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This article addresses the relationship between educational theory-as manifested in particular ideologies of teaching and learning-and classroom practice. Based on an ethnographic study of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learning at a Canadian senior public school, I outline a conflict between two language ideologies that give shape to, and are shaped by, the classroom practices of the ESL teacher, his assistants, and the students. I discuss the implications of this ideological conflict in terms of the opportunities ESL students are given, and that they create for themselves, to practice speaking English. I end by outlining how these findings can be used to shape educational policy as it relates to ESL classroom curricula in order to create a more equitable learning environment for ESL students.
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Theories of practice in the contemporary social sciences attempt to explain how social structures are produced and reproduced by examining both how structures constrain human practices and the role human practices play in reproducing social structures (Ortner 1984:146, 148). Thus, Bourdieu (1977) argues that a group's habitus-its internalized, socially constituted systems of dispositions-gives rise to particular practices, which, in turn, have a tendency to reproduce habitus. Giddens' (1979) notion of structuration also encompasses the idea that social structure is both a source and product of social practices. Theories of practice have gained increased currency in sociocultural and linguistic anthropology in recent years (e.g., Eckert 2000; McElhinny 1998; Ochs 1988; Ortner 1996; Sahlins 1992). Practice theory has also helped to show how various aspects of social structure are reproduced, contested, or transformed in the school setting (e.g., Heller 1995). In this article I use practice theory in order to measure the extent to which the unequal social relations between minority and majority languages and their speakers are reproduced through everyday practices in an urban Canadian school. Specifically, this article explores the degree to which English-asa-second language (ESL) students are subjected to institutional control in the classroom in ways that constrain their ability to practice, and, thus, learn, English, the dominant language in this school and in the wider Canadian society. I also examine whether ESL students accept or resist this institutional control through their everyday classroom practices (see also Rymes and Pash 2001).
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