Bilingual Teachers in Mainstream Secondary School Classrooms: Using Turkish for Curriculum Learning

In England an inclusive language and educational policy is implemented which intends to give bilingual/EAL (English as an additional language) students access to a national curriculum studied by all students. Bilingual/EAL children are placed in English mainstream secondary school classrooms where their language and learning needs are to be met by a working partnership between the subject teacher and EAL teacher. The bulk of the language support in English schools is non-bilingual and is delivered in English. However, there is sizeable number of bilingual EAL teachers in England's multilingual schools. The focus of this paper is an ethnographic study of six Turkish/English bilingual EAL teachers from three London secondary schools, using observations, interviews, classroom transcripts and government/school policy documents as data sources. The paper describes how bilingual EAL teachers work within secondary school subject discipline classrooms where the primary focus is curriculum learning. It shows these bilingual EAL teachers resisting the "support" role usually played by EAL teachers for a more traditional subject teacher role of "transmitter" and "explainer" of curriculum content. This decision to work within the dominant pedagogic framework of secondary schooling in effect keeps the bilingual/EAL teacher and children at the centre of classroom life.