Master of Applied Linguistics and TESOL students at Macquarie University (Image credit: Jung Ung Hwang)

As pre-pandemic levels of migration have been restored or exceeded, international students are once again in the spotlight.

Canada is planning to cap international student visas and Australia plans to raise English language proficiency requirements for student visas. The stated rationale is to “improve the quality of students’ educational experience and reduce workplace exploitation” and to “support international students to realise their potential.”

I argue that raising the English proficiency requirements for university admission is not a good way to achieve the stated rationale. International students’ educational experience and their successful integration into the workforce can be improved in a different way.

Why are language proficiency tests used for university admission?

A certain level of language proficiency is undoubtedly required to be able to study in a degree program.

However, standardized language proficiency tests that are designed to be used on a large scale, are, in fact, not good predictors of academic success, and are not viewed as such by university teaching staff and other stakeholders. After all, language proficiency is just one aspect of the many facets that contribute to students’ academic achievement.

Furthermore, language testing is administered selectively and not every applicant’s  language proficiency gets tested, entrenching inequality between different student groups from the outset.

Why is language proficiency testing not enough?

Successful communication depends on many factors, including the communication skills and supportiveness of the interlocutor. In standardized English language proficiency test situations, the interlocutors are trained assessors, who focus on language skills, fluency, and accuracy in a controlled test environment. In real life, however, interlocutors are not trained language experts and not necessarily supportive either, as adult language learners experience all too often.

Here’s an example from Yumiko, a Japanese international student featured in the forthcoming book Life in a New Language. In the first few months of her time in Australia, Yumiko only ordered orange juice because hospitality staff could not understand her Japanese accent when she said ‘apple juice’ (probably sounding like “apuru juice”). Not only did she not achieve the desired result but interlocutors often responded to her in an unkind way. This is an example of a social situation that isn’t academic in nature; however, unfortunately, international students do get judged as competent or incompetent in such situations, which of course, has very real consequences for them.

While language proficiency tests give an indication of general language proficiency, it would be unrealistic to expect them to replicate all the potential language use situations in a university student’s life. Therefore, raising the language test score requirements for university study is unlikely to significantly improve students’ educational experience.

How do we improve student experience then?

Instead of having a higher score on a standardized language proficiency test, what truly helps improve the students’ educational experience is language support and experiential learning that enable them to function in their future workplaces. Language support should be provided to all students with a dual purpose: on the one hand, to assist with their studies – as a more immediate need – and on the other, to gain effective communication skills for employability.

Besides the generic university-wide academic language support that most universities provide, discipline-embedded language support can be provided to all students and not just international students. This is to avoid the ‘sink-or-swim’ approach that they experience in higher education.

At the same time, valuing and building on the multilingual repertoires of students can provide a superior learning experience for all. An inclusive environment clearly benefits all. Engaging with languages in their studies and classes opens up new ways of knowledge production for students. For instance, in a recent seminar activity on the topic of wellbeing for language teachers, my class explored two Japanese concepts as part of the seminar activity. This led to an interesting discussion on what other wellbeing concepts there are in other languages and what we can learn from them.

Preparing students for the workplace

Furthermore, students need to be prepared for workplace requirements both linguistically and by building skills and connections through work-integrated learning (WIL). Learning activities that require students to research and engage with professional bodies are a good start to build awareness and language skills. This can then lead to learning activities and assessment practices that require industry project participation. For instance, Applied Linguistics and TESOL students at Macquarie University design language testing activities for English language schools as part of a unit I teach on language assessment.

In conclusion, setting up additional barriers to admission does not support students. What does support students is creating safe spaces with supportive interlocutors where they can simultaneously grow their linguistic repertoires, their disciplinary knowledge, and their workplace skills.

References

Bodis, A. (2017). International students and language: opportunity or threat? Language on the Move. Retrieved from https://languageonthemove.com/international-students-and-language-opportunity-or-threat/
Bodis, A. (2021). The discursive (mis) representation of English language proficiency: International students in the Australian media. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 44(1), 37-64.
Bodis, A. (2021). ‘Double deficit’ and exclusion: Mediated language ideologies and international students’ multilingualism. Multilingua, 40(3), 367-392. doi:doi:10.1515/multi-2019-0106
Bodis, A. (2023). Gatekeeping v. marketing: English language proficiency as a university admission requirement in Australia. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-15. doi:10.1080/07294360.2023.2174082
Bodis, A. (2023). Studying abroad is amazing, or is it? Language on the Move. Retrieved from https://languageonthemove.com/studying-abroad-is-amazing-or-is-it/
Piller, I., & Bodis, A. (2023). English Language Proficiency for Australian University Admission. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUSqSSploSE
Piller, I., & Bodis, A. (2024). Marking and unmarking the (non)native speaker through English language proficiency requirements for university admission. Language in Society, 53(1), 1-23. doi:10.1017/S0047404522000689
Piller, I., Bodis, A., Butorac, D., Cho, J., Cramer, R., Farrell, E., . . . Quick, B. (2023). Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Migration Inquiry into ‘Migration, Pathway to Nation Building’. Canberra: Parliament of Australia. Retrieved from https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=8c0d9316-2281-4594-9c7b-079652683f54&subId=735264

(Image credit: Eurekastreet)

Editor’s note: This article is based on a presentation delivered as part of a plenary panel, ‘Transdisciplinary Approach to Forensic Linguistics’, at the 16^th Biennial Conference of the International Association for Forensic and Legal Linguistics, held at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila.

Questions and comments from our readers and conference participants are welcome.

***

Navigating migration procedures in Australia and other countries of the global north can be very challenging. Australian migration law and procedure are incredibly complex and restrictive, and the rules change constantly – some almost on a daily basis.

Processes are also linguistically demanding: making sense of the law itself and then navigating the application process requires a very high level of proficiency in written, legal English, and strong computer literacy. Depending on the type of application, individuals may also need to attend an interview and discuss personal and sensitive parts of their life in great detail, as a way to prove their credibility.

Intercultural communication is a common feature in this setting, in multiple ways. First, and perhaps most obviously, different participants usually come from different national, ethnic, racial and/or linguistic backgrounds. Second, the immigration department and its officials have their own specific bureaucratic culture that, more often than not, will be unfamiliar and challenging for many visa applicants.

This means that while applicants are allowed to apply for a visa on their own, having professional assistance can often be crucial to a smooth and successful application (Jacobs 2022; Reynolds 2020; Smith-Khan 2021c). In Australia, practicing lawyers can assist with visa applications and first-stage appeals. Non-lawyers may also assist. To be authorised, they must complete a Graduate Diploma in Migration Law, pass external examinations, and then register as a migration agent. Together I call these two groups “migration practitioners”.

Despite their importance, there has been very little research about Australian migration practitioners (van Galen-Dickie 2021). My research on asylum procedures found that official texts also pay little attention to how practitioners shape applicant testimony and mediate institutional communication (Smith-Khan 2020). To find out more, my current project explores practitioners’ beliefs and practices when communicating with and on behalf of their clients. I started by examining relevant law and institutional texts and then conducted qualitative interviews with current practitioners, and students training to become registered migration agents. I also observed student practical activities where they role-played migration agents conducting client consultations.

“Life From A Suitcase” sculpture installed at Pyrmont dedicated to immigrants in Australia (Image credit: Wikipedia)

To better understand how intercultural communication is understood in this context, I follow Ingrid Piller’s (2017) approach to examine who makes language and culture relevant, to whom, in which context, and for which purposes. I identified multiple and conflicting discourses about intercultural communication, which emphasise and understand language and culture in different ways, and reflect on the potential impacts of these divergent understandings.

Difficult work

Current practitioners shared insights into the challenges they face in their day-to-day work, particularly emphasising contextual factors. They pointed to the ever-changing and increasingly restricted visa options as a key difficulty: they must carefully balance different professional goals. They must stay up-to-date with changes to migration law, and emphasise their value to their clients. They must also manage their clients’ expectations and clearly communicate the limits of their power within the system. As visas options become increasingly limited, this can be difficult for clients to accept.

Another key challenge is that the channels through which practitioners and applicants can communicate with the immigration department are increasingly inaccessible. Participants explained how in the past, each visa application was assigned an individual departmental case officer who was identified by name, and had a direct email address and telephone number. If practitioners had a question or update about an application, they could easily contact that person. Now instead there are only general contact details for various sections of the department, limiting applicants’ and practitioners’ access and agency. One participant talked about keeping an Excel sheet with old individual contact details she saved in the past and using this to try to reach out to officials directly. What once was standard practice, that list of contacts is now a treasured and rare resource.

Deviance and deficiency

These challenges intersect with another: that practitioners are more tightly regulated now than ever before, leading to stress and in some cases even fear. My analysis of government discourses goes some way to explaining this. In a recent parliamentary inquiry report, migration practitioners are presented as policy problems: they pose a threat in terms of their competence and ethics. Migrant clients are also problems: in particular, “culturally and linguistically diverse” clients are framed as vulnerable and in need of protecting from practitioners. The report opines that they are “socially, legally and financially vulnerable and are open to exploitation from the actions of unscrupulous, unlawful and unethical registered migration agents.”

Immigration is Bolstering Australia’s Population Growth (Source: Statista)

This institutional discourse zooms in on two groups of actors, presenting particular deficiencies they are said to bring to migration processes. Rather than focusing on the complex legal structures and procedures that exacerbate or even create difficulties and vulnerabilities, this discourse places the spotlight on migration practitioners, justifying tighter regulation. They also make language and culture individually salient for migrants, and present these as individual attributes that apparently create vulnerability (Smith-Khan 2021b).

Testable and valued language skills

Language becomes salient in other ways too, connected with migration practitioners. One rule aimed at controlling and excluding incompetent and unethical practitioners regards English language proficiency. Yet this rule is problematic and potentially discriminatory in its application to different groups (Smith-Khan 2021a), as can be demonstrated with an example of two students in the project.

One student is multilingual and came to Australia as a skilled migrant. He grew up in South India, speaking a family language at home, and a regional language in his community. All of his schooling from the beginning of primary school until the end of university was strictly in English, to the point that the students were punished if they were caught speaking another language even in the playground. He used English during work travel to other parts of India, later when working overseas, and then finally in Australia. Proving his English proficiency through testing was a requirement for his Australian skilled permanent visa. He reports that his migration and travel experiences helped him become aware of different ways of speaking English, and communicating with people from different backgrounds.

Another student is a monolingual English-speaker, born in Australia. He too was educated in English, with fewer opportunities to learn any other languages. He has only worked in Australia. While he speaks fluent English and was friendly and engaging in the role-plays I observed, on various occasions, he used Australian English idioms that his role-play partners did not understand, affecting their interaction.

To become registered migration agents, both individuals must successfully complete the Graduate Diploma and pass two externally-administered written and oral exams. These are specifically designed to evaluate their occupational competencies, including their profession-specific communication skills. However, only the Australian-born candidate is assumed to have sufficient English language proficiency. The other, despite his education and work history, must again sit an IELTS test to fulfil the registration requirements.

Country of birth of Australian residents (2021) (Source: Wikipedia)

Here, language and migration history become salient to who legislators trust as competent and reliable. These rules assume that being multilingual and from a particular country of origin are potential threats to English language proficiency, and further, that ensuring English language proficiency helps ensure competent practice and protect vulnerable clients.

Invisible language work

In contrast to the hypervisibility and importance of English proficiency, other language skills and practices are much less visible in official discourses. Yet in reality, many practitioners use other languages in their day-to-day work. All current practitioners in the study who have English as a second language report using other languages in their work. Some serve almost exclusively clients from the same language background or country of origin, while others have more diverse client groups.

Significantly, the Australian immigration regime is almost completely officially monolingual: law and policy are published in English only, all application paperwork must be completed in English. Applicants must simply manage, regardless of their own linguistic resources, and officials are not expected to know or use other languages in their work. This means that when practitioners use languages other than English, they provide a benefit not only to visa applicants, but also to the department, filling a substantial institution-wide communication gap.

Both monolingual and multilingual practitioners also describe the importance of mobilizing other types of intercultural communication skills in their work. They discuss their awareness and management of linguistic issues when working with interpreters, or when speakers use different varieties of a language. They talk about their strategies to check and address issues with understanding. They also describe strategies like switching between different languages for different parts of their interaction to best suit their clients’ needs, for example providing written advice in English, but supplementing this with an oral explanation using another language. Code choice and switching are also discussed as means of identity performance and rapport building.

Relevant sociocultural knowledge is also valued. Those with a migrant background identify their lived experience and insider knowledge as important assets in interacting with and representing their clients. Practitioners who don’t identify a shared background also value this type of knowledge, but report developing an understanding of their clients’ country of origin, ethnic, linguistic and other social groups.

Navigating different types of interpersonal and power dynamics can also be more challenging and complex than official discourses envisage. For example, one young non-white female practitioner shares her experiences assisting high-powered CEO clients. She must carefully balance her professional duties, with maintaining good relationships with the client companies, who can be very demanding, and satisfying her managers, who closely scrutinize and control every detail of her interactions.

While this diverse range of sociolinguistic resources can influence client-practitioner interactions, and therefore the application process, they are not officially acknowledged or addressed in the way that a “testable” level of English proficiency is. Therefore, I argue that migration practitioners carry out important invisible language work that much of the institutional discourse does not explicitly recognize, and is sometimes even discursively transformed into risk rather than benefit (see also Cho 2023).

Developing counter discourses through education

However, the study also found that practical experience and education can help future practitioners to push back against harmful discourses, and to value their own communication skills.

For example, one student reflected on how the role-plays helped build her confidence. English is her second language and she describes herself as a nervous person when it comes to public speaking. She was hesitant to participate in the project, and kept her laptop camera switched off when participating in her first role-play. She said that it allowed her to pretend “I’m just talking in the dark to myself.” Turning her camera on during the next round of role-plays later in her study was evidence for her that she had become more confident. But her gain in confidence did more than just increase her class participation. At the end of her study, she passed her external oral exam on her first attempt, and even reported having an enjoyable chat with the examiner afterwards.

Significantly, she reports that her formative experience during her study also broadened her career plans. In her first research interview she said that she could not work with asylum-seeker clients, as she didn’t feel equipped to assist people who may have experienced trauma. But by the time she’d graduated and was awaiting her registration, she’d applied for work experience with an organization that specifically assists refugees.

Student participants also shared critical reflections on migration profession registration rules.

For example, they critiqued assessment design, arguing that time-restricted external exams don’t reflect the nature of the real work environment. Others made similar comments about English language tests, questioning why they needed to take them again, and why Academic IELTS was required for migration practice, when the tests were not actually designed to evaluate the skills needed for their work.

Other students developed a sense of the bad reputation that migration agents have amongst some government departments and policy-makers. While some embraced the idea that more stringent entry requirements would help prevent “dodgy” agents, others regarded this more critically. One suggested an ideological link between attitudes towards migrants and migration agents: “I think they see us as unnecessary… Because I think they are very anti-immigration, and I don’t think they really care for anybody helping migrants whatsoever…I just think that the Government’s deliberately making it difficult for people to get into the profession”.

So where does this leave our understanding of intercultural communication in migration law practice?  Undoubtedly, migration practitioners play complex and important roles in assisting people applying for Australian visas, mobilizing a range of sociolinguistic resources in the process. Yet there is a huge variation in how their contributions are viewed, based on diverging ways of making language and culture salient in this setting.

As I’ve argued, on the one hand, official discourses present intercultural communication with a focus on particular individuals: migration practitioners become risks that need managing, and clients are vulnerable to exploitation.

On the other hand, the research uncovers considerable counter discourses from current and future practitioners, who value their own skills and suggest that legal and procedural structures should be the target of greater scrutiny. Happily, my research suggests that students’ learning experiences can help equip them to have confidence in their own professional capabilities and to develop this critical focus on broader context.

Finally, with a recent change of government in Australia, significant reforms have been announced, acknowledging some of the big structural issues within the migration system. This creates a great opportunity for improvements to be made so that migration practitioners and the clients they serve can have a more positive and empowering experience.

References

Cho, J. (2023). Bilingual workers in a monolingual state: Bilingualism as a non-skill. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (ahead of publication).
Jacobs, M. (2022). The metapragmatics of legal advice communication in the field of immigration law. Pragmatics, 32(4), 537-561.
Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction (2^nd ed), Edinburgh University Press.
Reynolds, J. (2020). Investigating the language-culture nexus in refugee legal advice meetings. Multingua: Journal of cross-cultural and interlanguage communication, 39(4), 395-429
Smith-Khan, L. (2020). Why refugee visa credibility assessments lack credibility: a critical discourse analysis. Griffith Law Review, 28(4), 406-430.
Smith-Khan, L. (2021a). ‘Common language’ and proficiency tests: A critical examination of registration requirements for Australian Registered Migration Agents. Griffith Law Review, 30(1), 97-121.
Smith-Khan, L. (2021b). Deficiencies and loopholes: clashing discourses, problems and solutions in Australian migration advice regulation. Discourse & Society, 32(5), 598-621.
Smith-Khan, L. (2021c). “I try not to be dominant, but I’m a lawyer!”: Advisor resources, context and refugee credibility. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(4), 3710–3733.
van Galen-Dickie, M. (2021). The Protégé Effect:Learning from the Experience of Graduates in an Online Community of Practice, Doctoral Thesis, University of Southern Queensland.

Video recording of this lecture now available on YouTube (27/12/2023)

(Image credit: Mana Akbarzadegan via Unsplash)

Have you noticed the persistent divide between domestic and international students at Australian universities? Do you worry how the English-monolingual habitus of our highly linguistically diverse institutions of higher learning affects student learning? Would you like to discuss the recent Language in Society article “Marking and unmarking the (non)native speaker through English language proficiency requirements for university admission” with the authors?

Here’s your chance: The Linguistics Department at Macquarie University will host a free webinar devoted to “Rethinking English Language Proficiency and Academic Achievement in Australian Higher Education” this Friday.

When: Friday, March 31, 2023, 4-5pm AEDT (Sydney time)
Where: via Zoom (Pwd: 798325)
Who: Distinguished Professor Ingrid Piller and Dr Agnes Bodis

Abstract: English language proficiency (ELP) is central to the academic achievement of the 1.5 million students enrolled in Australian universities each year. Yet, students are highly linguistically diverse, with a mix of domestic students from English- and non-English-speaking backgrounds and international students from national contexts where English may be the main language, an official language in a multilingual context, or a foreign language with limited communicative functions.

How do universities manage students’ linguistic diversity through their admission requirements and set students up for success?

In this seminar, we examine ELP requirements for university admission in Go8 universities to answer this question. Our language ideological analysis found two categorically different constructs of ELP: inherent ELP based on citizenship, linguistic heritage, and prior education, and tested ELP. We show how these two different conceptualizations of ELP map onto two dichotomous student groups. One of these is deemed to naturally speak English while the other is constructed as deficient and subject to perpetual scrutiny.

These language ideological constructs frame ELP as a matter of individual responsibility rather part of embedded in learning processes. Conversely, they obscure the need for continuous language development of all students and the need for pedagogical innovation in linguistically diverse educational institutions. We close with implications for policy and practice.

Further reading

Bodis, A. (2023). Gatekeeping v. marketing: English language proficiency as a university admission requirement in Australia. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2023.2174082
Piller, I. (2023). How do universities decide whose English needs to be tested for admission? Language on the Move. https://languageonthemove.com/how-do-universities-decide-whose-english-needs-to-be-tested-for-admission/
Piller, I., & Bodis, A. (2022). Marking and unmarking the (non)native speaker through English language proficiency requirements for university admission. Language in Society, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404522000689 [open access] ]]> https://languageonthemove.com/event-multilingual-students-in-monolingual-universities/feed/ 9 24679 https://languageonthemove.com/frightful-language-tests/ https://languageonthemove.com/frightful-language-tests/#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2015 07:39:12 +0000 http://www.languageonthemove.com/?p=18816

Trial by fire depicted in a medieval manuscript (Source: Wikipedia)

In the Middle Ages those suspected of witchcraft were often subjected to a ‘trial by fire’ to prove their innocence or guilt. The idea was that fire was a divine manifestation and hence the ordeal of being burnt would result in harm only for those consorting with the devil while sparing the innocent (Russell 1972). Today, we know that the only way to escape the ordeal of being burnt unscathed is not to be subjected to it in the first place.

Trial by fire gradually disappeared and was banned by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Many theologians, priests and lawyers of the time came to regard trial by fire as superstitious, and began to prefer ‘more rational’ linguistic methods such as confessions and cross-examinations. The New England Puritans even found a way to have their cake and eat it, too: a linguistic ordeal.

This linguistic ordeal was basically a test of public speaking: a person accused of witchcraft was asked to recite the Lord’s Prayer in the courtroom. The assumption was that a witch was so beholden to the devil that they would not be able to say the Lord’s Prayer correctly and that, if they tried to, god would confuse their tongue.

What could go wrong you may think? At a time when Christianity was practically universal and people learnt to say the Lord’s Prayer before they learnt to speak properly, surely reciting the Lord’s Prayer was not a big deal. At first glance, it does sound like a better way for a suspect to prove their innocence of witchcraft than being burnt and suffering no harm.

However, this is not what the court records tell us. Suspects asked to recite the Lord’s Prayer failed just as often as those subjected to burning, and the conviction rate was hundred percent. The Salem witchcraft trials, for instance, report many cases of accused witches who could not recite the Lord’s Prayer; but not a single case of an accused who could recite it.

What went wrong?

To begin with, it was entirely up to the court to decide what constituted a correct recital. For instance, one suspect failed the test because he was heard to say ‘hollowed be thy name’ instead of ‘hallowed be thy name’ (Young 1989, p. 258).

Circa 1692, The trial of George Jacobs for witchcraft at the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

Second, circumstances in the court often were chaotic with the supposed victims of witchcraft present and presenting with fits and convulsions. As a 20^th century analyst put it: ‘anyone might make a mistake reciting the Lord’s Prayer, particularly if the floor was covered with screaming, convulsive girls’ (Erikson; quoted in Young 1989, p. 250). This was obviously not an ideal context for a performance in public speaking: the suspects were often poorly educated peasant and servant people, with no experience in public speaking whatsoever. Even if they were not afraid to speak up in public, knowing how much was at stake was surely enough to induce a bad case of nerves.

A man named John Willard, who was executed in New England for witchcraft on August 19, 1692, for instance, tried to say the Lord’s Prayer again and again but simply could not, as the trial records report (the transcript is from the Salem Witchcraft Papers at the University of Virginia website; I’ve edited the text to make it more readable):

Willard: I am as innocent as the child that is now to be born.

Juror: Can you pray the Lord’s Prayer?

Willard: Yes.

Juror: Let us hear you.

(He stumbled at the threshold and said ‘Maker of Heaven and Earth.’ He began again and missed.)

Willard: It is a strange thing, I can say it at another time. I think I am bewitched as well as they. (And laughed) [‘they’ is a reference to the women and children, the supposed victims of witchcraft, who were convulsing on the floor]

(Again he missed. Again he missed and cried well this is a strange thing I cannot say it. Again he tried and missed.)

Willard: Well it is these wicked ones that do so overcome me. [‘these wicked ones’ is a reference to the women and children, the supposed victims of witchcraft, convulsing on the floor.]

Juror: Well say what you will confess.

Willard: I am as innocent as the child unborn.

Juror: Do you not see God will not suffer you to pray to him? Are not you sensible of it?

John Willard was the former constable of Salem and court proceedings were not an unfamiliar context to him. For most of the accused this was different. In addition to failing nerves, some suspects failed the test because they did not speak English. This was the case with Ann Goody Glover, who was executed for witchcraft in Boston on November 16, 1688.

Cotton Mather (Source: Wikipedia)

Ann Glover was an Irish native, who was swept up in Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland in 1649-50 and was one of ca. 50,000 Irish men and women who were sold into slavery in Barbados (O’Callaghan 2000). From Barbados she somehow made her way to Boston, where she found herself in the 1680s as a domestic servant. When the children in the family for who she worked fell sick, she was accused of witchcraft and was examined by the famous Cotton Mather himself; the man who is often seen as the architect of the Salem Witch Trials.

In his treatise Memorable providences, relating to witchcraft and possessions Mather notes that she ‘refused’ to speak English:

The Court could receive Answers from her in none but the Irish, which was her Native Language; although she understood the English very well, and had accustomed her whole Family to none but that Language in her former Conversation. [Here and elsewhere: spelling and punctuation adapted]

It is, of course, impossible to know what Ann Glover’s proficiency in English was; while she may have understood it ‘very well,’ as Mather claims, the circumstances of her life make it unlikely that she would have had much productive proficiency in English. She certainly was unable to recite the Lord’s Prayer in English:

An Experiment was made, whether she could recite the Lord’s Prayer; and it was found, that though clause after clause was most carefully repeated unto her, yet when she said it after them that prompted her, she could not possibly avoid making Nonsense of it, with some ridiculous Depravations. (Mather)

At any rate, ‘two honest and faithful men that were interpreters’ were engaged for her. After cross-examination through these interpreters, of which Mather only relates that it was ‘long,’ Ann Glover finally confessed to witchcraft and pleaded guilty.

Despite her confession, doubts seem to have remained, particularly in regards to her intellectual and mental fitness to stand trial. Mather relates the examination that ensued as follows:

To make all clear, the Court appointed five or six Physicians one evening to examine her very strictly, whether she were not crazed in her Intellectuals, and had not procured to herself by Folly and Madness the Reputation of a Witch. Diverse hours did they spend with her; and in all that while no Discourse came from her, but what was pertinent and agreeable: particularly, when they asked her, “What she thought would become of her soul?” she replied “You ask me a very solemn Question, and I cannot well tell what to say to it.” She owned herself a Roman Catholic; and could recite her Pater Noster [=Lord’s Prayer] in Latin very readily; but there was one Clause or two always too hard for her, whereof she said, “She could not repeat it, if she might have all the world.” In the up-shot, the Doctors returned her Compos Mentis; and Sentence of Death was passed upon her.

Memorial plaque for Ann Glover

That Ann Glover would have been able to speak Latin may seem out of character until one remembers that the language of the Catholic Church and Catholic prayer was Latin until well into the second half of the 20^th century. It would not have been at all unusual for an illiterate Irish peasant to have memorized the central prayer of her faith in the Latin language. It is also likely that she had learnt the Lord’s Prayer in one single chunk, and it is unlikely that being able to recite the Lord’s Prayer meant that she could segment it. The latter becomes clear from the fact that – despite her proficient recital, as Mather notes – ‘there was one Clause or two always too hard for her.’

The Catholic and Protestant versions of the Lord’s Prayer differ by precisely ‘one Clause or two.’ The closing doxology ‘For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever’ (Latin: ‘Quia tuum est regnum, et potestas, et Gloria, in saecula.’) is part of the Lord’s Prayer in most Protestant versions but is absent from the Catholic version. Repeating a random sentence in a foreign language is incredibly difficult, and so it is not surprising that Ann Glover could not do it in English nor Latin.

The Reverend George Burroughs on trial for witchcraft

In sum, the prayer test was little different from trial by fire: there was always a catch; and, just as with the fire ordeal, the only way to ‘pass’ the prayer test was not to be subjected to it. The only possible outcome was failure.

In fact, not everyone who came under suspicion of witchcraft was subjected to the prayer test; and it may well be that those who could have been expected to pass it, were not subjected to it. The latter conclusion could be drawn on the basis of the case of George Burroughs, the only minister to be executed for witchcraft in Salem. George Burroughs was not subject to the prayer test. However, he delivered the prayer ‘perfectly’ before he was hanged; it did nothing to save his life.

Mr. Burroughs was carried, through the streets of Salem to Execution; when he was upon the Ladder, he made a Speech for the clearing of his Innocency, with such Solemn and Serious Expressions, as were to the Admiration of all present; his Prayer (which he concluded by repeating the Lord’s Prayer) was so well worded, and uttered with such composedness, and such (at least seeming) fervency of Spirit, as was very affecting, and drew Tears from many (so that is seemed to some that the Spectators would hinder the Execution). (Robert Calef’s More Wonders of the Invisible World; quoted from Salem Witch Trials)

References

O’Callaghan, S. (2000). To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland. Dublin: The O’Brien Press.

Russell, J. B. (1972). Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Young, M. M. (1989). Comment: The Salem Witch Trials 300 Years Later: How Far Has the American Legal System Come? How Much Further Does It Need to Go? Tulane Law Review, 64, 234-258

Nanai/Hezhe children (Source: Wikipedia)

We have often examined here on Language on the Move how ‘English for all’ educational policies entrench inequality rather than alleviate disadvantage (e.g., here or here). But how does this play out in the real-life experiences of real people? Today I would like to introduce Wei Ru to you, a young woman from China. Wei Ru is the pseudonym of a research participant in Jenny Zhang’s PhD research.

In 2004, Wei Ru was in her final year of senior high school in a rural area of Heilongjiang province in northern China and preparing for the gaokao (高考; ‘big test,’ China’s national university entrance exam). Wei Ru is a member of an ethnic group called Nanai or Hezhe. These are an indigenous people of Siberia and have traditionally lived along the middle reaches of the Amur River Valley, an area where, today, the Amur River constitutes the border between China and Russia. Consequently, the Nanai, as they are known in Russia, and the Hezhe, as they are known in China, have been divided between these two countries and today constitute a very small minority in both countries: in 2000, there were about 12,000 Nanai in Russia and 4,500 in China. Of these, only around 5,000 speakers of the Nanai/Hezhe language remained in Russia in the first decade of the 21^st century, and only twenty in China. All twenty were elderly, and Wei Ru was not one of them.

Wei Ru has spoken Chinese all her life and has been educated through the medium of Chinese. Additionally, Wei Ru has spent many years learning Russian both formally and informally. Throughout her childhood and youth there were many Russian language learning opportunities available in Wei Ru’s home town: there is a brisk cross-border trade and Russian visitors to the town are a regular occurrence, as are visits to the Russian side of the border. In school, Russian was an important part of the curriculum. Russian teachers were highly qualified and the students enjoyed learning Russian because it was well-taught and was of obvious relevance to their lives. Furthermore, for Wei Ru, who is passionate about her Hezhe heritage, Russian carried additional significance as the language that allowed her to connect with the Nanai on the other side of the border. To her, it is almost as if Russian had become the ethnic language of the Nanai/Hezhe.

Throughout her schooling, Wei Ru had been an outstanding student: she scored on top of her class in most subjects and expected to gain university admission in a prestigious university and in her preferred major. However, when China became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001 and won its bid to host the 2008 Beijing Olympics the same year, university admission regulations in China changed dramatically. The English language component of the gaokao, became much more important than it had previously been and the value of test scores in other languages, including Russian, decreased dramatically. Furthermore, English became an entry requirement for the most desirable majors, such as those in business, law, science and technology.

The 2004 cohort of high school graduates in Wei Ru’s area was hit particularly hard: they had invested many years into studying Russian but English language instruction had not even been available to them. As Wei Ru said wistfully:

现在［学俄语］就成劣势了。现在完全是劣势了。本来我们高考可以打130／140分嘛，120多分其实［在我们那］完全就是中等水平了。然后结果如果是英语的话也就50多分吧，就那样。

It [learning Russian] has become such a disadvantage. An absolute disadvantage! We could have scored 130 or 140 [out of the full mark of 150] on the Russian test in the gaokao. Actually, 120 was only an average score for us. But in English we would only be able to get a score of 50. That is the fact. (Quoted from Zhang, 2011, p. 198f.)

Given these odds, many of Wei Ru’s classmates decided to repeat the final year of high school in order to catch up on English. Wei Ru and her family felt that repeating a year just to learn English was not worth it, particularly as the quality of English language teaching in Wei Ru’s hometown was low: when the high school curriculum changed from Russian to English, the only way to meet staffing levels was to deploy Russian teachers as English teachers. In the process, highly qualified Russian teachers in a well-resourced Russian language program were turned into poorly-qualified English language teachers in a poorly-resourced English language program.

As an outstanding student and given a bonus rating for ethnic minority students, Wei Ru still managed to secure admission to a minzu (民族; ‘nation’) university, i.e. a university specifically dedicated to the educational advancement of ethnic minority students. However, majors for which English proficiency had become an entry requirement were not available to her, and she enrolled in an anthropology degree.

When she spoke to Jenny Zhang in 2008 about her experiences of learning and using English in China, Wei Ru was still bitter about the way her lack of English proficiency had shaped her educational trajectory. Furthermore, as she pondered her future, English continued to loom large: English was an important part of her studies as many textbooks were in English and some of her classes were taught in English by foreign teachers. So, doing well in her studies depended on improving her English, an effort she considered an arbitrary imposition and consequently resented. Despite her best efforts it was almost impossible to catch up to the English level of her class mates, who had studied English throughout junior and senior high school.

After graduation, Wei Ru was hoping to return to her hometown and enter the public service. It is obvious that proficiency in Russian would be highly useful to a public servant in the Russian-Chinese border area but in order to achieve her ambition Wei Ru would have to sit yet another English test, as English – in contrast to Russian – is also a test subject on the public service entrance exam.

Chinese educational authorities have announced that, from 2017 onwards, the English component of compulsory testing will be reduced or even removed. Wei Ru’s case shows why this is a good thing.

Reference

Zhang, Jie. (2011). Language Policy and Planning for the 2008 Beijing Olympics: An Investigation of the Discursive Construction of an Olympic City and a Global Population. PhD, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Diversity in early childhood education: valued or silenced? (Source: easternct.edu)

Bilingual education presents a major conundrum in contemporary diverse societies: on the one hand, bilingualism and diversity more generally are applauded in many educational discourses and widely seen as a good thing; on the other hand, schooling is all about mainstreaming, and bilingual children are more likely to lose their home language at school than extend it.

This schizophrenic state is produced by the discrepancy between the desire to support diversity and the trend towards an ever-increasing focus on standardized assessment, year-group performance targets and league tables. Contemporary educational policies often celebrate diversity and may well support bilingual learning. However, standardized assessment, year-group performance targets and league tables undermine diversity and bilingual learning and can be highly damaging to the academic achievement of minority students.

The British Statutory Framework for learning in the early years offers a case in point. The Statutory Framework is mandatory for all British education providers catering to children up to the age of five. In its Introduction, the Statutory Framework espouses four foundational principles, three of which highlight the diversity of children: ‘every child is a unique child;’ ‘children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs;’ and ‘children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates.’

Before you read on, take a moment to reflect what ‘the individual needs’ of ‘the unique child’ might be in a linguistically diverse society. Are you thinking that all children should get the opportunity to experience different languages in early education? Are you thinking that children with a home language other than English should get the opportunity to develop both English and the home language? Are you thinking that a childcare provider should have measures in place that value all languages and promote linguistic diversity?

The Statutory Framework suggests that ‘providers must take reasonable steps to provide opportunities for children to develop and use their home language in play and learning, supporting their language development at home’ (p. 9) but offers no guidance what such ‘reasonable steps’ might be. However, even this limited vision of linguistic diversity in the early years is undermined in the assessment requirements. In fact, there is a fundamental contradiction between the recognition of children’s diversity and the requirement for the continuous assessment of child performance against learning targets. This contradiction is particularly explicit in the ‘communication and language’ area, a designated prime learning area. It is only English that is recognized as adequate performance in this area:

When assessing communication, language and literacy skills, practitioners must assess children’s skills in English. If a child does not have a strong grasp of English language, practitioners must explore the child’s skills in the home language with parents and/or carers, to establish whether there is cause for concern about language delay. (p. 9)

This assessment requirement equates ‘communication and language’ with English, and with English only. The assessment requirement effectively devalues all other languages, associating them with language delay and a deficit view.

What do these assessment requirements mean in practice in actual childcare centers? Education researchers Leena H. Robertson, Rose Drury and Carrie Cable, unsurprisingly, discovered that these assessment requirements undermine any form of bi- or multilingual provision in early childhood education. They found British childcare centers – including those that have multilingual teachers and staff – to be monolingual spaces where languages other than English are silenced.

Many childcare centers, in fact, employ bilingual teaching aides. However, the role of these teaching aides is so constrained both by the assessment requirements and their marginalized position vis-à-vis ‘regular’ early childhood educators that all they can hope to achieve is support children’s transition from home language to English. As one Urdu bilingual teaching aide interviewed by Robertson and her colleagues explained:

They’re losing everything. So if you had a little input of their first language, I think that would be a benefit for everybody; parents, families, schools and children because the more languages they have the better. […] Now all the children who’ve been through my time at let’s say [this school], not many of them are reading or writing their first language at all. (Robertson et al. 2014, p. 619)

For children who have a home language other than English this means that – rather than their individual needs being recognized and supported as those of ‘the unique child’– they are streamlined into monolingual children. For all children, irrespective of their home language, the silencing of languages other than English in this first institutional space they are likely to encounter in their lives is a lost opportunity.

The overall result is that the Statutory Framework creates the illusion that linguistic diversity is valued in early childhood education while simultaneously rendering languages other than English illegitimate and worthless forms of ‘communication and language’ for young children.

Robertson, L., Drury, R., & Cable, C. (2014). Silencing bilingualism: a day in a life of a bilingual practitioner International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 17 (5), 610-623 DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2013.864252

2014 NAPLAN Year 3 Numeracy test results by language status

In Australia the results of last year’s round of student and school performance on national standardized testing have just been published. As is the case each year since standardized testing was first introduced in 2008, the results of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy, or NAPLAN for short, throw up a strange anomaly with regard to language. As an example of this anomaly, let me quote from the summary of the national Year 3 results:

Across Australia, and in all jurisdictions except the Northern Territory, there is very little difference between these two groups [Language Background Other Than English vs. English Language Background] in the percentage of students who achieved below the national minimum standard in any achievement domain. In the Northern Territory, the proportion of students from a language background other than English who achieve below the national minimum standard across the five domains is generally three to five times as high as for students from an English language background. (p. 63)

How strange is that!? Language status makes no difference to literacy and numeracy performance in Australia overall but it makes a significant difference in the Northern Territory? How can this be?

Let’s start with the meaning of ‘Language Background Other Than English.’ Abbreviated as ‘LBOTE,’ it is part of the personal data collected about test takers and each test paper has a bubble to be shaded if ‘either the student or a parent/guardian speaks a language other than English at home.’

You do not have to be a social scientist or a linguist to see that this is a pointless category to have: a test taker who is considered ‘LBOTE’ could be someone who is a monolingual speaker of Standard English (with a parent who speaks another language), a bi- or multilingual speaker whose repertoire includes Standard English or some other form of English, and, finally, a monolingual speaker of a language other than English who has no proficiency in English whatsoever. In short, having ‘LBOTE’ status does not say anything about the proficiency of the test taker in Standard Australian English, the language in which the test is administered.

Because ‘LBOTE’ is a meaningless category, it is not surprising that it results in weird correlations: across Australia, there is little difference in the test results of ‘LBOTE’ and ‘non-LBOTE’ groups although ‘LBOTE’ students actually slight outperform ‘non-LBOTE’ students, particularly by Year 9 and particularly in mathematics. This situation is different only in the Northern Territory where ‘LBOTE’ students perform significantly lower than ‘non-LBOTE,’ as we have seen.

The obvious explanation is that most ‘LBOTE’ students across Australia are fluent bilinguals but that the situation is different in the Northern Territory, where most ‘LBOTE’ students are not proficient in English. We have discussed previously how NAPLAN testing discriminates against creole speakers in the Northern Territory.

Why do we accept a meaningless category such as ‘LBOTE’ to be used in national reporting and why do we put up with being presented with nonsensical correlations between ‘LBOTE’ status and academic performance year after year?

ANU linguists Sally Dixon and Denise Angelo found that NAPLAN is not alone but that data held by schools about the language status of their students are generally ‘dodgy,’ nonsensical and illogical. In a survey of 86 schools in Queensland they discovered that only two out of these 86 schools felt reasonably confident that the language data they held about their students were accurate. In addition to the ‘LBOTE’ status of NAPLAN test takers, schools also recorded a ‘main language other than English’ on enrollment in forms that were variously filled in by parents or administrators as they saw fit. If ‘main language other than English’ was left blank on the enrollment form, ‘English’ was sometimes entered on transfer into the database instead of a null response. Some students also received ‘English as an additional language or dialect’ status. This category was variously assessed by teachers if and when students seemed to have problems and funding for additional English language support was available.

These three categories were internally incoherent and did not match across categories in 84 out of 86 surveyed schools. This shocking finding is due to the fact that language-related categories are poorly defined, as we saw in the example of ‘LBOTE.’ It is also related to a general language blindness in schools, further evidence of the monolingual mindset of Australia’s multilingual schools. Furthermore, schools were particularly ‘language-blind’ when it came to indigenous children: creoles and contact varieties were not necessarily recognized as anything other than ‘English,’ even if judged to be ‘bad English.’ By the same token, some students with clear ethnic affiliations were categorized as speakers of the ethnic language irrespective of their proficiency in that language.

The overall consequence of all these ‘dodgy data’ floating around in relation to language is that educators come to see language as meaningless because it does not really distinguish between one group and another. Overall, ‘LBOTEs’ and ‘non-LBOTEs’ seem to perform more or less the same, and the same seems to be true of ‘MLOTEs’ (‘main language other than English,’ in case you have lost track) and ‘non-MLOTEs,’ and ‘EAL/Ds’ (‘English as an additional language or dialect’) and ‘non-EAL/Ds.’ However, it is not language that is meaningless as a factor in student performance. It is dodgy data that create this illusion. The very fact of proliferating data categories more or less referring to the same status will inevitably leave people confused and unwilling or unable to take ‘language’ seriously.

Language-related issues then become displaced onto race or socio-economic disadvantage. Educators and the general public fail to see a child needing English language support in order to achieve academically. Instead they see an aboriginal child achieving poorly. We then collectively throw up our hands in despair and decide that indigenous education is a problem that is too big and intractable to fix. Because there is nothing we can do, we might just as well ignore the problem for another year.

However, this is adding insult to injury. The misdiagnoses of the language-side of the academic failure of indigenous children are a significant part of the problem. A first step to address that problem would be to get our data in order. This entails compulsory language-related training or qualification requirements for Australia’s teachers, test designers and policy makers.

Reference

Dixon, Sally, & Angelo, Denise. (2014). Dodgy Data, Language Invisibility and the Implications for Social Inclusion: A Critical Analysis of Indigenous Student Language Data in Queensland Schools. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 37(3), 213-233. [open access available] ]]> https://languageonthemove.com/dodgy-data-and-language-misdiagnosis/feed/ 4 18691 https://languageonthemove.com/english-for-everyone-is-unfair/ https://languageonthemove.com/english-for-everyone-is-unfair/#comments Fri, 11 Jan 2013 05:31:52 +0000 http://www.languageonthemove.com/?p=13238

Promoting English language learning: billboard for private early English instruction in Wuhan

Knowledge of English has come to be seen as the key talent of the 21^st century, a way to perfect an individual’s character and to modernize societies; a central facet of global development. China, for instance, introduced an ambitious universal English language teaching program in 2001 and English language teaching, including the use of English as a medium of instruction, has since been increasing at an ever faster rate. English has become a gate-keeper at various turns and determines access to good high schools and university entrance (see Zhang Jie’s PhD thesis for a detailed examination of China’s English fever since 2001).

Hu and Alsagoff (2010) explore how China’s compulsory English language learning stands up as a public policy. They identify four key considerations in evaluating language policy: moral justice, practical feasibility, allocative efficiency and distributive justice.

From an idealistic position of moral justice universal English language teaching is a good idea as access to English can be considered a form of instrumental language right: surely, everyone has a right to learn the global power code. However, in the same way that students have a right to learn the global power code, they also have an expressive language right to the full development of their mother tongue and they also have the right to acquire other kinds of useful knowledge. The moral justice argument for English is thus limited to that degree that learning English does not interfere with learning the mother tongue or other subject knowledge.

From a moral justice perspective, the case for English is thus so-so. So, what about practical feasibility? Universal English teaching in China, as elsewhere, is subject to some intractable and incapacitating constraints, which include a severe shortage of qualified teachers, lack of appropriate instructional materials and the non-existence of a sociolinguistic environment in which English is meaningful.

It could be argued that a language policy should not be criticised for implementation problems because these might straighten themselves out over time. On the other hand, they might not; and if policy makers have failed to come up with an implementation plan together with the policy, there is no reason to believe in magical transformation in the future.

The verdict on universal English teaching becomes even more negative when it comes to allocative effectiveness. The costs of teacher training, of hiring expatriate teachers, of developing suitable materials and of creating the necessary infrastructure to teach English are high. At the same time, the available evidence suggests that English language teaching in China, as elsewhere, has, to date not been particularly effective.

Furthermore, addressing the problem of costly and ineffective English language instruction may have made other subjects more costly and less effective, raising the question of distributive justice. Hu and Alsagoff (2010) cite evidence that the promotion of English has benefited only a relatively small number of students in well-resourced urban schools at the expense of the majority of students. Universal English thus benefits an elite group while disadvantaging everyone else:

Because of their privileged position, they [=Chinese elites] are also consuming resources that might otherwise have been allocated to policy options that could benefit the majority, who are not compensated for the losses they suffer as a result of the diversion of these resources. As a consequence, the English medium instruction initiative has not only perpetuated the unequal distribution of power and access but is also creating new forms of inequality. (Hu and Alsagoff 2010, p. 375)

If moral justice, practical feasibility, allocative efficiency and distributive justice are taken into account, the verdict on the universal English learning initiative in China is thus unambiguously negative. Hu and Alsagoff (2010) go on to also assess the English instruction policy not only for the Han majority but also for ethnic minority students and in that context their verdict is even more dire, “an outlandish extravagance” (p. 377).

If universal English instruction is indeed a wrong-headed policy for China’s majority and minorities alike, as the authors conclude, what policy alternatives are there? The authors suggest the provision of English as an enrichment subject rather than as a compulsory subject and the removal of English from high-stakes assessment.

Hu, G., & Alsagoff, L. (2010). A public policy perspective on English medium instruction in China Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 31 (4), 365-382 DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2010.489950

In the article, the principal shares a sad story about the cultural bias of the 5^th-grade reading test, which will from now on become a stock of my intercultural communication teaching. Oscar, a recent arrival to the Vermont school from a refugee camp in Africa, took the same test as all the other kids around the country who have grown up in the USA and spoken English all their lives:

Oscar needed 20 minutes to read a passage on Neil Armstrong landing his Eagle spacecraft on the moon; it should have taken 5 minutes […] but Oscar was determined, reading out loud to himself.

The first question asked whether the passage was fact or fiction. “He said, ‘Oh, Mrs. Irvine, man don’t go on the moon, man don’t go on the back of eagles, this is not true.’”

Oscar had understood the text and he understood the difference between factual and fictional writing. However, his lack of exposure to (American) media, meant he got the first question and, subsequently, all the other five questions, which were based on the first one, wrong.

Oscar got penalized for the fact that his knowledge of the world was quite different from that of the middle-class native-born “standard” (?) child the test designers had in mind. In the policy context of No Child Left Behind the school and the principal were penalized, too.

Cultural bias has been a concern for assessment researchers and practitioners since the emergence of IQ tests in the first half of the 20^th century. The evidence is there that standardized assessment disadvantages even among native-born students those from non-middle class backgrounds (Mac Ruairc, 2009, is a recent study in the Irish context well-worth reading). Students from migrant backgrounds and from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds are further disadvantaged. Despite all the evidence and all the research, standardized assessment and the idea that it means quality spreads like a cancer from one educational system to the next.

Dear readers, share Oscar’s story widely! Many adults in the developed world believe the moon-landing is not fact but fiction, and it’s plain to see that the fact that Oscar thought it was a story tells us nothing about his reading ability nor about the quality of the instruction he received in his school. There are thousands of such testing stories out there. How can so many wrongs add up to a right – the imagined standardized high-quality education system?

Ruairc, G. (2009). ‘Dip, dip, sky blue, who’s it? NOT YOU’: children’s experiences of standardised testing: a socio-cultural analysis Irish Educational Studies, 28 (1), 47-66 DOI: 10.1080/03323310802597325