Cuando el Maestro No Habla Español: Children's Bilingual Language Practices in the Classroom

This article reports on a study of the language use practices and beliefs of bilingual students enrolled in a fourth‐grade class taught by a teacher who is only minimally proficient in their native language, Spanish. Combining an ethnographic and a quantitative perspective, the study is based on two major data sources: extensive field observations of the classroom and interviews with the students and teacher. In addition to drawing upon interview data that describe the language choices and attitudes of the students as a whole, this article focuses on the language use of three case‐study children who were observed longitudinally in the classroom at regular intervals over 14 months. The results depict a classroom where students and teacher are committed to the maintenance and further development of Spanish. Spanish‐speaking students, particularly girls, used considerable amounts of Spanish in the classroom despite their teacher's reliance on English. Children in the classroom consistently held very positive attitudes toward Spanish and bilingualism regardless of their language practices at home or school. However, our data reveal that a substantial shift toward English over the school year characterized the sociolinguistic environment of this classroom. Most children in the class reported using greater amounts of English as they progressed through the grades, and the case‐study children's use of. English in the classroom increased considerably over the course of the school year. In addition to addressing the different factors at work in the way students use and develop their native languages in school settings, we describe ways English‐medium teachers can foster the maintenance and development of their students' native languages.