ABSTRACT

This chapter talks about teachers and students working in languages other than English in classrooms and schools where English is the language of instruction. It is to Educating Second Language Children: The Whole Child, the Whole Curriculum, the Whole Community, Fred Genesee tells us that researchers and educators have been arguing for a long time that the academic success of children is influenced by their linguistic and social backgrounds. The chapter focuses on the language practices of the first larger group of students who chose to use Cantonese among themselves. Cantonese-speaking students reported that fellow Cantonese-speaking students would consider them 'rude' if they spoke to them in English and that they 'shouldn't talk in English', they 'should talk in Cantonese'. When Cantonese-speaking students use English with fellow Cantonese-speaking students they are demonstrating the power they have and are therefore showing off their linguistic achievement in the same way people show off their material or educational achievements.