Page 264 - Beyond Methods

252 Ensuring social relevance
this point, the bilingual assistant (BA) stepped in to explain in Pan- jabi the difference between a pipe and a cigarette. Explaining the episode and referring to the bilingual assistant, Martin-Jones and Saxena observe: “When discussing this event with us later, she said that she had realized that children were not familiar with the prac- tice of putting pipes in the mouths of snowmen and were also un- likely to have seen anyone in their immediate family smoking a pipe” (p. 120).
More importantly, the researchers point out that when one learner introduced a point in English about a cousin of hers who smoked cigarettes, the bilingual assistant realized the significance of this point for the child because smoking was frowned upon in her local Muslim community. Not realizing the significance of the child’s point, the class teacher terminated this exchange between the learner and the bilingual assistant, directing everyone’s attention to the board, thus failing to utilize a learning opportunity created by a learner (see Chapter 3).
L2 learners in Sri Lanka
Consider the following three short interactional episodes from Sri Lankan classrooms consisting of Tamil learners of English. The data and explanation are taken from Canagarajah (1999, p. 132, 136).
Episode 11.2
S1: (reading) Who owns the red car?
S2: (reads) The red car belongs to // (to T) itenna, miss, eppiTi collu- ratu, (spells) e-n-o-s-h-a? What is this, MISS, how do I say this?
T: Enosha
S2: (reads) The red car belongs to Enosha.
In this episode, where two learners role-play a dialogue, the task itself is performed in English while request for help is uttered in Tamil. Additionally, according to Canagarajah, making requests in L1 “has affective value and it conveys sincerity and an appeal for sympathy” (p. 132).