Los sujetos del Derecho a la Protección de Datos Personales o Autodeterminación Informativa 41 :

For social reasons, the teacher participants reported that they felt very strongly about language being an inherent part of an individual’s identity. As their students are “de facto speakers of another language” they “cannot help but

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speak their mother tongue” especially if there is another speaker of the same language in the classroom. The teachers generally agree that this is acceptable “so long as they are on task and not disruptive.” Interestingly, Robyn particularly noted that it would be “strange” to speak in English with a friend (of the shared language) especially if they had known each other prior to the course – an observation equally emphasised by WSJ:

To suddenly or consciously switch to a different language with someone whom you’ve always spoken to in one language is just weird and unnatural, so perhaps this is something we have to be conscious about especially as we have these larger groups from, say, China or Brazil. They knew each other back in China as classmates or friends so they are used to communicating to each other in Chinese or Portuguese; to expect or demand that they just switch to English is unnatural for them. But unfortunately we don’t always think about that and this is what a lot of theory ignores – the real stuff – or maybe there is just a lack of research about this.

The teacher participants also reported that sometimes they felt that their students could be using their first languages to mark “tribal affiliations” as this comment from Thelma illustrates:

I think students sometimes use their first languages to distinguish themselves from each other, I mean, we do it to with English for example American English and Canadian English or Australian English and Kiwi English.

In these situations, the teachers felt that the students might be trying to establish or assert their identity as a speaker or user of a particular language, both in terms of dialect and/or accent. In fact, WSJ reported that some students may purposefully “switch on or put on an accent just to fit in” with the identity of the dominant group or a particular group.

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Robyn also identified “peer pressure” as a possible reason for students using their first languages, which was described by WSJ as due to “group culture identity.” Both Mary and Robyn reportedly observed and generalised that some cultures “tend to speak their own language with each other more” while some “have a strong desire for whatever reason to not use their own first language at all.” In other words, if a student started using English while the others maintained the L1, that student could be labelled as a “wanna-be” or a “show- off.” So to avoid being ostracised by their group members, some students may be pressured to use their L1 in order to “fit in with the rest” especially if English is positioned as the ‘other’ language.

Furthermore, the teacher participants collectively viewed the non-official ‘English-only’ language policy at the Centre, enforced via visual reminders, as being somewhat prescriptive. They felt that the enforcement of such a mono- lingual policy was “artificial” especially as the students are speakers of another language and by imposing English, their students would be denied their expressing their identity as a speaker of more than one language. This was because the teachers reported noticing that their students codeswitch from one language to another when discussing different things or moving between domains. For example, both WSJ and Grace pointed out that their students used their first languages presumably to talk about after-class activities or what movies to watch but when it came to actual class work, both teachers noticed a switch “whether consciously or not” to English although it should be noted that all the teachers agreed that this phenomenon was reportedly more noticeable amongst their higher level students. The teachers reported observing generally more L1 use amongst their lower level students because “[the students] did not have enough output [in English]” (this will be discussed in further detail under Affective filtering below).

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Nevertheless, one interesting point raised by WSJ again was how they believe that some students use their first languages to exclude not just other students, but also “to mark that [the teacher] is not one of us.” In other words, by using the language their teacher does not speak, they could talk more freely about what they did not wish the teacher to know, for example the fact that they had forgotten to do their homework or that they hated vocabulary tasks. In point of fact, when I observed WSJ’s class on a review of critical reading skills, one particular Chinese student continually moaned in their L1, throughout the observation, about why WSJ was “doing this [teaching critical] reading again,” presumably because he did not want WSJ to understand what he said.