Data session: 17th January, Alia Amir, ‘No Swedish!’: English-only rule through language policing

DARG will run at 13:00-14:30 UK time as a hybrid data session. Room B124 (Brockington Building, Loughborough) or on zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82657058417?pwd=b0NqMTFJK2ZxaGc2RFQ1VExmQUFPUT09. password: DARG.

Session details: The history of English language teaching (ELT) is deeply steeped in colonial ideologies of ‘one nation, one language,’ indicating that in the case of bilingual pupils, their L1/s (first languages/s) should be kept out of the classrooms. Such puritanic language teaching ideologies were also applied in the Direct method, which advocated for keeping languages separate, similar to water-tight containers. With this background, I want to explore this data from Sweden (grades 7-9), in which the teachers employ the English-only rule as well by policing each other’s and their own language choice (self-policing and other-policing). Swedish is deemed as a forbidden language. The participants’ indigenous way of interpreting the official policy is negotiated, challenged and accomplished through micro-level language policy in interaction. To keep the “English-only” rule, however, alternate practices of policing emerge to avoid Swedish in the class.  In this data session, I want to explore the role of language policing initiations in relation to the ongoing tasks in the classroom context. 

Transcript: ‘No Swedish!’