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This article discusses sociocultural and other theoretical aspects of the language-in-education debate in the light of their practical implications for language policy and teacher education in linguistically diverse school settings. We draw on studies carried out in African classrooms where subjects such as science were being taught via English, an L2 for most learners. Studies indicate that code switching offers an economical resource for constructing meaning in classrooms where teachers and learners can use the same home or local language. Language use within the classroom is thus seen in terms of the need to communicate meaning with the goal of ensuring access to knowledge and thereby fostering individual development. We suggest that meaningful learning contexts are likely to increase the motivation to learn English, ultimately fostering societal development within the larger global context. The article concludes with a call for the TESOL field to identify the full potential of code switching and categorize its functions so that teachers may be helped to use it purposefully.

This article provides vignettes from teaching practice site visits in linguistically diverse South African Foundation Phase classrooms. The purpose is to point to the complexity of encounters between student teachers and learners when neither are first language speakers of English, the instructional language. The vignettes presented here suggest the potential negative social and pedagogical consequences for learners, in part due to teachers' lack of awareness that language can create a barrier to learning. In noting instances of instructional dissonance, the article concludes by underlining the need for teacher education to include more content relating to the critical role of language in learning as well as to the importance of recognising the rich linguistic and cultural repertoire that learners bring to the multilingual classroom. In addition, teacher graduates' proficiency in the language of instruction cannot be assumed to be adequate; this requires focused attention in policy documents and in teacher education programmes. Nsamenang, 2004).

Since bilingual school programs are part of the fabric of society, they reflect major social patterns and processes that characterize society at large. Thus, an understanding of the social objectives and outcomes of bilingual education programs requires an understanding of both the broad sociocultural context of which they are a part and the relationship of the school to its larger context. In the present study, ethnographic procedures were used to observe social interactions among the staff of an early French immersion program in Montreal over a one-year period. Since the staff was made up of French Canadian and English Canadian teachers who were members of ethnolinguistic groups in conflict, it was expected that social interaction in the school would also be conflictual. Strategies of conflict management were thus also observed.It was found, as expected, that interaction among the staff was conflictual and that the underlying tension could be related to societally based group conflict. It was also found that the teachers used two main interaction strategies to minimize interpersonal conflict and to maintain a semblance of professional harmony: 1) avoidance of social interaction and 2) the predominant use of English in cross-group communication. These strategies in turn can be traced to now outdated sociolinguistic norms that prevailed when English dominated French in the community. These findings suggest that although the long-term social objectives of immersion and other bilingual school programs may be to promote bilingualism and facilitate intergroup contact, the actual interaction patterns of teachers working in such schools may portray the very conflict and inequities they seek to resolve.

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