Language and Affect: Bilingual Students at Home and at School

As educators struggle to improve schooling for low-income and minority students, they have paid considerable attention to the mismatch between the language and culture of the home and that of the school (Philips 1983 ; Heath 1982; Mohatt & Erickson 1981). Recent ethnographic studies have brought into sharp focus just how important it is to examine the nature of the interactions both within and between homes and schools. For example, Heath demonstrated nonmainstream students' academic progress can be hindered by the difference in the ways in which language is used and questions are posed in homes and schools. What is less clearly understood is what role students play in this process as they negotiate their identity, especially in relation to language, in the context of home and school and how students mediate the differences between the two environments. More specifically it is important to understand how students' self-perceptions affect their language proficiency and their ability to extend and broaden their language use. It is evident that a complex array of factors impinges upon students' choices and performance in their academic work and social interaction as well. According to Halliday (1975), as students acquire language they "learn to mean" within the context of their community. As children mature, they develop a sense of themselves within the context of their language and culture. Students who come from homes where a language other than English is spoken must struggle not only with the difficulties of learning a second language, but also with all of the affective dilemmas posed by becoming acquainted with and pressured to adopt the values and customs of another culture. When linguistically different students leave home and enter school, they are not only entering a new environment, they must also learn to negotiate a new reality. Very quickly they learn what is, and is not, rewarded in the larger society. Equipped with this knowledge, they make choices about how they will function both in and out of school. These decisions are likely to impact their possibilities for both language development and academic achievement. The four bilingual students whose language samples provide the basis for my language use analysis here, were all in the same classroom in an English-Spanish bilingual program that had just been implemented. For the first time in their school careers, these students were provided with in-