“We teach in English here”: Conflict between language ideology and test accountability in an English-only newcomer school

Abstract

Drawing from a six-month ethnography of tenth grade immigrant students from Mexico and their teachers in a Central Texas English immersion program, this article documents multiple contradictory teacher practices regarding the use of English and Spanish in the classroom. This article argues that these varying practices represented a tension between Literacy High’s official English-only policy and a contradictory political ideology prioritizing performance on standardized tests that led to tolerance of Spanish language use.