Classroom Discourse Around Don Quixote: a Case Study in a Bilingual School

Abstract

In this article, I will make reference to an ethnographic study carried out in a bilingual school for Spanish children living in London, which is organised and run along lines similar to state schools in Spain. As stated in the school policy document (Proyecto Educativo de Centro) one of the main school goals is “a pedagogía del encuentro” (a meeting of cultures”) when dealing with the two cultural worlds in which the children are immersed. This goal is in sharp contrast the school policy of bilingualism via two monolingual paths, one English, one Spanish. In the light of these school goals, the study aims to identify ways in which teachers and learners evoke the two cultural worlds associated with the Spanish and English languages, the means by which the separation approach of languages is achieved and ways in which the legitimate language of the class is established. This article will focus on the discourse practices of the Spanish language teacher and her 24 pupils aged 14 during a particular teaching/learning event, relating to the use of a multimodal text which the teacher associates with the well-known episode in which Don Quix te fights with wind-mills, thinking they are giants. The results of the analysis show that despite a strict observance of the school policy of “bilingualism through two monolingual streams”, the teacher not only drew on the learners’ knowledge of Britain but the pupils themselves made comparisons between their two cultural worlds in their discourse practices around the text.