Abstract:
Combining discourse analysis and ethnographic methods, I explore language practices in the classroom and bilingual education teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward the use of pupils’ first language in the teaching and learning process in/of Portuguese as a second language. The data analysed in this study come from my classroom observations and from my interactions with bilingual education teachers in my research and evaluation missions of this form of education in Mozambique. Drawing on earlier studies on codeswitching, the analytical approach adopted in this study is that classroom discursive practices and teachers’ positions and attitudes toward languages are shaped by specific sociopolitical and educational conditions in which they occur, hence the need to interpret those language practices, beliefs and attitudes within these contexts. The analysis also takes an interdisciplinary perspective, making use of knowledge and results from studies of sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic and pedagogic nature. My key argument is that, in the learning and teaching process, codeswitching is a communicative and pedagogic strategy that, once optimally used, can enhance classroom communication as well as pupils’ learning in/of the Portuguese language, especially considering that this is a second language for the majority of Mozambican children.
