ABSTRACT |
This paper examines the social dimension of teaching and learning
processes in the bilingual classroom. I will look at one area of the
Spanish government provision for Spanish “residentes” in Britain, the
bilingual school in London. I will describe an ethnographic study that I
carried out there with secondary school pupils. My focus is primarily
on classroom processes and, in particular on talk around texts. I have
divided this paper into two broad categories namely, curriculum
organization and pedagogy (Fishman, 1977). In the first part, I will
examine how the curriculum was organised in the English and Spanish
lessons that I observed, together with a description of the
instructional materials used and the separation approach adopted by
school policy. In the second part, I will deal with some pedagogical
issues: a) the nature and length of the texts used in the lessons; b)
commonalities and differences when dealing with texts; c) the
interactional practices around the texts and the different teaching
styles when doing English and Spanish. Finally, I will draw some
conclusions.
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