeah.
Tara: So then no one can accuse you of showing off.
Cathy: Yeah.
Tara: Okay. I got it now. Now, it seems to me there's a difference between having a policy and then also punishing people when they don't have—ah—when they don't speak English. So, let's use Mrs. Yee's class, for example. She has chores.
Cathy: Yeah.
Tara: She doesn't take off marks. She doesn't—um—take money. How do you feel about the chores, a punishment for not speaking English?
Cathy: It's not as big a punishment as money I don't think.
Tara: Right. If you were in a class where the teacher asked you to give them money if you spoke your own language or a class in which they said, "I'm going to deduct some marks," how would you feel?
Cathy: That's too strong (Laughs). But I think the students really don't care about chores.
Tara: No.
Cathy: They don't. Not really. But, like, it's a shame that your name is put on the board. It's like embarrassing, you know?
Tara: Yeah. Would you prefer that she didn't put your name on the board?
Cathy: Yes. [Interview, April 30, 1998]
In addition to thinking about the issue of student embarrassment, teachers who want to implement a classroom English-only policy also need to think about student resistance. In a discussion of the promotion of English at school, Gertrude Chow, a Cantonese-speaking student who was not in Mrs. Yee's English class pointed out:
I think that even though teachers tell students not to speak Cantonese, it doesn't work. 'Cause students can talk Cantonese quietly, secretly. Or they even write letters, in Chinese, but not in English.
[Small group discussion, November 28,1996]
Mrs. Yee believed that only the use of English was legitimate in her classroom. In her interview, she said that although she might conduct a counseling session in a student's first language, as far as teaching and learning was concerned the use of languages other than English was "rather illegitimate." Some students, like Cathy Lee, shared Mrs. Yee's belief that it was important to practice English as much as possible and supported her use of a classroom English-only policy even though she felt embarrassed when it was implemented. Others, as Gertrude explained, contested this legitimizing of English by speaking other languages quietly so they were not overhead or by writing notes in languages other than English. In other words, not all students had an "unconditional investment" in speaking English. Some were ambivalent or resistant.
Upon reading both Cathy and Gertrude's comments on Mrs. Yee's English-only policy, my colleague Angel Lin (personal communication) had this to say:
What stands out from Cathy's story seems to be her argument that the teacher's English-only policy has become a resource for her to draw on to avoid the social interpretation of her "showing off her English ability." She can always say, "Oh, I have to speak English because I dare not offend the teacher by violating her rule." This is interesting because you can see that there are at least two different [groups] of students in the classroom. One [group] wants to practice using English (and has the ability to do so), but dares not do so because of the social sanctions by their peers. For them, the teacher's English-only policy has become a resource to counter those social sanctions...Another [group] of students are those who are diffident about their English accent and limited proficiency. They will not speak English anyway, and so, this policy serves as a resource for them to construct another identity, that of "brave teacher-contester" who keeps on speaking in Cantonese to one another, albeit in whispers.
Using this analysis to think about what is problematic about an English-only policy in a multilingual classroom, Lin suggested that such a policy not only creates embarrassment for students, but does nothing to increase students' confidence and interest in using English despite accents or limited proficiency. An English-only policy also fails to rally the first-language resources that students might have to support their learning of English:
It's basically a counter-effective strategy in the sense that those who need most help, that is to say, those who are diffident about their English and are actually limited in their English skills, will not be encouraged by this policy to speak English, but will be pushed to speak even more of their first language in defiance of this policy.
To further my thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of implementing a classroom English-only policy as a strategy to provide students with more opportunities to practice English, I turned to work that had been written in response to the American "Ebonics Debate," which raged during the 1996-1997 school year. In the pedagogical discussion that follows, I engage with this work for insights into "best practices" for promoting English in multilingual classrooms.
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