Child language brokering in schools: a discussion of selected findings from a survey of teachers and ex-students

Because the children of immigrants often learn the host language much more quickly than their parents, increasing numbers of children and young people contribute to family life by acting as child language brokers (or interpreters) (CLBs) for their parents. There is well-founded professional resistance to the use of children in the LB role in sensitive or challenging meetings, but for some purposes many immigrant parents and grandparents prefer a language broker from within their own family to an external professional interpreter. In this paper we report selected findings from parallel on-line surveys of teachers in schools where there has been some use of students as CLBs and of young adults who have acted as CLBs while at school. Our aim is to explore what can be learned about the use of CLBs from analyzing the views and experiences of these two groups who bring distinctive and complementary perspectives to the topic.