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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1081

Part of Session 176: Re-thinking language policy and practice in urban education (Other abstracts in this session)

The language-policing practices constituting the emerging micro-level language policy-in-process in the EFL classroom: The example from a Swedish EFL classroom

Authors: Amir, Alia
Submitted by: Amir, Alia (Linköping University, Sweden)

Spolsky’s (2004, 2009) recent coceptualisation of language policy as practices has been approached through Conversation Analysis by a few studies (Bonacina, 2010; Bonacina and Gafaranga, 2010; Amir and Musk, in preparation etc.) Following Bonacina’s (2010) call to study practiced language policy with the help of Conversation Analysis, this study aims to fill the gap where the practices dimension of language policy can be explored by looking at “what people do and not at what they think should be done or what someone else wants them to do” (Psathas, 2004: 218).  To expose the “grass-roots nature of LPP” (Mc Carty, 2011) this study aims to explore the micro-level language-policy in process (Musk and Amir, 2010) of an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) Classroom in a Swedish city by tracing mediums of classroom interaction (Bonacina and Gafaranga, 2010). With this case study, I also aim to explore how at the micro-level of an urban Swedish classroom the participants orient to establishing the normatively prescribed medium of classroom interaction. Although the participants switched between different mediums of classroom interaction the emergent nature of the micro-level language policy-in-process changed moment by moment and turn by turn. The sequential analysis of video recordings of the EFL classroom in an international Swedish school revealed language policing practices. These practices constitute the micro-level enactment of a monolingual policy which is displayed by the participants’ orientation to the medium in need of repair.

The analysis has revealed, for example, the mediums of classroom interaction varied for each participant for instance the teacher uses a monolingual English medium (during the lessons) but pupils switch between different mediums. Another important finding of the study is that the pattern of medium switching tended to be one-way that is from Swedish to English.

The data consists of 20 hours of video recordings in an ESL classroom in an international Swedish school of grades 8 and 9 taught by one native-speaker during the years 2007-2010.