The Role of the Language Specialist in Disciplinary Teaching: In Search of A Subject?

Abstract

The data for this paper come from multilingual and multicultural mainstream English secondary school classrooms in which two kinds of teachers, language specialists and subject specialists, work together with students on various educational processes. The foci in this paper are the roles, relationships and talk of the two kinds of teachers in this secondary school context. An analysis is undertaken of how the teachers are differently constructed through their discursive pedagogic classroom practices. At the core of this investigation is an interest in how teachers' talk combines with a variety of pedagogic practices, themselves already invested with social structure, to create learning opportunities. The performance of these roles, relationships and discursive practices impact not only on the teachers' status within the school but also on how 'languages' (first and other) and diversity are viewed in the learning and teaching processes.