language groups) during which the lecturer interacted with students in their
preferred language. The other model involved the lecturer speaking English
for extended periods and then summarizing in Welsh, or vice versa. Of the
ten lecturers observed, only one favoured Welsh in his oral presentation, in a
setting where non-Welsh speakers were in the minority. In contrast, two
lecturers presented almost wholly in English, limiting the bilingual element
of their lectures to the PowerPoint presentations and the students’ group
work sessions. Four others spoke more English than Welsh, whereas the
remaining three used both languages almost equally.
In their interviews, three of the lecturers explained that their main strat-
egy was to present information in Welsh first and then in English. Two
others said that they always introduced the subject terminology bilingually.
The subject content, rather than the bilingual provision, was the priority for
two lecturers. One of them explained that this meant that English would be
the main language of the session if there was insufficient time to deliver the
entire content of the lecture bilingually.
Two lecturers switched languages frequently in order to sustain the stu-
dents’ interest and another recently realized that he often switched lan-
guages in the middle of a sentence (intrasentential switching, as discussed
above). In the opinion of one lecturer, interviewed on 7 November 2008,
frequent language switching was ‘completely ineffective’ as a presentation
strategy and bored the students. Two of the lecturers said that the students’
response influenced their teaching strategies.
As regards resources, all the lecturers provided bilingual notes and work-
sheets and used bilingual PowerPoint presentations. Three of the presenta-
tions included an occasional slide in English only. One lecturer presented a
slide in English only and discussed it in Welsh, before presenting a slide in
Welsh only and discussing it in English, a strategy also mentioned by another
lecturer during interview. When displaying overhead projector slides, one
lecturer used two projectors to show English and Welsh slides side by side.
This strategy was appreciated by the students present in the lecture, accord-
ing to their comments in a subsequent interview. External sources, such as
videos and newspaper articles, were provided in English only.
The nature and structure of the sessions undoubtedly influenced the lec-
turers’ style of delivery, and are key aspects to consider when exploring the
success of bilingual provision. On the whole, English was the main language
of oral presentations in lecturer-centred sessions when much information
had to be relayed to the students. Sessions delivered in a student-centred
manner had a flexibility which facilitated the language balance. Five of the
lecturers planned their sessions to provide more opportunities for the stu-
dents to interact on practical tasks, thus limiting the time spent by the lec-
turers addressing the whole class bilingually.
Active learning by students is a fundamental part of the School of
Education’s courses. This is an important difference between these courses
184 Part 4: Bilingual Education