The Future of Education

Research on English Medium Instruction (EMI) has shown that students draw on their L1, to scaffold learning (e.g. Mazak & Donoso, 2015; Trodson & Dashwood, 2018). Therefore, this research aims to investigate whether, L1 (Bangla) is used as a scaffolding strategy to ensure the comprehensibility of lectures, and whether this strategy is helpful. Firstly, twenty-five classrooms were observed and recorded over a three-month period in 2021. To analyze classroom recordings with a focus on the use of Bangla, a conversation-analytic approach to codeswitching was adopted (Auer,1984; Bonacina and Gafaranga, 2011). To reveal instances of scaffolding in bilingual classroom interactions, sequential analysis was conducted. Then, twenty-three semi-structured retrospective interviews were conducted with the participants and analyzed thematically. Analysis of the interactional data revealed a recurrent interactional episode, referred to in the current study as the ‘scaffolding episode’, within which Bangla is used for scaffolding purposes. In the episode, lecture comprehension problems may be of two types, namely problems to do with new concepts and problems to do with the designation in English. Analysis of the interactional data revealed that L1 works either as an additional resource to usual scaffolding strategies or as a scaffold in its own right. This research also shows that using Bangla does not challenge the status of English as the instructional medium.