The international research network “Literacy in Multilingual Contexts” builds on the “Next Generation Literacies” network

The World Education Research Association (WERA) recently announced the launch of seven new International Research Networks (IRNs) and we are pleased to share that “Literacy in Multilingual Contexts” is one of them.

What is a WERA IRN?

The WERA IRN initiative brings together global teams of researchers through virtual communication and other channels to collaborate in specific areas of international importance. “Literacy in Multilingual Contexts” joins a growing list of IRNs, contributing to the vision of WERA. The purpose of IRNs is to synthesize knowledge, examine the state of research, and stimulate collaborations or otherwise identify promising directions in research areas of worldwide significance. IRNs are expected to produce substantive reports that integrate the state of the knowledge worldwide and set forth promising research directions.

What does the IRN “Literacy in Multilingual Contexts” do?

The IRN “Literacy in Multilingual Contexts” aims to initiate and extend international collaborative research on literacy in the context of language diversity and migration. The joint focus is on literacy development and practice in multiple languages. Drawing on varied and complementary expertise from Europe, Australasia, Africa and North America, the objectives are:

1. to enhance knowledge on literacy and student diversity
2. to trace tendencies that go beyond one national, regional or local context
3. to examine literacy development across the life-course
4. to critically discuss the implications of research findings for policy and practice

Literacy is a foundation for participation in complex societies. The proposed research therefore also contributes to pathways to equity. The network’s activities will reach fundamental theoretical insights, which may be transferred to concepts of teaching/learning in educational institutions. This intervention research will attempt to generalise characteristics of successful multilingual literacy development to be adapted to specific contexts. The proposed IRN comprises senior, experienced and early career scholars (incl. PhD students), aimed towards international and intergenerational knowledge generation.

Literacy as a resource

At the heart of our network is the idea that multilingual literacy is a resource to be celebrated. Literacies across languages and scripts empower learners to create knowledge, to navigate education systems, and to participate fully in social and cultural life.

Members of the network bring expertise from early childhood to higher education, from family and community contexts to digital and AI-mediated literacies. Our shared vision is to develop research that responds to the multilingual realities of migration, mobility, and global diversity.

Building on the “Next Generation Literacies” network

The “Literacy in Multilingual Contexts” network has grown out of the Next Generation Literacies initiative, an international network of researchers working at the intersection of social participation and linguistic diversity.

Based on the trilateral partnership of Fudan University (China), Hamburg University (Germany) and Macquarie University (Australia), Next Generation Literacies brought together an interdisciplinary group of established and emerging researchers to build a truly global network.

After funding for the Next Generation Literacies network ended in 2024, the IRN “Literacy in Multilingual Contexts” keeps that spirit of collaboration alive, while also widening the circle: we are now connected with colleagues from the Network on Language and Education (LeD) in the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and with other WERA initiatives. Under this new umbrella, we will scale up our efforts and make a stronger impact together.

Network Conveners

The network is convened by

• Irina Usanova (University of Hamburg; Lead Convenor)
• Francis M. Hult (UMBC)
• Ingrid Piller (University of Hamburg & Macquarie University)
• Yongyan Zheng (Fudan University)
• Harkaitz Zubiri-Esnaola (University of the Basque Country)

Together with network members, we bring expertise spanning literacy research across continents and research traditions.

Kick-off meeting

On September 24, 2025, we came together on Zoom across many different time zones and continents to virtually celebrate the official launch of the Literacy in Multilingual Contexts IRN.

The kick-off meeting felt like both a reunion and a new beginning: familiar faces from the Next Generation Literacies network reconnecting, and new colleagues from around the world joining the conversation. Together, we are building a vibrant global community of researchers committed to understanding how literacy develops and thrives in multilingual settings. For all of us, it was a reminder of how much we can achieve when we put our multilingual realities at the center of literacy research.

What’s next?

Over the next three years (2025–2028), we will:

• review the state of research on multilingual literacies
• analyze existing datasets across different contexts
• share our work in joint events and publications
• build a sustainable international community dedicated to literacy in diversity

To make this vision concrete, members are invited to join thematic working groups. Topics include multilingual literacy in early childhood, in higher education, in Indigenous contexts, CLIL, multilingual writing and AI, and multilingual policy. Sounds interesting?

An open invitation

The energy of our first meeting showed just how much can be achieved when we bring our different perspectives together. The IRN “Literacy in Multilingual Contexts” is open to any researcher working in these areas. If you are interested in joining, please send your inquiry to Dr Irina Usanova.

Related content

• Legacies of the Next Generation Literacies Network
• Becoming a world-ready researcher at Macquarie University
• A water perspective on language research
• Publishing is an insiders’ game

Description: Digital technologies are in the process of fundamentally reshaping communication. There are significant opportunities: chatbots can personalize language teaching in a way unimaginable until recently and machine translation promises to widen participation for ever more people, regardless of their language proficiency. Yet these opportunities come with the harms caused by screen addiction, surveillance, and environmental destruction.

In this one-day research symposium we move beyond both the hype and the fearmongering to examine the real-life use of digital technologies in multilingual and intercultural communication. How can digital technologies help to bridge language barriers to social participation? What new barriers do they create? And what research agenda do we need to harness technological transformation for social inclusion in our linguistically and culturally diverse society?

Attendance is free but places are limited. To secure your place, sign up for the event at https://events.humanitix.com/new-technologies-in-intercultural-communication or scan the QR code.

Date and venue

Monday, Dec 08, 2025
Macquarie University, Wallumattagul Campus, Ryde

Program [updated Nov 21, 2025]

09:30-10:00      Arrival, Meet & Greet
10:00-10:30      Welcome
10:30-11:15      Earvin Cabalquinto (Monash U), The myth of digital inclusion: Locating non-digital influences in the migrant’s home
11:15-12:00      Julia Kantek and Thilakshi Mallawa Arachchi (WSU), Sustaining livelihoods in ‘the shadows’: International students’ use of GenAI as digital shadow care support
12:00-13:00      Lunch break
13:00-13:45     Ana Sofia Bruzon (MQ), Using tech in bilingual transnational parenting
13:45-14:30      Hye Eun Chu (MQ), Bridging Language and Inquiry in Diverse Science Classrooms
14:30-15:15      Yeong-Ju Lee (MQ), Social Media and Language Learning
15:15-15:45      Coffee break
15:45-16:30      Laura Smith-Khan (UNE), “Connectivity is the central thing”: Developing legal literacy post-migration
16:30-17:00      Closing panel: Gerard Goggin (UWS) and Ingrid Piller (UHH&MQ), moderated by Sarah McMonagle (UHH)
17:00-18:30      Reception & networking

Abstracts and bio blurbs

Earvin Cabalquinto (Monash U), The myth of digital inclusion: Locating non-digital influences in the migrant’s home

Abstract: The home is a vital space for shaping an individual’s personal, familial and social relations and growth. In an increasingly digital and global economy, such domestic terrain has been reconfigured into a highly mediated and transnational space. For migrants and their networks who constantly navigate their marginalised position in contemporary societies, a home at a distance embodies the paradox of cross-border and virtual mobility. Homing necessitates digital media use, a tactic for coping with the pains of physical separation. Yet, everyday connections, impacted by intersecting social, economic and political factors, become a source of frustrations and discomfort. In this provocation, I offer a critical reflection of the principles, dynamics, and contradictions of digital inclusion by unlocking the migrants’ mediated home. I draw key insights from more than ten years of multi-sited interviews and visual ethnography among the Filipino diaspora in Australia and their local and transnational networks. Significantly, I attempt to locate and centre the asymmetrical non-digital factors – personal, cultural, economic, and political – that deeply impacts the enactment, embodiment and negotiations of the home among migrants and their distant networks. In sum, the presentation provides a critical vantage point to further rethink digital inclusion by disrupting one-size-fits-all and geographically-bounded solutions and foreground situated, relational, and transnational approaches for understanding and redressing intertwined social and digital inequalities.

Bio: Dr Earvin Charles B. Cabalquinto is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, Australia. He has held Visiting fellowships in Lancaster University, United Kingdom (2019), University of Jyväskylä, Finland (2021), Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada (2024), and Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2025). He is the author of (Im)mobile Homes: Family Life at a Distance in the Age of Mobile Media” (Oxford University Press). He is the co-author of Philippine Digital Cultures: Brokerage Dynamics on YouTube (Amsterdam University Press). He sits in the editorial board of top journals, including the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Convergence:  The international journal of research into new media technologies, and Journal of Global Ageing. His research on the impacts of digitalisation on migration has been widely published in top-tier journal outlets and specialised edited collections.  His research agenda is driven by critically exploring the dynamics and impacts of digital inclusion and exclusion among migrants and their networks who navigate an increasingly digital and global society. To know more about his projects and outputs, visit www.ecabalquinto.com.

Julia Kantek & Thilakshi Mallawa Arachchi, Sustaining livelihoods in ‘the shadows’: International students’ use of GenAI as digital shadow care support

Abstract: International students are navigating a multitude of structural challenges, including rising living costs, shifting visa conditions, and an intensifying housing affordability crisis. These pressures unfold within a broader post-welfare context, marked by reduced government support for temporary migrants and limited investment in student services. This paper explores how international students use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to navigate these challenges. Drawing on focus groups (N=3) and interviews (N=21), we reveal how ChatGPT (and similar GenAI tools) function as digital shadow care infrastructures, helping students ‘get by’ and navigate everyday precarity (legal, financial, and emotional). By situating GenAI within students’ broader care assemblages, this study contributes to digital migration scholarship, highlighting how GenAI tools ‘fill the cracks’ left open by inadequate formal supports, as well as identifying the factors that shape GenAI use within these contexts. Overall, we argue for policies that not only recognise these shadowed practices, but educate and empower migrants to use AI tools safely and effectively.

Western Sydney University Research team: Dr Julia Kantek, Dr Donna James, Dr Thilakshi Mallawa Arachchi & Distinguished Professor Gerard Goggin

Bio: Dr Julia Kantek is a Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University. Julia has developed research expertise at the intersection of youth sociology, migration studies, and diaspora engagement. Her work explores the ways various transitions (such as those induced by migration, education, and work) shape belonging, identity formation, and wellbeing. Julia is currently co-leading two funded projects through the Young & Resilient Research Centre and the Institute for Culture & Society at Western Sydney University. One explores how digital technologies function as infrastructures of care for migrants, while the other investigates how young people from Western Sydney navigate work-related aspirations and transitions.

Bio: Dr Thilakshi Mallawa Arachchi is a researcher, educator, and activist with a passion for justice, working to nurture caring, connected communities through collective action. Her interdisciplinary background spans digital media studies, media literacy, migration, feminism, higher education, and climate activism. She completed her PhD at Western Sydney University in March 2025, investigating how cultural institutions, such as public libraries, can co-design equity-centred social media literacy education interventions with women from refugee backgrounds.

Ana Sofia Bruzon, Using tech in bilingual transnational parenting

Abstract: Against the background of the digitisation of all spheres of life, including childhood, this project asks how transnational parents use new technologies to support their children’s heritage language learning and use. Guided by a conceptual framework based in language policy and a sociolinguistic ethnographic approach, interview, questionnaire and observational data were collected from 17 Spanish-speaking families in Australia to examine digital technology use in the family, particularly in relation to heritage language maintenance.

Findings show that each of three focal technologies – TV and film, digital communication platforms, and learning apps – has a primary purpose which is not related to heritage language maintenance but results in specific affordances and constraints for heritage language learning and use. The primary purpose of TV and film is to provide entertainment. This allows for beneficial linguistic input in Spanish but is also constrained by child language proficiency and resistance against particular shows and language choices. Similarly, digital communication platforms serve the primary purpose of connecting with geographically dispersed kin. This provides valuable interactional opportunities in Spanish for children but is limited by the inability of distant kin to engage in child-centred communication strategies and is also subject to practical constraints such as time differences. Finally, learning apps are largely brought into the home by school requirements and serve the primary purpose of learning. Learning apps offer precious explicit and implicit Spanish language learning opportunities but parents worry that they expose children to harms such as excessive screen time.

Overall, the project constitutes a novel contribution to the fields of family language policy and heritage language maintenance by concluding that digital technologies constitute a double-edged sword: their value in supporting multilingual practices in a monolingual society is significant but countervailed by limitations inherent in these technologies, particularly as they relate to broader developmental harms.

Bio: Ana Sofia Bruzon is a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, and a member of the Language on the Move research team. Her research interests include education policy and practice, digital technology in education, and the intersection of language, education and law.

Her PhD focuses on heritage language maintenance, language and education policy, and the digital practices of transnational families. The thesis examines how transnational parents use new technologies to support their children’s language learning and education. Her MRes research, published as Piller, Bruzon, and Torsh (2023), focused on language and education policy and practice, investigating the online linguistic practices of multilingual schools. Ana has a background in law and is a member of the State Bar of California in the U.S., where she practised as an immigration, real estate, and family lawyer. Ana is fluent in English, Spanish, and Italian.

Hye-Eun Chu, Bridging Language and Inquiry in Diverse Science Classrooms

Abstract: Science classrooms are becoming increasingly multilingual and digital, raising urgent questions about how to integrate inquiry-based learning with language support. This presentation synthesises four studies that examine these challenges across Korean and Australian contexts. A survey of 144 Korean teachers revealed strong self-efficacy in inquiry teaching but low confidence in supporting the language needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Classroom observations in Korea showed that CLD students, despite linguistic difficulties, contributed creative and reflective ideas during model co-construction, enriching group learning. An intervention with Korean elementary students developed a Digital Science Text Reading Literacy (DSTRL) program, which significantly improved their abilities to search, read, and evaluate multimodal science texts. Finally, interviews with Australian and Korean physics teachers highlighted both enthusiasm and concerns about Language-Focused Teaching (LFT), balancing benefits for engagement and conceptual learning against practical constraints. Together, these findings call for teacher professional development that embeds language as integral to inquiry and leverages digital tools for inclusive participation.

Bio: Dr Chu is a Senior Lecturer in Macquarie’s School of Education. Her research has focused on several key areas, including monitoring students’ understanding of science concepts, implementing formative assessment in science classrooms, interdisciplinary approaches to teaching science, affective factors affecting science learning, and the integration of the arts into the teaching of science and related subjects (STEAM). Additionally, she has conducted research in conceptual development in science learning, tracking students’ concept development through text (language) analysis, interdisciplinary teaching of environmental literacy with science, and the influence of student beliefs on science learning. Recently, her work has expanded to include studies on the application of AI in education.

Yeong-Ju Lee, Social Media and Language Learning

Abstract: This presentation draws on my new book ‘Social Media and Language Learning: Using TikTok and Instagram’ (Lee, 2025), which investigates how visual and multimodal technologies transform informal language learning and intercultural exchange. The book analyses two studies: a comparative analysis of online data from Instagram and TikTok posts, and a multiple case study based on ethnographic data of narratives from international students in Australia. These studies show how learners use multimodal features such as sound, captioning, and visual composition to create and share meaning across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Based on these findings, in this presentation I will discuss how social media platforms have become everyday spaces where linguistic agency, creativity, and belonging are negotiated in transnational contexts. I will also consider how AI-driven features in social media such as automatic captioning, real-time translation, and personalised content feeds are creating new opportunities while posing pedagogical challenges for multilingual learning.

Reference

Lee, Y.-J. (2025). Social media and language learning: using TikTok and Instagram. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003543541

Bio: Yeong-Ju Lee obtained her PhD from the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University in Australia. She teaches courses in Applied Linguistics, TESOL, and Literacy. Her research interests include digital language learning and teaching, especially on social media and AI. She is a Chief Investigator of the Data Horizon Research Centre-funded project on a customised AI chatbot for language learning at Macquarie University, and the Teaching Development Grant-funded project on AI and literacy at Australian Catholic University.

Laura Smith-Khan, “Connectivity is the central thing”: Developing legal literacy post-migration

Abstract: Developing a sound understanding of the law is essential for social participation and access to justice, and in the context of migration, can form a crucial part of integrating and flourishing in a new country. Yet there can be a range of challenges for new arrivals when it comes to developing legal literacy, and for service providers seeking to assist them. This presentation will share emerging findings from pilot research on Australian government and non-government service providers’ efforts to help educate the public about Australia law, legal processes and legal services. Drawing on an examination of research interviews, survey responses and public texts, the preliminary findings indicate that while online resources and technology are one element of such efforts, human connectivity and care remain crucial.

Bio: Dr Laura Smith-Khan is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of New England, Australia and an external affiliated member of the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR), Gent University, Belgium. Her research is interested in the participation of minoritized groups in legal settings, especially migration processes. She was the 2022 recipient of the Max Crawford Medal, Australia’s most prestigious award for achievement and promise in the humanities. She is co-founder and co-convener of the Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Research Network, a member of Language on the Move and Next Generation Literacies and serves on the editorial boards of Multilingua and the Australian Journal of Human Rights.

Dr Smith-Khan has written extensively on language and credibility in Australia’s asylum procedures. Beyond her continuing work in this area, she has undertaken research on the education and communicative practices of migration practitioners, on media representations of migration, and on disability rights in forced migration. Aiming for impact, her research has been cited and adopted by the EU Agency for Asylum, the Australian Human Rights Commission, UNHCR and UNESCO, and is used in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. She has tertiary qualifications in both law and linguistics and has been admitted to practice as a lawyer.

“AI can’t teach our kids to be curious and think critically” (Image credit: ABC News, Jason Om)

UNESCO’s ‘Digital Learning Week’, which focused on AI and the future of education, was held earlier this month, and debates about the role of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) in the classroom have taken centre stage in education policy research. Around the world, educators, school administrators, and government officials are grappling with ethical questions surrounding the use of GAI and related technologies, such as commercial Large Language Models (LLMs), in teaching and learning.

The use of GAI in school poses serious and urgent questions: Should GAI be implemented in schools, and do we have sufficient knowledge about its educational merit (if any)?

Despite the hype, there is little positive evidence that this technology can actually improve student outcomes. But there is plenty of negative evidence that is cause for concern: it may lead to the dehumanization of learning. This is not surprising given that, even in commercial settings, the promise of increased productivity is not being fulfilled.

Still, schools are rushing to adopt GAI despite a wealth of evidence showing that the recent uncritical adoption of mobile phones and social media has in fact been harmful to children’s development. As a society, we are trying to pull back from feeding these technologies to our children. Still, even with these precedents, schools are adopting commercial AI technologies in the classroom uncritically, without fully considering their potential harms.

The challenges of GAI use in education are multifaceted and multilayered, ranging from concerns about ethics and academic integrity to privacy issues related to the ‘datafication’ of learning and childhood, to actual physical threats and harm to students. Beyond the psychosocial and physical harms to children, research has shown that “LLMs exacerbate, rather than alleviate, inequality” in learning, given that a few large corporations control the computation infrastructures on which these models run. So, against this background, what does Australian policy state regarding GAI in education?

In Australia, the latest guiding framework for the use of GAI in education is the ‘Australian Framework for Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Schools’ (The Framework). Developed by the Federal Government in partnership with states, territories, and other regulatory bodies such as the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), The Framework aims to define what “safe, ethical and responsible use of generative AI should look like to support better school outcomes” (p. 3).

As a guiding principle, The Framework highlights that critical thinking must be at the forefront of GAI use in schools, and that GAI should not replace or restrict human thought and experience.

However, what does it mean to use GAI “critically”? The research is clear that the regular use of GAI in learning quickly leads to over-reliance, which negatively affects cognitive abilities. Arguing that critically engaging with AI means empowering students to evaluate the machine’s output for themselves is similar to suggesting that we should teach students incorrect content and then ask them to form their own opinions.

The promise of GAI in education is that it will enable personalized learning. Unfortunately, machine-based ‘personalized learning’ forgoes the human-centered approach needed for a successful education. Instead, it relies on the datafication of students through continuous monitoring and surveillance. This shift in educational policy has sparked debate within academic circles about issues such as student privacy and safety, the ‘datafication’ of childhood, and how children’s data harvesting is used to shape their futures, effectively turning students into ‘algorithmic ensembles’.

Despite these real dangers, the latest iteration of the Australian school curriculum has explicitly incorporated GAI into the curriculum, supporting its use for whole school planning and providing teachers with the option of content elaboration using GAI (Australian Government Department of Education, 2025). The incorporation of GAI into the curriculum raises safety and welfare concerns for children, as they could be exposed to harmful materials and dangerous interactions, and a recent tragedy has brought to the surface the dark side of this technology. This heartbreaking case highlights that this technology may not be suitable for children, given their vulnerability to certain features of GAI, such as agreeability and dependence, which are design features aimed at engineering addiction. These technologies are still in their experimental stages, and we know little about the effects they may have on developing brains.

The premature and uncritical adoption of GAI in schools rings a too-familiar note to the uncritical adoption of social media in youth, which many governments around the globe are now trying to reverse, including Australia.

Vague policies that encourage the use of AI in schooling mean that teachers and schools are using the tool without a clear evidence base, in inconsistent ways, and without obtaining full parental consent. In my PhD research, I found that parents often resent the amount of technology schools use for education, and I also discovered that these technologies follow students home, encroaching on their private lives. Schools are taking away the parental prerogative of deciding when and how they introduce technologies such as GAI to their children, forcing them down a path they might prefer their children not to go.

Overall, the “critical” use of GAI in education must mean that rejection of GAI is an option. An option that is increasingly precluded by the headlong rush into the GAI hype.

Related content from our podcast

• Episode 57: The Social Impact of Automating Translation: Tazin Abdullah in conversation with Ester Monzó-Nebot (03/08/2025)
• Episode 55: Improving quality of care for patients with limited English: Brynn Quick in conversation with Leah Karliner (26/06/2025)
• Episode 50: Researching language and digital communication: Brynn Quick in conversation with Christian Ilbury (22/04/2025)
• Episode 46: Intercultural competence in the digital age: Brynn Quick in conversation with Amy McHugh (12/03/2025)
• Episode 41: Why teachers turn to AI: Brynn Quick in conversation with Sue Ollerhead (09/01/2025)

In his long career Dr Rapatahana has taught English as a foreign language (EFL) in countries in the Pacific, Southeast, East and West Asia, where he noticed that sexual exploitation was common practice by former colleagues. This prompted him in his retirement to write a book about this difficult and important topic, where he draws on a wide range of sources, from academic papers to media reports, and from blogs to organisations which report on sexual violence against children, to assemble a compelling case for the widespread occurrence of sexual predation in the EFL sector.

The conversation addresses his new book, Sexual Predation and TEFL: The teaching of English as a Foreign Language Enables Sexual Predation (Brill, 2024) which explores how teaching English overseas intersects with and enables widespread sexual exploitation.

Trigger warning: this interview discusses sexual exploitation and related content that listeners/readers may find distressing.

If you liked this episode, support us by subscribing to the Language on the Move Podcast on your podcast app of choice, leaving a 5-star review, and recommending the Language on the Move Podcast and our partner the New Books Network to your students, colleagues, and friends.

For more Language on the Move resources related to this topic, see The dark side of intercultural communication, Orientalism and tourism, The dark side of TESOL and Child pornography and English language learning.

Transcript

Hanna: Welcome to the Language on the Move podcast, a channel on the New Books Network. My name is Hanna Torsh, and I ‘m a lecturer in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University. My guest today is Dr. Vaughn Rapatahana, Te Ātiawa. Dr. Rapatahana is an author, poet, and editor who commutes between homes in Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Aotearoa, New Zealand. He is widely published across several genres in both his main languages, te reo Māori and English, and his work has been translated into Bahasa Malaysia, Italian, French, Mandarin, Romanian, and Spanish. He earned a PhD from the University of Auckland, and is a co-editor of two books, one called English Language as Hydra, and the other called Why English? Confronting the Hydra, published by Multilingual Matters in 2012 and 2016.

Today, we are going to talk about his new monograph, which was published in December 2024, entitled, Sexual Predation and TEFL: The teaching of English as a Foreign Language Enables Sexual Predation, published by Brill.

Welcome to the show, Vaughan!

Vaughan Rapatahana: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Hanna: I’d like to start by asking you to tell our audience a little bit about yourself, and how you got interested in the topic of your book.

Vaughan: I first started teaching English overseas, I put teaching in quotation marks, because I’m not sure if it’s actually teaching which we’ll talk about later, in the Republic of Nauru in 1979, so I’ve been doing that on and off over the years, ever since, until I retired completely from working in 2019 because I ‘m an old man now. But I’ve taught English overseas which I would equate to teaching English as a foreign language in many overseas locales, including the Middle East, Brunei, Jerusalem, Xi’an in China, Hong Kong, Philippines, where have I missed? Probably other places. And of course, in Aotearoa itself, because as you pointed out my first language is te reo Māori, so I’ve taught English as a second language in schools, Kaupapa, where Māori is the first language, so that’s here in Aotearoa, New Zealand. I’ve always been interested in this topic.

Because I have met up with people who are sexual predators during my sojourn overseas. I’ve read lots of news reports, and I guess, like the proverbial rolling stone, the more I read and experience, the more I became interested, and wrote about it, and researched about it, and collated notes, and added to them all the time. It got to the stage I wanted to write a book about it, which I managed to do successfully.

Hanna Torsh: For those who haven’t read the book, one of the things you do at the beginning is you define some of these key terms. So, how do we define sexual predation, and then how do we define TEFL?

Vaughan: I’ve defined them in the book more widely than people probably accept them. Sexual predation, as I’ve noted here, is a control or power-based, exploitative, predatory, abusive form of behaviour, deliberate, often pre-planned. It’s all too often, sadly, by males. whether they be teachers or members of the public in countries where students have gone to learn the subject, or to learn English. It includes all forms of sexual harassment, so I’ve equated harassment and predation together. Doesn’t necessarily have to be physical, can be verbal, can be just the gaze. the sexualized gaze. So that’s sexual predation. And it’s generally male preying on female, whether they’re students, fellow teachers. socio-economically deprived women in countries where male teachers have gone to teach the language. And LGBTQ teachers and students as well are often other victims. So that’s predation. TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

But it’s not merely teachers, male or female, going overseas, to teach English. or students from countries where English is not a first language going to countries where it is, it’s also not just in schools, it’s in tuition centres, it’s, in aid programs, like Peace Corps, and volunteerism, the whole industry of volunteerism, which are advertised, especially online, where young people especially go overseas. sort of like a white saviour complex to go over and help the poor local indigenous person learn English. They think they need it, they think they need to do it, they think they are the white saviour. It’s in orphanages, orphanages, so there’s a big, huge orphanage tourism aspect. to things like the Peace Corps. Also, what Haley Stanton so cogently has written about recently, TEFL tourism, where people go overseas to teach English, but at the same time have a fun time in places like Thailand, going to the beach partying. dropping drugs, having indiscriminate sex. So, TEFL is much wider than just one person going to another country in a school. It’s huge, in volunteerism, TEFL tourism, orphanage tourism, Peace Corps, teaching English, or trying to teach English, or pretending to teach English, often by totally unqualified people. who only are there because they can speak English, is also TEFL.

Hanna: I think that’s really valuable, that definition, because it reminds us that we’re not just talking about classrooms and teachers and students, we’re talking about a whole industry and all the associated practices, many of which, as you say, take place in spaces that are less formal, that are less regulated, and often are associated with cultural practices that are nothing to do with teaching and learning. And how do you think that the way you’ve examined it is different from the kinds of stereotypes and common beliefs that people might have about this issue?

Vaughan: Because I think, as I’m trying to point out, it’s a much wider issue than dirty old men going overseas, traveling child sex offenders deliberately saying they’re going to teach English so they can go and pray on children. That is many people ‘s perception of sexual predation and TEFL. And it’s a key one, and it’s a very sad, unfortunate one, and it’s statistically not stopping, and there’s so many news reports about such people. The preferential sex offender, but it’s also all the other areas I ‘m talking about, it’s the TEFL tourists going overseas and smoking dope, and going to a brothel, and engaging in underage sex with the local prostitutes. That’s just one example of sexual predation in TEFL.

So, it’s much wider than the dirty old men. It includes, as I said before, often Asian girls, teenagers, young women, going overseas, thinking they need to learn English, and being molested or raped or in severe cases, murdered by males in the local population. It also includes what I call Charisma Man, that’s NET ‘s (native-speaking English teachers) who’ve got this  wonderful aura about them because they’re  in another country, and they ‘ve suddenly become charisma men, getting accolades from the local populace women and girls they wouldn’t get in their own countries, and taking advantage of it, and sort of boasting about their accolades and their sexual prowess in those new countries. So, these are just some of the things sexual predation and TEFL involve. It’s a much wider, much more complicated, with many aspects to it, and that’s why the book is so thick, well over 400 pages, because there’s so much in it.

Hanna: And unfortunately, we’re only able to talk about a few of those issues today, but I hope that readers do go and engage with the much wider scope that you’ve explored in your very thorough book. One of the things that struck me while reading your book is that this is an important conversation to be having, but this is one of the few publications that I’ve certainly, in my career in applied linguistics and TESOL, ever come across, so it’s a very under-researched context. And the second point is it draws an important connection between the kinds of, exploitation that you’re talking about. and this phenomenon that many of our audience might know, called linguistic imperialism. Could you expand on those two aspects for the audience? So, the first one is, you know, why is this one of the few books I ‘m seeing on this topic? And the second one is, what is this connection between sexual predation and linguistic imperialism?

Vaughan: There’s a blind spot, especially amongst practitioners of the tongue. That’s English as first language speakers and writers and authors and teachers. They don’t want to hear about this sort of aspect, sexual predation, in their industry. They want to go overseas and earn big money and have a good time, or have a stable career, because they’re not all TEFL tourists, of course. Many are stable, middle-class individuals who are having lucrative overseas careers. The last thing they want to hear about is, bad guys in their profession. And the legal aspects, publishers are wary as well, they don’t want to get too involved, especially if names are concerned, or news reports. There’s a certain amount of embarrassment, but mainly I think it’s just pushing it under the table, ignorance, and denial.

As NET myself in some of those countries, or all those countries I mentioned, I often used to write to the South China Morning Post when I lived in Hong Kong, and still return there all the time, saying, why have you got these NET teachers in your country earning such huge money with huge, gratuities and airfares every two years. What are they actually doing? Do the local population really need English? Of course, my answer was always no. Those letters were published in the South China Morning Post, and of course a huge barrage of letters coming in from other native English-speaking teachers who are then saying, of course we’re needed here, and of course the Hong Kong Chinese need to learn English. So, there’s that denial and defiance and sweeping under the table. But I know what I was talking about, because my family is Hong Kong Chinese. They can speak English; their first language is Cantonese. They had no need for native-speaking English teachers in their schools, absolutely no need at such huge expense. So, there’s the first part of the question. That’s why there’s very little written about it. It’s about time there was, and this is the book which I ‘m very proud of, because I think it’s my most important work, and I’ve written well over 50 books. This is my key one.

Hanna: Over 50 books, and this is the most important one. So, there’s a real vested interest there in people not exploring and uncovering these practices?

Vaughan: And the employing countries who think they need to have English to become wonderful countries turn a blind eye as well, because they think they need to have English, so they don’t have good hiring practices. This is a huge generalization. There are so many loopholes. People can get rehired, a traveling child sex offender who ‘s teaching English can go from one country to another, and there’s no overall global mechanism to even know that they’re moving from one country to another. So, the actual employing countries are just as bad as the employer countries. There’re so many loopholes involved. One example about such sinister predators, the preferential sex offenders, they can change their names, get new passports, and travel overseas again and escape the sexual offender registers in their own countries, like the UK, which is still ineffective in that area.

It’s an exploitative industry, summarized by my other two books published by Multilingual Matters, The [English] Hydra, this huge mechanism, earning huge amounts of money for certain vested interests, basically white, middle-class, Western, concerns, the Hydra is spreading linguistic imperialism, native-speaking English teachers, huge testing industry, textbooks, and they’re  going to turn a blind eye because of the money. Yes? And then, at the same time, the local people, the local countries, the cultures were not gifted English as a first language and never historically have been them, are being lulled into the sense that they need to have English. It’s pushed onto them. And a white face will always get a job, even if they have no qualifications. So, it’s exploitation, imperialism continuing. Robert Phillipson must take a lot of accolades there, and he was one of my co-authors in the first book, English Language Hydra. I’ve worked together with Robert and the late and lamented Tove Skutnubb-Kangas, his wife, we all worked together on those two early hydra books.

So going back to your second part of your question. I mentioned a term English language sexual imperialism, which, to me, is part and parcel of the hydra, part and parcel of linguistic imperialism. They go together. So, when English language is spread and forced and sold to places that think they need to have English. Sexual imperialism happens at the same time. through some of the channels I’ve already mentioned before, they go hand in hand in hand. I ‘ll read you a quote, if you don’t mind, from Joanne Nagel in 2003, “the history of European colonialism is not only a history of language dominance, it is also a history of sexual dominance.” I agree completely. So, they’re hand in glove via all the different ways I’ve mentioned in this book. So, in my own quote: “When the language is presented in English as a foreign language situation, at least potentially, so are patriarchal, sexist, chauvinist tropes and the correlated behaviours.”

Linguistic imperialism and sexual imperialism go together. And it’s been going on for hundreds of years, from the white man going to Africa and bringing his own sexual tropes there. That’s still going on. The male preoccupation with the exotic Asian female, for example. This is 2025, but nothing ‘s changed.

Hanna Torsh: In your book, you give us concrete examples of the kind of link that you’re talking about between English language teaching and sexual imperialism. In your book, you talk about the ways in which, the career of teaching English overseas is sexualized, even before potential teachers begin teaching. Can you tell our audience what you found that out about that?

Vaughan: It comes from just lots of experience, lots of reading, lots of research, and just the sheer obvious facts. For example, English itself is a sexualized language, just given the components, structures of the tongue itself are sexualized. If you want to read Lewis and Lupyan in 2020, a very good article about that, just how pronouncedly sexist English language as a language is, in terms of its words and the word use. Many TEFL textbooks, even in 2025, are still predominantly sexed or gender biased. That’s even if some of those countries receiving English as a supposed gift, even have textbooks. And if they do, they’re usually old ones, and there might be one shared between 50 students.

The gender bias is apparent and still obvious. Males still continue to dominate in management, and TEFL conferences. Varinder Unlu, came up with the website ELTToo, and about the sexist basis of the English language teaching industry, the EFL, TEFL conferences and management structures. And she got repudiated and reprimanded by too many males for doing so, which goes back to that vested interest, not wanting to know and hiding it away.

English is taught in a sexualized fashion. For example, as in Spanish TV, a woman strips as she’s teaching English. Bizarre, but true. And it’s advertised, especially tuition centres, for example, in Japan, some of the advertisements are so blatantly sexualized and sexist. Dozens of examples are shown in the book. Another key point is the sex tourism. There’s a huge global trend, and it’s not just English teachers going overseas to partake in sex tourism, but the fact that so many people from Western countries and local countries might go to Southeast Asia for sex tourism encourages the teaching of English to cater for those tourists. The “sex pats”, another term, who just goes overseas to partake in sexualized adventures with the young, people who have no money, who are in the sex trade, because they have to be to survive, people like that. And the statistics shown by concerns that are trying to combat sexual predation in TEFL, like ECPAT and APLE Cambodia. There’re so many examples that they publish on their website and in their reports, shows the problem isn’t going away, it’s probably escalating. Despite the best efforts of places like EPAC and Apple to do something about it, and the poor efforts by local governments and countries sending the offenders overseas.

Hanna Torsh: And can you just, for the audience, explain what those acronyms are?

Vaughan: Good question. ECPAT is not just one organization, it’s an overall name for organizations that fight child exploitation, and protecting children being exploited. And APLE Cambodia is a specific example that works under EPAC, but it’s its own separate body in Cambodia, fighting child exploitation and protecting children over there. Many cases are of English-speaking teachers, tutors, or people going over and opening orphanages, or pretending to do aid out in rural communities, but actually are there as sexual predators, preying on youth. Often some of them are so cheeky as to marry a local say, Cambodian woman, and then exploit the woman ‘s children. So that’s APLE, Preda in the Philippines is another organization doing the same thing, preventing child exploitation, including by white men going there and running sex rings, paedophile rings, which is all in the book.

Hanna Torsh: Yeah, great, thank you. We are running out of time, Vaughan, and it’s such a big topic, but I ‘d like to end by asking, you’ve talked about the issue being bigger than the kinds of extreme, horrific crimes you’ve just talked about, that it’s actually permeating the whole industry, and that there’s this close relationship between English language teaching and sexual predation. What would you like our audience to go away with, in terms of the key message of your book, bearing in mind that a lot of our audience are emerging and established researchers in Applied Linguistics and TESOL.

Vaughan: Be aware of the problem, be far more aware. Report any incidents of sexual predation, even if they seem minor. If you think a student’s being harassed by a male teacher, or you think of fellow female teachers being harassed by a male teacher, or by local members of the community, report it. Get your own professional bodies to be far more proactive. They’re not proactive in fighting this massive problem across the board, all the different types of behaviours of sexual predation and TEFL, and it’s all its various guises.  Close loopholes globally, not so easy, but let ‘s get, say, UK government to say, how come sex offenders who are on the sexual offenders list can still go overseas and teach by changing their names through a passport? And be caught years later in another country altogether. And these are all documented cases.

And my final key point has always been, do we really need to teach English in other countries beyond first language countries? And my point is, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don’t need English even to be taught. There’s no clear requirement for EFL in many places anyway. You can circumvent the hydra by just doing away with it. People can develop their own languages, because as Tove Skutnabb-Kangas said many, many years ago, linguicism comes in when linguistic imperialism comes in, and linguicism is the loss of your own Indigenous tongue, because English is taking over. We don’t need the hydra.

Hanna: You also make the point in your book that local teachers are often underpaid and undervalued relative to, imported teachers. And I thought that was a powerful message too, and linked to the idea of decolonizing, English language.

Vaughan: And it rankles with them. I was earning much more money than most of my fellow teachers in Hong Kong, and I wasn’t working the hours that they were putting into, or were expected to put in, and they weren’t getting the big, huge gratuities. Total exploitation. Totally unnecessary, but as I keep on saying, there’s a vested interest going on there, and they aren’t going to shut up. They want the money. Although in the last two years, finally, maybe they went back and read my letters to the South China Morning Post. the Hong Kong government now has now de-escalated the financial benefits for the NET scheme there and has now thrown open the budget that was formerly there for nets to be hired by schools, to the schools themselves to hire NETs, but at a lower rate. Why? Because fiscally, Hong Kong can ‘t afford what they were spending before, billions and billions of Hong Kong dollars on net teachers. So, ironically, socioeconomically, the net scheme is becoming disempowered because Hong Kong can ‘t afford to pay anymore.

Hanna Torsh: Wow. A good outcome for local teachers, potentially, and for schools, if they’re getting more of that funding. So that’s perhaps a nice place to finish up. Look, thank you so much, Vaughan, for this important work. It certainly got me thinking about my own teaching career as an English language teacher, and the various associations that I ‘m part of, and how particularly how this issue of sexual predation intersects with a lot of the work we talk about on LOM on native speakerism and now this new emerging, body of work on decolonizing English. So, lots of important food for thought. Thanks again. Do you have any final comments you would like to make before we say goodbye?

Vaughan: Tēnā koe. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I guess I ‘m going to have to say, find the book and read it, because it’s new, and it’s important. And it’s not been expressed sufficiently, or powerfully before. It’s telling things that people don’t want to hear, quite frankly.

Hanna Torsh: I couldn’t agree more. And if you’re like me working at a university, request that your library order Vaughan ‘s important book.

So, thanks again, Vaughan, and thanks everyone for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe to our channel, leave a 5-star review on your podcast app of choice, and recommend the Language on the Move podcast and our partner, The New Books Network, to your students, colleagues, and friends.

Till next time.

Six years later, the LLIRN has grown and we’ve held events, published a law journal special issue that showcased the work of several of our (mainly early career) members, and maintain a lively and growing mailing list, now with members from at least 43 different countries, at diverse stages of their careers, including students, academics, language and legal professionals, and those in policy and decision-making roles.

Since the Network’s inception, one key area of concern is how best we can work – individually and as a community – to integrate law and language expertise in various educational and training contexts, be it working with students in schools or universities, or with professionals in legal settings.

In 2024, we set up a blog series to learn (or “LLIRN”) more about each other, and to make our learning public so that others can learn more about us too. In this latest post, we provide a snapshot of some our Network’s activities related to education. We conceive this theme broadly to include both people who have done research in an educational context, where there is a focus on language and law, and also those who have integrated a language and law focus into education or training that they have designed or delivered, whether in a university or beyond.

This post features LLIRN members from Australia and overseas, working across 11 universities and multiple disciplines.

Donna Butorac, Curtin University, Australia

Donna Butorac coordinates and teaches into the BA major in Anthropology and Sociology at Curtin University. She shares this reflection on how participation in the LLIRN has influenced her teaching:

“I was inspired by what I learned at the excellent Linguistics and Law symposium convened by Alex and Laura at Sydney Uni in 2019 to create a topic titled Language and the Law for my second-year core unit Language and Social Life. The topic introduces some of the ways that language ideology and language use are embedded in the framing and functioning of the Law, explores communication between legal professionals and lay people in legal settings as a form of intercultural (mis)communication, discusses folk linguistics and false beliefs about language as they impact courtroom trials and asylum review hearings, and examines misperceptions about language use, dynamics of power and social inequality involving language use as they play out in specific legal and institutional settings. The lecture covers research by Diana Eades, Susan Ehrlich, Helen Fraser, John Gibbons, Christoph Hafner, Elizabeth Holt and Alison Johnson, Katrijn Maryns, Laura Smith-Khan, and Joseph van Buuren, and in tutorials we discuss some of this research and get students to engage with Helen Fraser’s materials on the Forensic Transcription website.  I love teaching the Language and the Law content and it’s proved quite an eye-opener for our students, making a much-valued contribution to the Language and Social Life curriculum.”

Publications

Ingrid Piller, Donna Butorac, Emily Farrell, Loy Lising, Shiva Motaghi-Tabari and Vera Williams Tetteh (2024) Life in a New Language (Oxford)

The Forensic Stream, Speech and Language Lab, Australian National University, Australia

The Forensic Stream of the Speech and Language Lab at ANU conducts research focused on the forensic analysis of linguistic evidence and related areas, and offers courses within the Forensic Linguistics program. These courses include LING2105, Language and the Law, and LING3032, Forensic Voice and Text Comparison. We are also keen to host highly motivated postgraduate students working on topics relevant to our lab. Please contact LLIRN member and Forensic Stream Leader, Professor Shunichi Ishihara for more details.

Dr Alexandra Grey and Dr Laura Smith-Khan, Macquarie Law School

Alexandra Grey, University of Technology Sydney

Dr Alexandra Grey combines legal and linguistic research approaches to study how governments respond to linguistic diversity, and how those responses redistribute or entrench hierarchies of power, access to resources and social groupings. This often includes studying the place of minority languages in education.

Some of her recent work analyses changes in law and language-in-education policy for preschools and schools in China (Grey and Baioud 2021; Grey 2025). Her (2025) review essay on ‘The Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights’ canvasses multiple chapters on education rights and practices around the world. With LLIRN co-founder, Dr Laura Smith-Khan, she has examined the limited inclusion of linguistic concepts and linguistic research in legal studies in Australia, as a stepping stone to potential curriculum reform (Grey and Smith-Khan 2021b). Together, they have also mapped law-and-linguistics research around the legislature, executive and judiciary, to assist non-linguists and legal practitioners navigate the field (Grey and Smith-Khan 2021a). One of Alex’s earliest studies evaluated a bilingual, NGO-led clinical legal education model (Grey 2020).

Alex’s current research focuses on self-determination and the role of governments in Aboriginal language renewal in New Soth Wales (NSW), the most populous state in Australia. She was part of the Indigenous-led team authoring The Benefits of Aboriginal Language Use and Revival – Literature Review for the NSW Aboriginal Languages Trust in 2021; this public resource includes a section on the educational benefits of Aboriginal language renewal in NSW. Alex is especially interested in collaborations with First Nations scholars in Taiwan, NZ and Canada, and in collaborations about interdisciplinary methods.

Relevant publications:

Smith-Khan, L. and Grey, A. (2020) ‘Reflections on developing research collaborations across law and linguistics’, Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW 152(3). 332–337. ISSN 0035-9173/18/020332-06

Grey, A. (2020) [Open Access]. ‘The value of participant feedback: Insights from learners in a novel, non-university CLE setting in China, International Journal of Clinical Legal Education. 27(2). 5-67. https://doi.org/10.19164/ijcle.v27i2.959.

Thorpe, K., Booker, L., Grey, A., Rigney, D. and Galassi, M. (2021) [Open Access]. The Benefits of Aboriginal Language Use and Revival – Literature Review. UTS Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research. https://www.alt.nsw.gov.au/assets/Uploads/downloads/files/The-Benefits-of-Aboriginal-Language-Use-and-Revival-in-New-South-Wales-Literature-Review.pdf

Grey, A. and Baioud, G. (2021) [Open Access]. ‘Education Reforms Aim to Mold Model Citizens from Preschool in the PRC’. China Brief. 21 (17) 23-29. The Jamestown Foundation: Washington. https://jamestown.org/program/educational-reforms-aim-to-mold-model-citizens-from-preschool-in-the-prc/

Grey, A. and Smith-Khan, L. (2021a). ‘Bringing linguistic research into legal scholarship and practice’. Alternative Law Journal 46(1). 64-70. https://doi.org/10.1177/1037969X20962830

Grey, A. and Smith-Khan, L. (2021b). ‘Linguistic diversity as a challenge and an opportunity for improved legal policy’. Griffith Law Review 30(1). 1-17.  https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2021.1996883

Grey, A. (forthcoming 2025) [Review Essay, Open Access]. ‘The Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights (Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove and Phillipson, Robert (eds). 2023. Wiley Blackwell. Pp712 + viii)’. Sociolinguistic Studies, issue 19.1. https://utppublishing.com/journal/ss

Grey, A. (2025) [Open Access]. China’s official common language gains further strength against minority languages. Melbourne Asia Review, Edition 21 https://www.melbourneasiareview.edu.au/chinas-official-common-language-gains-further-strength-against-minority-languages/. (Also available in Chinese, 中文: 中国的官方通用语言面对少数民族语言的优势更为显著 https://www.melbourneasiareview.edu.au/中国的官方通用语言在少数民族语言面前进一步强/

Sandra Hale, University of New South Wales, Australia

Professor Sandra Hale is convenor of the Interpreting and Translation programs at the University of New South Wales where she teaches the course Interpreting in Legal Settings, which delves into the language of police interviews, tribunal hearings and court hearings and trials with interpreters. She has been training judicial officers and tribunal members on working effectively with interpreters for over 20 years. She has also delivered professional development on the language of the law and legal interpreting to interpreting practitioners through the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT). She has been invited to speak on this topic at numerous conferences for legal professionals, interpreting professionals and linguists. Her research has included assessing the effectiveness of training.

Publications

Napier, J., Russell, D., Hale, S., Spencer, D., & San Roque, M. (2022). Training legal interpreters to work with deaf jurors. In J. L. Brunson (Ed.), Legal Interpreting: Teaching, Research and Practice (pp. 246-281). Washington D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.

Hale, S. (2021). The need to raise the bar. Court interpreters as specialized experts, in M. Coulthard, A. May and R. Sousa-Silva (eds.). Handbook of Forensic Linguistics, 2^nd Edition. London & NY: Routledge (pp 484-501).

Hale, S. (2019). Specialist legal interpreters for a fairer justice system. In S. Faiq (Ed.), Discourse in Translation (1st ed., pp. 47-66). Oxford & NY: Routledge.

Hale, S. (2015). Approaching the Bench: Teaching Magistrates and Judges how to work effectively with interpreters. MonTI. Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación, 7, 163-180.

Hale, S., & Ozolins, U. (2014). Monolingual short courses for language-specific accreditation: can they work? A Sydney experience. The Interpreter and Translation Trainer, 8(2), 1-23. doi: 10.1080/1750399X.2014.929371

Hale, S. (2004/2010). The discourse of court interpreting. Discourse practices of the law, the witness and the interpreter. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. http://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/btl.52/main

Spanish Supreme Court judge, Ignacio Sancho Gargallo and his co-author Dr Ricardo-María Jiménez-Yáñez (UIC Barcelona) (both middle back) with Antonio Garrigues, Fernando Vives, Mercedes de Prada (both in front) and judges, scholars and writers, celebrating the launch of the book “El derecho a entender el Derecho.”

Ricardo Jiménez-Yáñez

Professor Ricardo Jiménez-Yáñez is an applied linguist and discourse analyst whose work is interested in professional communication, including in court decisions, legal practice, and the drafting of laws. He regularly shares his research expertise with professional stakeholders, most recently presenting work on linguistic clarity in the drafting of public international legal treaties with treaty writers. He has also published guidelines for drafting clearer court decisions, co-authored with a Spanish Supreme Court judge and has delivered training on this topic in a course for Spanish judges.

Selected Publications

Jiménez-Yáñez, RM & Mut-Bosque, M (2025) La escritura jurídica de tratados internacionales: claridad, congruencia y corrección [The legal writing of international treaties: Clarity, consistency, and accuracy] http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.25505.11368

Sancho Gargallo, I & Jiménez-Yáñez, RM (2024) El oficio de juez y la redacción de sentencias [the profession of judge and the drafting of sentences], in De Prada, Mercedes (ed) El Derecho a entender el Derecho. Alcance y límites del lenguaje jurídico [The right to understand the law: Scope and limits of legal language] , ed. Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380576266_El_oficio_de_juez_y_la_redaccion_de_sentencias

Jiménez-Yáñez, RM (2023) Escribir bien es de justicia [Writing well is justice], 3.ª edición, Aranzadi, Pamplona.

Jiménez-Yáñez, RM & Giner, D (2018) What are Spanish Law Firms doing to Improve their Lawyers’ Writing Skills? In J Engberg et al (eds), Popularization and Knowledge Mediation in the Law/ Popularisierung und Wissensvermittlung im Recht (LIT Verlag) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377241685_What_are_Spanish_Law_Firms_doing_to_Improve_their_Lawyers’_Writing_Skills#fullTextFileContent

Hanna Sofia Rehnberg (Uppsala University), Zoe Nikolaidou (Södertörn University), Cecilia Wadensjö (Stockholm University)

The research project Asylum Narratives, conducted by three Swedish linguists, examines communication in the asylum process, with a particular focus on the asylum interview conducted by the Swedish Migration Authority. The main research questions are: How are asylum narratives co-constructed by all participants in the interview, including the interpreter? How are these narratives transformed during their “textual travel” through the asylum process? Their research results have attracted the interest of case officers and decision-makers at the Swedish Migration Authority, as well as asylum judges, who have invited them to conduct several training workshops on communication in asylum interviews.

Selected Publications

Rehnberg, Hanna Sofia, 2023. Positioning of applicants in asylum interviews: Case officers as recontextualizing agents. Language in Society, p. 1–23. E-pub ahead of print.  https://doi.org/10.1017/S004740452300101X

Wadensjö, Cecilia, Hanna Sofia Rehnberg & Zoe Nikolaidou, 2022. Managing a discourse of reporting: The complex composing of an asylum narrative. Multilingua, 42(2), p. 191–213. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2022-0017

Nikolaidou, Zoe, Hanna Sofia Rehnberg & Cecilia Wadensjö, 2022. “Do I have to say exactly word by word?”: The discursive (re)construction and negotiation of asymmetrical relations in asylum interviews. Journal of Migration and Integration, 24(4), p. 745–768. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-022-00945-2

Nikolaidou, Zoe, Hanna Sofia Rehnberg & Cecilia Wadensjö, 2019. Negotiating access with public authorities in research on asylum. Working papers in urban language and literacies, paper 262. (Ed. Ben Rampton.) London: Centre for Language, Discourse and Communication, King’s College. Available: https://wpull.org/product/wp262-negotiating-access-with-public-authorities-in-research-on-asylum/

Dima Rusho, Monash University, Australia

Dima Rusho’s research explores the language and communication barriers affecting Indigenous Australians’ access to the justice system in remote communities, emphasising these inequalities as a critical social justice issue. She also teaches law students at Monash University, most recently in LAW5453: Language, Communication, and the Legal Process, a unit for Juris Doctor and Masters students. The unit examines the complexities of legal language, its role in statutes and contracts, courtroom communication, mediation, investigative processes, and cross-cultural interactions, including working with interpreters. Her future research will focus on developing language support models that incorporate advocacy to improve access and equity in legal settings.

Publications

Rusho, D., Bradley, J., & Dickson, G. (in press). Tailoring language support in legal contexts for Indigenous communities: Insights from Ngukurr and Borroloola. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice.

Rusho, D. (2024). Coloniality and Australian Indigenous language interpreting in legal settings. In F. Ndhlovu & S. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Eds.), Routledge handbook of language and decolonisation (ch 15). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003313618-15

Rusho, D. (2023). First Nations interpreters cannot be neutral and should not be invisible. Translation & Interpreting, 15(1), 120–134. https://doi.org/10.12807/TI.115201.2023.A06

Rusho, D. (2022). Cross-currents: Indigenous language interpreting in Australia’s justice system [Doctoral dissertation]. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13545.42084

Cindy Schneider, University of New England, Australia

Linguistics at the University of New England (Australia) has offered the very popular unit, Language and the Law, for more than a decade. The unit has been a drawcard for undergraduate and postgraduate students in Linguistics, Law, Criminology, and other areas. The class examines the nature of legal language and how it is exploited for maximum effect in the legal system. Using Australian case studies as much as possible, we look at extracts of police interviews and courtroom interactions to understand how language can be used as a tool to reinforce social advantage or disadvantage. We also review the forensic applications of language: disputes over meanings (e.g. contracts and copyright cases); indistinct audio recordings; and authorship analysis.

Dr Cindy Schneider has been the primary coordinator of Language and the Law since its initial offering. With a background in language description, Cindy has published several papers on intelligibility between closely related language varieties, and how speakers of less well-understood, less powerful varieties (such as minority dialects and creoles) can suffer from legal, educational, and socio-economic disadvantage. She has also worked as an expert linguist in a large legal case concerned with poorly drafted legal documents.

Laura Smith-Khan, University of New England, Australia

Laura Smith-Khan’s most recently completed project examined the university course provided for people wanting to become migration law practitioners in Australia. The study explored students’ multilingual repertoires, practices, and beliefs and how these intersected with their learning experiences, identity construction, and career plans.

As part of her collaboration with the teaching team in the course, Laura also delivered a series of lectures, and helped refine other learning materials and activities, embedding sociolinguistic expertise in the offerings related to conducting client consultations, and was recognized by two awards.

Publications

Smith-Khan, L. (accepted, forthcoming) Intercultural Communication in Migration Law Education, in T. Grieshofer & K. Haworth (eds), Communication and Legal Practice: Language, Procedure, Process (Cambridge University Press).

Smith-Khan, L. & Giles, C. (2025). Improving client communication skills in migration law and practice education. Alternative Law Journal (advanced access) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1037969X251314205

Smith-Khan, L. (2023). Intercultural Communication in Migration Law Practice. 3 July Language on the Move https://languageonthemove.com/intercultural-communication-in-migration-law-practice/

Smith-Khan, L. (2021). ‘Common language’ and proficiency tests: A critical examination of registration requirements for Australian Registered Migration Agents. Griffith Law Review, 30(1), 97-121, https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2021.1900031

Rukiya Stein, University of New England, Australia

Rukiya Stein has presented at the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration (AIJA) Conference on effective communication with vulnerable individuals and linguistic complexity in the criminal justice process. She has also presented to District Court and Children’s Court Judges and she has run training for judicial officers at the National Judicial Commission of Australia (NJCA) sexual assault proceedings learning series.

Publications

Stein, R (2024) Vulnerability and the Right to Effective Participation in the Criminal Justice Process: The Role of the Witness Intermediary (October) 36(9), Judicial Officers’ Bulletin, Judicial Commission of NSW. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2024102800000200843973055

Stein, R and Goodman-Delahunty, J (2024) ‘Bridging the Justice Gap: Inequity in Provision of Intermediary Assistance for Adults with Disabilities’ Alternative Law Journal https://doi.org/10.1177/1037969X241307092

A wonderful companion read to this episode is Distinguished Ingrid Piller’s Can we escape the textocalypse? Academic publishing as community building.

If you liked this episode, check out more resources on technology and language: Will technology make language rights obsolete?; the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us; and Are language technologies counterproductive to learning?

(Image credit: EduResearch Matters)

If you enjoy the show, support us by subscribing to the Language on the Move Podcast on your podcast app of choice, leaving a 5-star review, and recommending the Language on the Move Podcast and our partner the New Books Network to your students, colleagues, and friends.

Transcript (by Brynn Quick, added on February 21, 2025)

Brynn: Welcome to the Language on the Move Podcast, a channel on the New Books Network. My name is Brynn Quick and I’m a PhD candidate in linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. My guest today is Dr. Sue Ollerhead.

Sue grew up in multilingual South Africa, a country with 12 official languages, where she learned English, Afrikaans, Isizulu, Isikosa, and French at school and university. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in Languages and Literacy Education and the Director of the Secondary Education Program at Macquarie University. Her expertise lies in English language and literacy learning and teaching in multicultural and multilingual education contexts.

Her research interests include translanguaging, multilingual pedagogies, literacy across the curriculum and oracy development in schools. Sue is currently Editor of TESOL in Context, the peer-reviewed journal of the Australian Council of TESOL Associations. She serves on the Executive Board of the English as a Medium of Instruction Centre, EMI, at Macquarie University.

Today, Sue and I are going to chat about an article that she’s recently written for the Australian Association for Research in Education, entitled, Teachers Truly Know Students and How They Learn, Does AI? We’ll discuss the emergence of AI platforms like ChatGPT and how they are affecting teacher training and student learning. Sue, welcome to the show, and thank you so much for joining us today.

Dr Ollerhead: Hi, Brynn. Lovely to be here today.

Brynn: To get us started, can you tell us a bit about yourself and about how you became an educator in the English as an additional language space?

Dr Ollerhead: Thanks, Brynn. As you said, I grew up in what you would call a super diverse country, South Africa, which is also very multilingual with 12 official languages. So as well as you said, I learned English, Afrikaans, Isizulu, Isikosa, and French at school.

I would also hear a plethora of language mixing or translanguaging by people all around me all the time. And when I finished university, I began my teaching career at a TESOL Medium Primary School and then went on to teach Zulu-speaking factory workers in South Africa’s Adult Migrant Literacy Program. I’ve also spent a large part of my working life teaching English and working in educational publishing in Sub-Saharan Africa and the United Kingdom.

So always within very multilingual and multi-cultural context. And I guess what surprised me when moving to Australia in my mid-30s, was the monolingualness of the schools and working environments that I was working in, which seemed to be at odds with what I knew to be a significant proportion of people living in Australia, speaking languages other than English at home. It was almost as though those became invisible in the public sphere and English seemed to dominate everything.

So, I guess that questioning of monolingual public spaces and how they include or exclude people has driven a lot of my research work. I think particularly how children who speak languages other than English at home can be excluded within classrooms that adopt an English only approach to learning. I guess the focus of my academic career over the past 10 to 15 years has always been to train students to become knowledgeable, reflective, and responsive teachers of learners from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Brynn: That’s amazing. You really did have a lot of multilingual experience. That’s so cool that you were able to be in an environment with so many different languages like that.

And I think that that must be really useful for you as an educator for not just students like primary or secondary school students, but now that you teach future teachers how to teach. So, let’s talk about this article that you’ve written called Teachers Truly Know Students and How They Learn, Does AI. So, this article discusses the use of AI and platforms like ChatGPT in this teacher training, which you do.

And one important part of learning how to teach is learning how to write effective lesson plans. I mean, I remember doing that for my own teacher training course that I went through when I became a TESOL educator as well. So, talk to us about, I guess, the importance of lesson plans and also about this emerging use of AI in lesson plan creation and what we know about the percentage of teachers who are actually using AI to create their lesson plans.

Dr Ollerhead: I think I heard a statistic the other day that teachers have, on average, about eight minutes to plan lessons over and above the other duties they have. So, we know that teacher workload is a very big issue. And there’s no surprise then that busy teachers are turning to GenAI models like ChatGPT or Perplexity to streamline lesson planning.

I certainly am no expert on AI, but it’s very much part of the landscape now in teacher education. And we know that for teachers, simply by entering prompts, like generate a three-lesson sequence on maybe something like Agricultural Innovation in Australia, they can quickly receive a detailed teaching program tailored to the lesson content, compete with learning outcomes, suggested resources, classroom management tips, and more. So, this is fantastic.

It represents a pragmatic solution to busy teachers, to overwhelming workloads. And it also explains why they’re being taken up quite readily by school teachers and also in places of higher education and teacher training environments. And as far as how many teachers use AI for lesson planning, I suppose a useful survey would be one that was run by the Australian Association of Independent Schools in 2023, where they reported over 70% of primary teachers and 80% of secondary teachers were using generative AI tools in their work.

And the lesson planning or learning design was rated as the top AI assisted task. Now, granted the survey dates back to August 2023, but one could assume that uptake is even greater by now. And in my work as a secondary teacher educator, my observations of AI use amongst teachers across government, independent and Catholic sectors generally support these findings.

Brynn: I can understand why, honestly, because, I mean, we are both educators and I get it, our workloads are huge, and especially if you think about teachers who, I guess, are working in the primary and the secondary school levels, they are not just working from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day. They are putting in so many more hours that people don’t actually see happening.

And then to have to create, not just create lesson plans, but I think maybe people don’t realize that various departments of education or different sectors require you to document these lesson plans in a very specific way and you need to map them onto learning outcomes and objectives and things like that.

So, it’s not just quote unquote creating a lesson plan. You have to really put a lot of effort into it. And if you’re saying that teachers are only getting something like eight minutes to do that, that’s unfathomable. That’s untenable.

Dr Ollerhead: Absolutely. Very, very overwhelming. And we know that lesson planning is really, really important.

A well-planned lesson is really fundamental to classroom management, to effective differentiation, to really, really considering the accessibility of the content. But it is a big task on top of, as you say, all the other tasks that teachers are having to fulfill on a daily basis.

Brynn: You just mentioned something called differentiation. And I think that this is a really important point to talk about. So, talk to us about this concept of differentiation in teaching.

What does it mean? And why is it a concept that teachers need to keep in mind when they’re planning their lessons?

Dr Ollerhead: The D word, yes, differentiation. It’s probably one of the most important and most challenging things to learn when training to become a teacher. And it really, Brynn, it really lies at the heart of Australian Professional Teaching Standard 1.3, which is “know students and how they learn”.

And especially knowing about how to differentiate for students from different cultural, linguistic, religious and socio-economic backgrounds. Differentiation in general refers to the practice of tailoring instruction to meet the varied learning profiles, backgrounds and abilities of each child or student in your class. And it starts with really understanding the diversity profile of your class.

So, for example, I said in the article that let’s say you teach a class where 95% of your class comes from a language background other than English. And you might think, well, that’s unrealistic. Actually, in Sydney, it really isn’t.

There are many areas where that would be the norm rather than the exception. In fact, in New South Wales, one in three students comes from a language background other than English. And in your class, your class comprises a mix of high achieving, gifted and talented individuals, some of whom are expert English users, while others might be newly arrived in Australia and they might have been assessed as emerging on the ELD Learning Progression, which is a tool that we use to measure where students are in their English language learning trajectory.

Now, these students need targeted language support to be able to even access the content of the curriculum. And let’s say your students come from various backgrounds. Some might be Aboriginal Australian students, others might come from countries as diverse as Sudan, China, Afghanistan, Bangladesh.

Some might even have spent three or more years in refugee camps before arriving in Australia, with no access to formal education at all. Others live in Sydney without their families. So, yeah, some are highly literate.

And while others have yet to master basic academic literacies and literacy skills in English. So given this diverse scenario in one class, and as I said, that is actually often the norm, rather than the exception. Differentiation can include things like the types of teaching strategies that you use.

So, using a variety of teaching strategies to engage students at different levels. So, for example, your highly proficient English users might work on extension activities that challenge their critical thinking. New arrivals who are still coming to grips with English as a medium of instruction could benefit from visual aids, graded texts, interactive group work to help them grasp key concepts.

We could also differentiate in terms of the assessment that we use. So, we might implement diverse assessment strategies that allow students to demonstrate their understanding in ways that align with their language proficiency and educational background. So, this might include allowing students to present their knowledge through oral projects or visual representations rather than traditional written assessments.

I always give the example of the water cycle. A child doesn’t necessarily come to the classroom not knowing anything about the water cycle. It’s just that they’re not able to understand it.

They’re not able to express that knowledge in English. So, giving them another mode through which to express that knowledge is really, really important. Of course, language support is very important as well.

So, for those students who are especially new arrivals, who are emergent on the EAL/D learner progression, we can provide targeted language support to scaffolding techniques that can involve using sentence starters, graphic organisers, active vocabulary acquisition activities, specifically designed for the content being taught. You know, in second year, we have a lot of technical vocabulary that is very specific to the field in which you’re teaching. So, for example, the word culture in science means something very different to the way it’s used in society and culture, for example.

And we actually need to think, well, this needs to be, these differences need to be made explicit for our learners, especially those who come from EAL/D backgrounds. But I guess one aspect that’s often overlooked is cultural differentiation. And this refers to modifying lesson content to be culturally relevant and accessible to all students.

So, it’s not just a sink or swim situation where we expect students to come to Australia and understand everything about Australia and its culture. What it means is integrating examples and materials into your lesson that reflect the backgrounds of your students and the various cultural contexts they come from and connecting your curriculum to their experiences. So, Robin Maloney and Leslie Harbin and Susan Oguro have written an amazing book that actually encourages teachers to teach for linguistic responsiveness.

And they encourage teachers to ask questions like, before you teach content, it’s really helpful to ask yourself questions such as, what are my own biases and blind spots related to the subject matter? What insights might my students have that I’m unaware of? So, for example, we know in maths, all countries have mathematical systems that are very particular to their cultural context.

And those can be very rich learning opportunities for all students in the classroom. Also important is what sensitivities could arise in discussions about this content with concerning values, knowledge and language. And I think most importantly, how can I teach this material in a culturally and linguistically responsive manner that promotes my students’ well-being and achievement?

So, do my students see themselves reflected in this content? Or is it presented in a very sort of Australian, monocultural, monolingual way? That is the challenge that I always set for my students to master as teachers who are going into contexts where they’re going to be teaching in very diverse settings.

Brynn: And what I’m hearing in that explanation is that teachers are not just planning this, you know, one lesson plan, saying, okay, everybody in the class is going to be able to do this skill and they’re all at this level. Because even if we had a classroom of monolingual English Australian born students, there is no classroom in which every single student is at the same level on particular skills or in particular classes. So, teachers are already having to do this work constantly, even if they’re in this sort of more monolingual, monocultural environment.

But what I’m hearing you say, and it’s true, is that our reality, as people who live in Sydney and the surrounding suburbs, is that we are becoming more and more and more multilingual, multicultural, and that this is just reality, that teachers are having to now have these additional thoughts and these additional considerations as they plan lesson plans. And the thing is, with this expectation of, well, can teachers just use AI to plan lesson plans? Now we have to think, well, can AI actually take these things into consideration?

Dr Ollerhead: That’s exactly right, Brynn. And it really gets to the heart of what we know about teaching. We know that teaching is not just a science.

It’s not just a process of knowing a series of principles, a series of methods and applying them. It’s actually also an art in terms of that element of, I always say that I think the most important material for success as a teacher is the ability to listen well. So, a teacher that’s in tune with their students will really by default be able to differentiate because in the moment they’re hearing, OK, I’m not sure if my class has actually been taken along with me in this lesson.

I think I might have lost them somewhere. So, I’m not going to ask the question, does everybody understand? Because of course, you’re going to get the answer, yes, of course.

Nobody wants to say they don’t understand. It’s really about the art of listening in, of asking the right questions. And then based on the answers you get to those questions, saying, OK, how can I tailor my delivery to respond to the needs of my learners?

So, I can do many things really, really well. And there’s no doubt there’s a role for it in lesson planning. But I think I guess what I was hoping to explore in that article is that there’s an essential element of listening that is very human, listening and responding with empathy in the moment contingently, that at the moment is still very human, I think.

And I would like to think that with the rise of AI, and we’ve seen it just completely overtake all our expectations, instead of trying to compete with AI, I think what we need to do is to get better at what we do, and that’s being human. And I think that very human empathetic element of listening to our students, finding out more about who they are, where they come from, how they’re feeling today, are they actually even in a space to be learning about equations when they’re still trying to understand the new culture that they found themselves in. So, I guess that’s my biggest hope is that we’re going to graduate a generation of teachers who are really checking in and attuned to the wonderful diversity we have in our classrooms.

Brynn: I think that the whole concept of differentiation in teachers is inherently human. And another part that you talk about in the article that I think is along the same lines is thinking about lesson plan creation in conjunction with the concept of the quote virtual school bag, which I love.

So, what is a virtual school bag? And why is it something that teachers need to think about when planning their lessons, especially when considering linguistic and cultural diversity within a classroom? And then there’s this question of can we expect AI to be able to consider a student’s virtual school bag?

Dr Ollerhead: I’m so glad you asked about that, because that to me has always been a really powerful visual metaphor. And that’s the concept of the virtual school bag comes from Pat Thompson and the work that Barbara Koma has done from the University of Queensland. They’ve done amazing work on looking at the rich cultural and linguistic resources that students from language backgrounds other than English come with to the classroom.

And they conceptualize it in the form of a visual metaphor. And they say that many children come to school with their virtual backpack that’s filled with things like cultural knowledge, geographical knowledge, practical knowledge of cultures and customs and skills from their own context. We call those funds of knowledge.

But what happens is that often they’re asked to leave that schoolbag at the classroom door and not to unpack it. And it’s only really the mainstream resources that are unpacked in the classroom. And so, they say it’s very dehumanizing if children are prevented from showing others what’s in their backpack, what they have to bring to learning, what they have to bring to the teacher.

You know, as teachers, we’re constant learners as well. So, I find that a very powerful metaphor. And you can only really discover what’s in students’ or children’s virtual backpack if you create a space in which all knowledges and cultures are valued in the classroom.

Now, AI is a tool, but it’s not an environment, it’s not a climate, it’s not an ecosystem where children feel safe. That is the teacher’s role. And so, I work a lot with a concept, a theory and a practice of full translanguaging.

And we call that a translanguaging space or a stance where the teacher does not have to be proficient in every single language of the classroom but makes space for the articulation of those languages and cultures throughout certain aspects of their teaching.

Brynn: I think that it gets to this point that I do think that we’ve been seeing more and more in education in general over the last even just decade, which is that we can’t expect every student in a classroom to fit into this one mould. I’m thinking of even just different neuro types or different learning styles, let alone linguistic and cultural backgrounds. And I do think that as a society, we’re getting better at making space for all of those differences.

But I think that we have to keep in mind this long educational tradition of almost trying to force the mainstream that we saw happening, you know, kind of since the beginning of education, really. You know, I’m thinking back to like one room schoolhouses and things like that. And we have to think, okay, we know that that did not work.

You know, we’ve, I mean, I’m a millennial, and that was still very much the education system that I grew up with, was trying to fit all of these kids into this one mould. And so, what I can almost hear is people saying, well, but if we’ve got these multilingual, multicultural students, shouldn’t they just have to learn English? Shouldn’t they just have to assimilate and fit into Australian culture?

But you mentioned the humanity of the teacher and the teacher really recognizing the humanity of the students. And, you know, some people might say that actually, you know, using AI to create these lesson plans, it’s fine, because AI can be more objective. It can almost, you know, force this mainstream.

So, tell me what you would say to those people that are saying, like, well, shouldn’t we all be sort of fitting into this one mould?

Dr Ollerhead: Yeah, that’s a great question, Brynn. And I think it kind of taps into some very powerful discourses at the moment about things like explicit teaching and, you know, being very clear about what the outcomes are for lessons. And there’s definitely merit to explicit teaching and making, you know, making visible the things that students need to achieve in a lesson.

What I want to emphasize is that including students’ cultures and language in the classroom is not antithetical to teaching them how to learn in English. In fact, what we find is that it supports their English learning. And you know why it does that?

It’s because it validates students’ identities. It sees what they come with as a strength and it gets them engaged in lesson content and lesson activities. If you come to school and you don’t see a place for yourself in learning, you’re going to disengage.

And we know that that is a big barrier to successful learning. So these things do not actually necessarily that they don’t preclude each other. So we need to remember that the complete understanding of a student’s unique cultural background, their personal experiences and their emotional needs is complex and often requires human empathy and insight.

And if you’re ever in a classroom, I’m really fortunate to work with some incredible teachers. And I see so many teachers who have been in the field for a very long time. They might not even call what they say differentiation, what they do as differentiation, but they do it instinctively because it’s second nature to them to just tap into where students are, to listen intently, to quickly in the moment tweak their instruction or their strategies to meet their students’ needs.

But we can’t expect new teachers to understand that. We can’t expect new teachers to have the wherewithal to immediately differentiate, especially because our classrooms are becoming more multicultural and multilingual, because of globalization, because of migration. But strangely enough in Australia, that hasn’t actually meant that our teaching practices have become attuned to that increasing diversity.

And it’s something we can’t shy away from. It’s actually something that needs to be dealt with not just in early childhood or primary or secondary, but also at universities. And we really need to, I guess, rethink this “it’s simpler if everybody learns English” because that just doesn’t cut it anymore. We know that it benefits everybody when we have plurality in classrooms where we can learn from each other, where there’s genuine intercultural sharing and understanding. And I guess what we want to do as teacher-trainers and teacher-educators is to say teaching is an ongoing learning process.

But if you understand from the outset that the key to being an effective teacher is actually exercising that empathy, exercising that insight, I think that sets you up for success and it certainly sets your learners up for success. We know that even though AI is amazing in the way that it can analyse and recommend resources related to a student’s virtual school bag, teachers still play a crucial role in ensuring that those resources are integrated in a way that is thoughtful and responsive to each student’s needs.

Brynn: I love that idea of not denying the fact that we have AI, AI is here, people are using it. I mean, this is a whole other episode, but we see students use it as well in their writing.

It’s not something that we can close our eyes to and say, “No, no, this doesn’t exist. Let’s just pretend like it’s 25 years ago.” So, I love that you’re acknowledging, yeah, it exists, it can be a tool for certain things, especially for those busy, busy teachers who have so much that they have to accomplish in such a short amount of time.

But I just really love this idea of fundamentally, teachers have to tap into their humanity and their empathy, and they have to recognize the humanity in their students in order to create a more meaningful and productive classroom, because it’s really only going to be a net positive when we have that integration of cultures and languages and students working together, because in our globalized world, that’s what they’re going to have to do when they’re grownups anyway, you know?

So, you said that you can see AI being used as a tool. Where do you see it going? Where do you think it’s heading in the education and teacher training sectors, for good or for bad?

Dr Ollerhead: Yeah, I mean, you’ve summarized it so well Brynn, but I think it’s, I guess my hope is, and again, I mean, I don’t have a crystal ball, and you know, there’ve just been such rapid changes within the last two years. But my hope is that it will become a symbiotic relationship, where, I mean, for sure, the educational sector will not simply adopt AI, it will embrace it as a catalyst for enhancement. But I think the key there is the word enhancement.

It augments things. It’s really amazing at generating big data sets. And you know, that’s what it does.

I don’t think we could ever hope to compete with that. But again, getting back to the hope that there can be a relationship between AI and education that is symbiotic. So I guess what I mean by that is sort of a balancing act where technology supports, not just supports, but actually amplifies the irreplaceable human qualities that drive effective teaching and learning.

And as AI continues to evolve, I’m excited about the possibilities it presents, I guess, for enriching education and empowering students and teachers. But I’m very much aware that we can’t deny that it’s here. But I’m also very wary of outsourcing crucial things like differentiation for control and linguistic diversity to AI, without actually understanding the fundamental knowledge on which we have to base our judicious use of lesson planning.

Brynn: I love that answer. I think that that’s a perfect summary of where we’re at and where, hopefully, we are headed. So, Sue, thank you so much for talking with me today, and thank you for being on the show.

Dr Ollerhead: It’s been a pleasure, Brynn. Thanks so much.

Brynn: And thank you for listening, everyone. If you liked listening to our chat today, please subscribe to the Language on the Move Podcast, leave a five-star review on your podcast app of choice, and recommend the Language on the Move Podcast and our partner, the New Books Network, to your students, colleagues, and friends. Until next time.

In this episode of the Language on the Move podcast, I speak to Professor Margaret Kettle about the Multilingual Glossary of School-based Terms. This is list of school-related terms selected and translated to help multilingual families connect with schools. The research-based glossary was developed jointly with the Queensland Department of Education, Education Queensland school personnel, Multicultural Australia, and community group members and families.

If you enjoy the show, support us by subscribing to the Language on the Move Podcast on your podcast app of choice, leaving a 5-star review, and recommending the Language on the Move Podcast and our partner the New Books Network to your students, colleagues, and friends.

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Transcript (coming soon)

Can you share about your work and your pro bono global initiative defending language rights?

Irene: Linguistic Justice® is my personal advocacy initiative. It was born during the early pandemic days in 2020 after I quit my job as an interpreter for the New York State Court System. During my time in the system I witnessed first-hand state violence against linguistic minorities who were trying to access justice, particularly how it impacted Indigenous peoples. Founding Linguistic Justice® was my response to that experience; it provided an outlet for my desire to use my skills working with linguistically marginalized communities, instead of enabling state violence against them.

Since then, I have worked hands-on with multiple grassroots organizations in the US looking to implement a language justice approach in their operations. I consult with those organizations to help them remove access barriers, provide meaningful language access, and encourage them to create effective multilingual participatory settings.

On the global front, The Spanish Group Pilot Initiative was my pro bono initiative and my shot at raising awareness of language rights and justice in spaces traditionally dominated by the English language. Rolled out through the Global Coalition for Language Rights (GCLR), it aimed to shine a light on language rights during the Global Language Advocacy Days (GLAD) volunteer initiatives in February 2024, themed “No Justice Without Language Rights”.

The initiative was launched in July 2023 through the Coalition’s social media platforms, and my main aims were two. First, to build a global community by providing participants with quality education and a safe space to share their diverse perspectives. And second, to disseminate our educational content about language rights and justice, in Spanish, from a global platform.

To structure the educational initiative, I developed a 7-month program to facilitate community development and targeted learning. A diverse and talented group of participants spanning seven countries engaged in non-traditional learning methods inspired by my background as a former attorney, my experience as a seasoned linguist, as well as my integration of restorative practice processes for developing social capital.

The overall success of the initiative stands as a testament to the need for serious investment in the advancement of language justice, including through fully funded multilingual community education programs like this one.

Can you share more about the handbook you developed as part of your pro bono initiative?

Irene: To conclude the pilot initiative, I authored and gathered the introductory language rights handbook titled ‘Queremos escuchar tu voz’ (or ‘We want to hear your voice’).

Throughout this resource, the term ‘voice’ is used in a figurative sense to emphasize the significance of individual language preference in shaping our identity and asserting our self-determination. I wanted to underscore that our ‘voice’ represents the power of communicative autonomy of each person: a fundamental aspect of our human dignity.

In a nutshell, this handbook is a call to action to catalyze support for language justice. It aims to tackle the prevalent collective unawareness surrounding language rights, striving to expand consciousness regarding these rights and, consequently, expand our collective capacity to create language justice. It is meant to provide vocabulary for anyone who wants to understand and articulate how people are disadvantaged as users of non-dominant languages.

What are you hoping to achieve with the first edition of this handbook?

Irene: Firstly, I am hoping that the pilot initiative, along with its resulting handbook, inspires future initiatives to foster community development through multilingual education about language rights.

We must acknowledge that people cannot advocate for rights they don’t know they have in the first place. Our language is intertwined with every facet of our lives, and withholding language rights from people profoundly impacts their lives, hindering their access to social structures: information, opportunities, critical services, education and justice. So, supporting communities in understanding their language rights is crucial to nurturing their self-determination and fostering their own advocacy efforts for those rights.

Secondly, I hope it facilitates a shift in perspective, recognizing linguistically marginalized communities as rights-holders.

When linguistically oppressed communities lack the capacity to articulate their experiences, those in power may not fully understand how pervasive language rights violations are. We have unaware people in positions of authority within our systems.

The result? Without understanding language rights and the impact language oppression has on our communities, efforts remain insufficient. Holding systems accountable is crucial, but supporting them with education on this topic is equally important to foster systemic change.

Those in a position of authority within systems—public and private institutions, policymakers, and the language access industry as a whole—need to better understand language rights, and the impact language oppression has in our communities, to be able to shift their perspective: from linguistic discrimination, half-hearted compliance and indifference, to awareness, inclusion and repair.

We must care for both of these needs seriously: from the bottom-up with our communities, and from within our social structures and its systems.

Can you share more about the content of this handbook?

Irene: This introductory resource provides a thorough examination of language rights on a global scale, encompassing their legal foundations in international humanitarian law, as well as the legal framework for language rights in the United States, including relevant jurisprudence.

Among its features are discussions of language rights theory and practice, guidance on filing national origin discrimination complaints before the US Federal government, and community insights aimed at advancing language justice for all people.

Irene Gotera, Linguistic Justice®

By amplifying the voices of the participating community in the pilot initiative, I also share our findings underscoring several key imperatives to create language justice:

• Promoting self-awareness and recognition of one’s own linguistic privileges.
• Fostering collective understanding of language rights.
• Making the resources like this handbook available and accessible to staff members of organizations serving linguistically diverse populations worldwide.
• Engaging in global dialogues on language oppression to cultivate the solidarity necessary to confront it.
• Proactively defending our language rights to enhance awareness of them.
• Urging states worldwide to enact legislation guaranteeing respect for language rights, recognizing that with language rights come corresponding obligations for compliance.

The handbook closes with my perspective on the connection between language rights and justice: to create language justice for all people, we all need to develop and apply a language rights-conscious lens. I’m hopeful that this resource could be a significant catalyst in fostering exactly that. Download it here.

There is no justice without language rights.

Join us on Thursday, December 14, at Macquarie University for a workshop to explore Linguistic Inclusion Today.

The aim of the workshop is to take stock of the state of linguistic inclusion in Australia, as we see ever-increasing linguistic diversity clashing with the continued monolingual hegemony of English. Following our CfP, we have put together an exciting program of keynote lectures and panels focusing on multilingual practices and policies in families, schools, healthcare settings, and government.

The workshop includes a special symposium focusing on the situation of languages in Australian Higher Education. Languages programs at Australian universities operate under the ever-looming threat of cuts to small programs, a threat that has gained new currency due to the rise of automated translation and generative AI.

The symposium “Languages in Australian Higher Education” can be attended as part of the full-day workshop or as a standalone option. For background reading on declining language learning opportunities in Australian higher education, see this new article by Svetlana Printcev over at SBS.

Program

9:00-9:15 Welcome
9:15-10:15 Keynote: Alexandra Grey, Linguistic Inclusion and Good Governance in Multilingual Australia (Chair: Yixi Isabella Qiu) (view abstract)
10:15-10:30 Break
10:30-12:00 Panel, Multilingualism in Australian Families (Chair: Hanna Torsh) (view abstracts)

• Speaker 1: Priyanka Bose, Conceptualisation of family and language practice in family language policy research on migrants
• Speaker 2: Sithembinkosi Dube, Bringing emerging African languages into the social inclusion agenda
• Speaker 3: Undarmaa Munkhbayar, Heritage Language Maintenance in the Mongolian Community in Australia
• Speaker 4: Emily Pacheco, Sign language maintenance among children of migrant Deaf adults in the diaspora
• Speaker 5: Muhammad Iqwan Sanjani, Constructing transnational family language policy through translanguaging

12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Keynote: Trang Nguyen, Language Policy and Individual Voices: Introducing “Individual Language Policy” (Chair: Jinhyun Cho) (view abstract)
2:00-2:15 Break
2:15-3:45 Panel, Language Polices for Inclusion in the 21^st Century (Chair: Loy Lising) (view abstracts)

• Speaker 6: Jie Zhang, Between vulnerability and agency: crisis communication with Deaf communities in Wuhan during the Covid pandemic
• Speaker 7: Brynn Quick, How are language barriers bridged in hospitals?
• Speaker 8: Natalie Skinner, Cultural and linguistic diversity in children with a disability affecting their communication
• Speaker 9: Yixi (Isabella) Qiu, Navigating epistemic injustice
• Speaker 10: Tazin Abdullah, Citizen science: inclusive practices in data collection

3:45-4:00 Break
4:00-5:30 Symposium, Languages in Australian Higher Education

• Keynote: Jasna Novak Milic, Language Preservation and Identity: The Story of Croatian Studies in Australia (view abstract)
• Chair: Ingrid Piller
• Discussants: Antonia Rubino, Mark Matic, Jane Hanley
• Zoom host: Agnes Bodis

5:30-7:30 Reception

Registration

Attendance is free but spaces are strictly limited so register asap to avoid disappointment.

There are three attendance options:

• Full day (register here) [sold out]
• Only symposium, Languages in Australian Higher Education, and Reception (register here) [sold out]
• Virtual attendance at only symposium, Languages in Australian Higher Education (register here)

Abstracts, Keynotes

Dr Alexandra Grey, UTS, Linguistic Inclusion and Good Governance in Multilingual Australia

This presentation reports on my 2018-2021 investigation into ‘Good Governance in Multilingual Urban Australia’. That project included three studies: an audit of NSW legislation and policy that does (not) provide a framework for decision-making and standards of multilingual government communications (undertaken with A Severin); a case study of such communication outputs from the NSW government, across portfolios (undertaken with A Severin); and a case study of multilingualism in public Covid-19 communications from NSW and Commonwealth governments.

The Covid case study also includes an analytic review of international human rights about language and health, as well as the commentary of international organizations as to how to take a rights-based approach to pandemic communications in order to fulfill certain international law obligations upon Australia (and other nations). That review found new expectations emerging that governments’ multilingual health communications be not merely partially available, but rather produced without (unreasonable) linguistic discrimination; with minority communities’ involvement at preparatory stages; strategic planning; and an eye to effectiveness. In explaining what more effective communication could entail, I advocate assessing government communications’ Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability and Adaptability — that is, the ‘Four As’ recognized by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and crisis communications scholars.

In this keynote at Macquarie University’s Workshop on conceptual and methodological challenges in linguistic inclusion, I will explain my interdisciplinary methodology, present the key findings of each of these three studies, and draw them together by inquiring whether developments in governments’ public communications during the pandemic have given Australia any lasting improvements in the linguistic and social inclusion. The research leads to a novel suggestion for 3 Rs of response to recurrent problems in governments reaching, and including, linguistically diverse publics: (further) Research; Redesigning online communications; and Rights-based Regulation (or Standard Setting). I will end with a reflection on the path ahead for researchers by noting how three studies have each also given rise to an awareness of ‘dead-ends’ and a need for government-partnered research in this space.

Dr Trang Nguyen, Melbourne University, Language Policy and Individual Voices: Introducing “Individual Language Policy”

Language policy often refers to regulations and rules made by governmental or institutional bodies to determine and influence the use of languages in a society or community. Such a common understanding of the term may lead to an impression among the public and authorities that language policy making should be the task of officials and governors rather than ordinary people, thus potentially creating conceptual challenges in incorporating individual voices into the policy making process. Recognising that there is also a language policy at an individual level, which is a critical part of higher-layer language policies and a link of the complex language policy circle, may contribute to addressing these conceptual challenges.

In this talk, I will introduce the concept “individual language policy” which I built in reference to a combination of language policy theories in an attempt to attract attention to such a language policy at an individual level. I suggest that individual language policy is a kind of implicit policy that individuals discursively define and apply to themselves in their daily language behaviours under the influence of external forces and higher-level language policies in the environments where they are living. Individual language policy comprises three main components: practised language policy (guiding language practices), perceived language policy (informing language beliefs), and negotiated language policy (directing language management) (Nguyen, 2022). Individual language policy does not stand independent of other-level language policies, but can be considered as the first step on the path to the outcomes of the top-down policies (Grin, 2003). In our advocacy for policy change towards language inclusion and justice, we should, therefore, emphasise the importance of individual language speakers and their individual language policy, as “it is at the individual level that the success or failure of a language policy is finally revealed” (Spolsky, 2022, p.x).

Dr Jasna Novak Milić, Macquarie University, Language Preservation and Identity: The Story of Croatian Studies in Australia

Among the approximately 200,000 Croats believed to reside in Australia, a significant majority have undergone assimilation, with English often serving as their primary functional language. When the largest wave of Croatian immigrants arrived in Australia during the 1960s and 1970s, the struggle for linguistic identity accompanied them. This struggle led to the recognition of the Croatian language in Australia as early as 1979, well before the declaration of Croatian independence in 1991. Subsequently, ethnic schools were established, and in the 1980s, Croatian language courses were introduced at the high school level. In 1983, Macquarie University launched the study of Croatian language and culture, a program through which several thousand students have passed over its four decades of existence. Initially funded by the Croatian community in Australia, this program began receiving financial support from the government of the Republic of Croatia about two decades ago. This support reflects the recognition of the program’s significance in preserving the language and community identity. However, within the predominantly monolingual mindset, the future of Croatian Studies in Australia faces renewed uncertainty.

Abstracts, Multilingualism in Australian Families

Priyanka Bose, UNSW, Conceptualisation of family and language practice in family language policy research on migrants

Family language policy (FLP) is increasingly recognised as a distinct domain of language policy concerned with the family as an arena of language policy formulation and implementation. While FLP is a relatively new research area, its conceptualisation of family and language practice requires re-examination due to social changes and technological developments, including the expansion of digital communication within families and the rise of globally dispersed families, a product of global migration and transnationalism. In this systematic review of migrant FLP research, we investigate how the notions of family and language practice are conceptualised in research. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we identified a total of 163 articles for analysis. Our analysis reveals that the majority of studies were conducted in nuclear families, i.e., those consisting of a father, a mother, and one or more children. Studies also tend to conceptualise the family as fixed and physically located in one place. Paradoxically, around half of the studies acknowledge the presence of geographically dispersed family relations, but this does not necessarily affect their conceptualisation of what comprises a family. Language practice was conceptualised as physical and face-to-face communication in 51% of instances, with only 11% incorporating an analysis of digital communications. Based on our review, we recommend that FLP researchers researching migrant families reconceptualise the family as geographically dispersed and language practice as digital and multimodal when necessary. Such a reconceptualisation will help researchers understand the hitherto underexamined contributions of dispersed family members and multimodal digital
communications in migrant FLP.

Sithembinkosi Dube, MQ/UNSW, Bringing emerging African languages into the social inclusion agenda

When compared to other English-speaking nations, Australia is regarded as a leader in the provision of community language services (Edwards, 2004). Since the initial establishment of ethnic language schools, the government understood that community languages are critical for the equitable delivery of major community services (health, justice & social services). However, the current structures and policies for community language schools are blind to the smaller communities with emerging languages, thus undermining the social inclusion agenda (Piller & Takahashi, 2011). This talk will highlight how LangDentity, an online Shona-Ndebele Community school, is overcoming these hurdles to maintain Zimbabwean heritage languages.

Undarmaa Munkhbayar, MQ, Heritage Language Maintenance in the Mongolian Community in Australia

Maintaining heritage languages is of paramount importance to immigrants all over the world as the language is not just a communication tool. It carries our culture, tradition, belief, and identity. Australia is ideologically monolingual, yet factually multilingual and numerous minority languages exist here. Based on a small interview study with Mongolian families in Sydney, it was found that English is the main language of Mongolian children and parents struggle to support the heritage language. Sending children to Mongolian language community schools, opting for Mongolian language in the home, investing in extra tutoring sessions, joint reading, and perusing video contents can facilitate the preservation of Mongolian into the second generation.

Emily Pacheco, MQ, Sign language maintenance among children of migrant Deaf adults in the diaspora

About 90% of Deaf parents’ children are born hearing. Culturally, these individuals identify as Codas: Children of Deaf Adult(s). The linguistic practices of Codas have been minimally explored in sociolinguistics research. An aspect of this research is child language brokering (CLB), from which sign language brokering (SLB) emerged. This project aims to draw from these two concepts to investigate the experiences of children of migrant Deaf adults (Comdas). Through a scoping review and semi-structured interviews, data will be collected and later analysed through thematic analysis. By uncovering the experiences Comdas have towards SLB, this project hopes to highlight an often-overlooked population of sign language users in heritage language maintenance research.

Muhammad Iqwan Sanjani, UNSW, Constructing transnational family language policy through translanguaging

This study investigates the roles of home and school in constructing translanguaging spaces among Indonesian transnational families in Australia using an ecological approach to language policy. Data were collected from recordings of naturally occurring conversations, interviews, and diaries, and also interviews with teachers who teach the children of participant families. Preliminary evidence suggests that translanguaging serves as a means for transnational families to fight for epistemic inclusion in a context where monolingualism is prevalent and where their perspectives are often disregarded.

Abstracts, Language Polices for Inclusion in the 21^st Century

Jie Zhang, ZUEL/MQ, Between vulnerability and agency: crisis communication with Deaf communities in Wuhan during the Covid pandemic

Previous studies have demonstrated that deaf people are an underserved vulnerable community before, during, and after emergencies. At the same time, deaf people can also mobilize their agency to produce linguistically and culturally appropriate information and services to deaf communities in the absence of accessible crisis communication provided by the government, and even participate in crisis management. Adopting a community-based participatory approach to research, the study involves researchers and community members as equal partners in the research process. Drawing on in-depth interviews, this study describes the needs of and barriers faced by deaf people during the 76-day lockdown after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan in 2020 as perceived by a group of deaf volunteers, and how the deaf volunteers collaborated with the Wuhan Deaf Association, other civil groups, community workers, volunteers, medical staff, and psychological consultant to respond to deaf people’s needs. The study shows that challenges faced by deaf people include barriers to accessing information and aids, barriers to communication with stakeholders, as well as compound disadvantages caused by communication barriers. Deaf volunteers, apart from providing emergency services tailored to specific needs of deaf communities, helped empower ‘vulnerable’ deaf people in emergency responses and resilience building, and effectively raised the awareness of accessible communication among stakeholders and the public. The study demonstrates the critical role of deaf volunteers, who are highly motivated, fully aware of the needs of deaf people, well-networked both within the deaf community and with the broader community, in providing a bridge between stakeholders and deaf communities. Therefore, the study calls for a shift from a top-down emergency management approach in which emergency management organizations provide special services for deaf people to a participatory and inclusive approach that actively involves deaf people in designing and implementing plans tailored to specific needs of deaf communities in emergency settings.

Brynn Quick, MQ, How are language barriers bridged in hospitals?

This presentation explores how hospitals communicate multilingually to bridge language barriers experienced by linguistic minority patients by asking how hospital staff assess a linguistic minority patient’s language proficiency and identify the need for a multilingual communication strategy. It also examines the language support strategies that hospitals use to communicate with these patients. This is done through a systematic literature review of 50 studies. The findings show that current literature most often examines spoken language barriers bridged through interpreters. The problems identified with consistent interpreting service provision relate to time constraints and inconsistencies in procedures related to assessing a patient’s linguistic proficiency.

Natalie Skinner, MQ, Cultural and linguistic diversity in children with a disability affecting their communication

Communication disability is not typically included in discussion and research around linguistic inclusion. For children with a disability affecting their communication, there is a significant lack of research on cultural and linguistic diversity that can be used to guide the development and delivery of speech pathology services. Services incorporate language technologies, including Alternative and Augmentative Communication systems, that facilitate social participation. Interviews were conducted with 23 speech pathologists across Australia, exploring provision of appropriate services for children with a communication disability, in families who speak a language other than English. While cultural and linguistic diversity is acknowledged and valued, English is pervasive in services and associated resources.

Yixi (Isabella) Qiu, Fudan U/UNSW, Navigating epistemic injustice

Informed by the perspective of “epistemic (in)justice” and “epistemic agency”, this study explored how multilingual teachers and students negotiate a more epistemologically effective and equal access to knowledge negotiation in an EMI program in a Chinese university. A variety of data were collected in the study, including lesson recordings, multilingual notes, reflective journals, and stimulated recalls, to understand how the transnational teachers and students as epistemic agents negotiate disciplinary concepts and engage in knowledge co-construction to express silenced voices, countering epistemic oppression and enhancing participation.

Tazin Abdullah, MQ, Citizen science: inclusive practices in data collection

The field of sociolinguistics has seen an emerging method of data collection known as Citizen Science (CS), whereby members of the public are enlisted to collect data. The utilization of CS allows for large volumes of data collection and enables researchers to tap into the diverse sociolinguistic knowledge of the participants. This paper discusses the innovative use of CS in a Linguistic Landscape study, in which specific groups of participants were engaged to take photographs of signs that were used for analysis. The study notes how the utilization of CS acknowledges diversity and offers an approach to build inclusivity into sociolinguistc methodologies.

When: Thursday, December 14, 2023, full day
Where: Macquarie University
Keynote speakers:
Dr Alexandra Grey, University of Technology Sydney
Dr Trang Nguyen, University of Melbourne

What: Despite the ever-increasing linguistic diversity of Australian society, our institutions continue to be organized as monolingual spaces. This creates barriers to full and equitable social participation for those who do not speak English, do not speak it well, or have low levels of (English) literacy. At this point in time, research into language barriers to education, work, healthcare, law, and all aspects of social life faces at least three intertwined conceptual and methodological challenges, which this workshop is designed to explore:

1. Emerging languages: some of the fastest-growing communities in Australia include speakers of under-served, under-resourced, and non-standardized languages. This raises significant challenges for the provision of language services, from translation and interpreting to heritage language maintenance and community schooling.
2. Language technologies: the past few years have seen an explosion in assistive language technologies from automated translation via multilingual chatbots to digital diasporas. These technologies offer fresh opportunities for linguistic inclusion while also creating new barriers for linguistically minoritized populations.
3. Epistemic justice: the open science movement challenges us to rethink the research life cycle from design to dissemination. Co-design, data-sharing, multilingual team research, big data, and citizen science are some of the issues reshaping how we approach linguistic diversity and social participation.

The workshop is designed to be highly interactive and we are particularly interested in hearing from HDR candidates and early career researchers working in these areas. We have a small number of short presenter slots (10-15 minutes) on our panels. To have your abstract considered for presentation, submit here by Monday, November 06.

Attendance is free.

Professor García (r) and members of the Language on the Move team during ISB14

The concept of translanguaging has been gaining increasing popularity but, at the same time, continues to confuse students, teachers, and researchers. In this interview, Professor Emerita Ofelia García, a key proponent of translanguaging, explains what it is all about.

Professor García answers four main questions:

1. What is translanguaging?
2. How is translanguaging different from codeswitching?
3. What are the pedagogical implications of translanguaging?
4. How can we engage those who are uncomfortable with translanguaging because to them it distracts from the objective of ensuring that language learners learn languages as proficiently as they can for full social and economic participation in society?

I conducted the interview on the sidelines of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, where Professor García delivered a keynote talk on Studying bilinguals and their education: A translanguaging-informed critique of research.

The inspiring and compelling keynote left me with many questions based on my own experience as a scholar and a multilingual, who has been seeing the ways I move in and out of the multiple languages in my repertoire through the lens of codeswitching (Lising et al., 2020).

I hope you will find the 20-minute interview helpful in your quest to understand the complex ways in which multilinguals navigate their diverse linguistic repertoires.

Reference

Lising, L., Peters, P., & Smith, A. (2020). Code-switching in online academic discourse: Resources for Philippine English. English World-Wide, 41(2), 131-161.

Professor Gogolin speaks at the International Symposium on Bilingualism

Why is linguistic diversity important in creating educational equity? How is the migrant experience different across different nations? How does the perception of national identity impact on migrant inclusion? How can research help us better understand and promote educational equity?

These are some of the questions I recently had the pleasure of discussing with Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Ingrid Gogolin from the Department of General, Intercultural and International Comparative Education at Hamburg University. Professor Gogolin is a long-time collaborator with Language on the Move editor Ingrid Piller, and together they head the global Next Generation Literacies network, along with professors Silvia Melo-Pfeifer (Hamburg University) and Yongyan Zheng (Fudan University).

Professor Gogolin was in Sydney to attend the International Symposium of Bilingualism. On the sidelines of a packed and engaging conference, I interviewed her about her globally renowned work in linguistic diversity in education. Over her distinguished career, she has been a passionate, powerful, and systematic advocate for recognizing and managing linguistic diversity in education in the school system.

I first asked Professor Gogolin to introduce her work to the Language on the Move audience and to explain why with all the educational inequalities in the world today, her focus was on linguistic diversity and educational inequality. Her answer will not surprise regular readers, who know about the various ways language matters in educational contexts around the world, from learning Mandarin as a second language to international students in Australian universities.

We then talked about the differences and similarities between Australia and Germany, where we both live and research, in terms of attitudes to migrants and migrant education. Professor Gogolin mentioned one of her articles which had a big influence on my own thinking about language in education (Ellis et al. 2010), and we talked about how much things have changed in Germany since it has become one of the world’s top migrant-receiving countries in the last few decades.

Finally, we talked about the all-important question of research impact. I asked how her research on linguistic diversity and education has been received by the general public and stakeholders, and how she feels about her contribution to teacher education and educating the general public about these issues. This is particularly important at a time when right-wing populism is on the rise around the world.

Reference

Ellis, Elizabeth, Ingrid Gogolin & Michael Clyne. 2010. The Janus face of monolingualism: A comparison of German and Australian language education policies. Current Issues in Language Planning 11(4). 439-460.

尽管有诸如此类的国际保护措施， 原住民在教育领域仍然处于劣势地位。 本文着眼于以超语实践理论， 探求解答这一问题的途径。

English version of this article available here.

*** 

作者： 余星星, Nashid Nigar, 钱祺

*** 

Tibetan Buddhist stupa and houses outside the town of Ngawa, on the Tibetan Plateau (Image credit: Wikipedia)

自体认到语言少数群体的教育困境后， 我们三人作为国际间的非土著教育工作者携手合作， 尝试提出一些新颖的教学模式。 以西藏英语课程为例， 我们将藏语和藏族文化融入藏族学生的英语课程， 旨在解决“资源不足”以及“原住民教育优先级低”的问题。 我们的重点在于反思与改革一种倾向于强调主流语言而忽视或贬低原住民语言、 文化和知识体系的教学法。

2021年， 钱祺在四川省甘孜县进行了一个月的英语教学工作。 在此地，藏族人口超过 80% （甘孜藏族自治州人民政府， 2021年)， 钱老师任教的班级， 所有的学生都是藏族人。

三语教育的现况及问题 

在具有高度多元语言背景的环境中， 钱祺发现， 以藏语进行教学时， 学生们的注意力更易凝聚。

这些学生通常接受三语教育。 他们在刚入小学时， 除了学习藏语之外， 也需学习汉语。 而当他们进入中学后， 英语课程则成为必修科目。 在此情形下， 藏族学生非但需要掌握藏语， 还需要学习另外两种语言。

近来， 研究者发现藏族学生在三语教育中有两大主要问题。 首先， 相较于汉族学生， 由于藏区教育资源的匮乏 （例如教师数量不足）， 藏族学生常被误认为是“赤字”语言学习者。 藏族文化和语言， 以及学生的民族身份， 常常被汉族主导的意识形态所轻视， 这在以普通话进行教学的英语课堂及汉族文化占主导地位的英语教科书中均有所体现。

在此背景下， 我们并没有提出一种理想化且以人权为导向的宏大改革计划 （在中国的现实情况下， 这可能并不切实际）， 而是提出了一种更务实的解决方案。 这个方案一方面在现行的教育政策框架下为可行之策， 另一方面， 它可以帮助藏族学生更快地掌握英语， 并为他们的多语言身份做出贡献。 同时， 该方案也为教师在将多语言视角纳入英语教学时行使他们的权力铺平道路。

超语实践理论的引入及课程设置 

余星星和钱祺在墨尔本大学深造期间， 在 Nashid Nigar 的指导下， 对超语实践理论有了更深入的了解。 我们讨论了如何将该理论引入到钱祺的藏族学生英语课程中。

超语实践理论对所谓的“命名语言”持批判性立场。其实践，尤其是创造性和批判性部分具有变革潜力，因为它们能超越命名语言的社会构造边界。超语实践视为一种世界观，认为说话者可通过利用他们语言工具箱中的所有资源，积极地拥抱并培养自己的多语言身份。

因此，藏区英语老师应充分利用学生的语言资源，不仅要激活学生的语言创造性（以便他们能更有效地学习英语），还要让学生有能力设疑汉族主导的语言和文化的主导地位。

以此为基础，我们为藏族学生学习英语制定了一个新的课程，主题为“发现西藏之美”，包含四堂课和一个评估任务。

首先，为了让现有的官方英语教科书对藏族学生更有价值，我们对其进行了改编，增添了有关西藏宗教、历史和地理的信息。变更后的教材主题涵盖了西藏历史上的重要人物、古代节日的描绘，以及对西藏文化的洞察。如果学生的学习材料的背景来自他们自己的文化经验，他们对英语学习将更加投入和积极。教学资源将鼓励学生透过促进藏语和英语的非等级化使用，从他们的全部语料库中取得滋养。

我们的课程中融入了许多活动。这些活动旨在向学生介绍西藏丰富的文化遗产和壮美的风光。这些活动包括学习该地区独特的动植物种类，探讨著名寺庙的历史意义，研究西藏的艺术和建筑。这些活动有助于提高学生对英语学习的投入，并在英语和他们的母语–藏语之间建立联系。

学生们将共同完成一些项目，例如制作一本小册子或一部简短的纪录片，介绍他们家乡、社区或整个青藏高原的历史、文化或自然风光。学生将被鼓励利用他们的语言能力（藏语、普通话、英语）来制作高质量的作品。这种集体努力旨在鼓励学生为自己的文化遗产和英语水平感到自豪，并在此过程中相互学习和教导。

“我眼中的西藏”是一项评估任务，根据学生制作多媒体演示文稿的能力来评分。这些演示文稿将展示西藏的某些方面的辉煌（如其文化、历史或自然风光），作为最终项目的一部分。我们鼓励学生充分利用他们的语言资源（藏语、普通话、英语），以提供一个有趣的、信息丰富的演讲。学生可以通过在抖音等社交媒体网站上发布他们的演讲，接受来自同伴和网络社区的反馈和建议。

我们期望通过这个计划，能帮助藏族学生提升他们的英语水平，同时增强他们对自己文化遗产的自豪感和对西藏壮丽风景的热爱。我们相信，当学习材料引人入胜且强调团队合作时，积极的学习环境和对提高英语技能的真诚愿望自然就会萌发出来。

成功经验

钱祺的实践成果显示，通过持续练习和表达，学生对自己的英语交流能力有了更大的信心和自豪感。他们的口语流利程度显著提高，这进一步证实了自信心与语言技能之间的正相关。

在超语实践理论的指导下，钱祺对西藏英语教育的改良，帮助藏族学生接受并认同了自己的多语言性。我们认识到，在当前中国的政治体制下，建立一个完全包容和民主的课程，尊重且赞美西藏文化和语言，可能面临很大的挑战。然而，尽管政府有严格的审查和监督，但我们依然可以通过一些实际的方法，帮助使用少数民族语言的学生不仅克服语言学习的障碍，还可以肯定和提升他们的文化和语言身份。这个过程在很大程度上依赖于教师的专业能力，以及他们对回应性教学法的热诚和代理权。

我们相信，在各种各样的教学环境中，语言和写作教师都可以根据他们的需要，调整并实施这种课程改革的方法。

关于作者

余星星是墨尔本大学墨尔本教育研究生院TESOL专业的硕士。她在中国国有企业的工作经历和她在中国西部偏远地区的家庭历史，激发了她对中国教育不平等问题的研究兴趣，包括性别和民族差异，以及城乡差距。

Nashid Nigar是墨尔本大学教育研究生院的讲师，教授TESOL硕士和教育硕士课程。她正处于完成莫纳什大学教育学院博士学位的最后阶段。她的研究兴趣包括使用跨学科的理论视角和解释学现象学的叙事方式，研究澳大利亚移民教师的专业身份。

钱祺在墨尔本教育研究生院完成了他的教育硕士学位。他曾在四川省甘孜藏族自治州的甘孜民族中学担任志愿教师。他现在在另一所初中教英语。

Tibetan Buddhist stupa and houses outside the town of Ngawa, on the Tibetan Plateau (Image credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note: “Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.” (Article 14, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples).

Despite international rights and protections such as these, indigenous people continue to experience educational disadvantage. This article examines how this disadvantage can be mitigated through translanguaging.

点击此处获取中文版本。

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Xingxing Yu, Nashid Nigar, Qi Qian

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Cognizant of the educational disadvantage of linguistic minorities, we, three non-indigenous educators, worked together internationally to experiment with and propose some novel ways to incorporate Tibetan language and culture into the English language curriculum for Tibetan students in order to overcome the obstacle of “inadequate resources and low prioritization of education for indigenous peoples.” This is important for textbooks, materials, and pedagogy that focus on the dominant language but leave out or downplay indigenous languages, cultures, and knowledge systems.

Qian, a master’s student at the University of Melbourne in 2021, spent the summer of that year teaching English in Garzê County, Sichuan Province. According to the People’s Government of Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (2021), although not physically located in Tibet, the Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Region has a Tibetan population of over 80%. All of the students at the school where Qian taught were Tibetan.

Trilingual education

Qian noticed that students pay more attention in class when they are taught in Tibetan.

These students commonly experience trilingual education. As soon as they enter primary school, they are taught Mandarin Chinese in addition to Tibetan; by the time they reach secondary school, English becomes a further compulsory subject. In this context, Tibetan students are expected to learn not just Tibetan but also two additional languages.

Two major drawbacks of trilingual education for Tibetan students have recently been uncovered by researchers. First, compared to their Han counterparts, Tibetan students tend to be stigmatized as “deficit” language learners due to a lack of educational resources (teachers, for example) in Tibetan areas. Tibetan culture and language, as well as students’ ethnic identities, are devalued by the Han-dominant ideology, which is reflected in both Mandarin-taught English classrooms and English textbooks where Han-culture predominates.

Instead of envisioning a more idealistic and human rights oriented big picture in terms of policy change, which seems impractical in China, we propose coming up with a more pragmatic approach that, on the one hand, is permissible within the realm of current educational policy. On the other hand, it can help Tibetan students learn English more quickly and contribute to their multilingual identities. It also paves the way for teachers to exercise their own agency when it comes to incorporating a multilingual lens into their instruction of English.

A new approach to curriculum

Qian and Xingxing learned about translanguaging while we were both master’s students at the University of Melbourne under Nashid Nigar. We discussed how to incorporate it into the English Language (EL) curriculum for Qian’s Tibetan students.

Translanguaging approaches take a critical stance towards named languages. Translanguaging practices, particularly the creative and critical aspect of them, have transformative potential because they are able to go beyond the socially constructed boundaries of named languages. Translanguaging is a worldview in which the speaker actively embraces and cultivates their plurilingual identity by drawing on all the resources available to them in their linguistic toolkit.

Educators in Tibetan classrooms should, then, make the most of their students’ linguistic resources in order to not only activate students’ language creation (so that they can more effectively learn English) but also to give their students the agency to question the dominance of Han-dominated language and culture.

We have developed a new curriculum for Tibetan students to learn English based on translanguaging theory. The topic is “Discovering the Beauty of Tibet,” and it consists of four classes and an assessment task.

First, in order to make the existing official English textbook more useful for Tibetan students, we adapted it by adding information about Tibetan religion, history, and geography. Stories about important figures in Tibetan history, accounts of ancient festivals, and insights into Tibetan culture have all been incorporated into the adapted materials. Students will be more invested in and motivated by their English studies if the materials they use to study are contextualized in terms of their own cultural experiences. The instructional resources will encourage students to draw from their full linguistic toolkit by facilitating a non-hierarchical use of both Tibetan and English.

Activities designed to introduce students to Tibet’s illustrious cultural heritage and breathtaking landscapes are woven into the course structure. Learning about the unique flora and fauna of the region, discussing the historical significance of famous monasteries, and researching Tibetan art and architecture are all examples of what might fall under this category. Activities like these help students become more engaged in their studies of English and make connections between that language and Tibetan, their first language.

Students will work together on projects such as making a brochure or a short documentary about the history, culture, or natural beauty of their hometowns, neighborhoods, or the Tibetan plateau as a whole. They will be prompted to draw on their abilities as Tibetan and English speakers to produce quality work. This group effort encourages students to take pride in their heritage and their English proficiency, and to teach and learn from one another.

“Tibet through My Eyes” is an assessment task. Students will be graded on their ability to produce a multimedia presentation highlighting some aspect of Tibet’s splendor (its culture, history, or nature, for example) for the final project. Students are urged to make full use of their linguistic resources (Tibetan and English) in order to deliver an interesting and informative presentation. Students can gain exposure for their talks by posting them on social media sites like Douyin (TikTok in China) and thereby receiving comments and suggestions from their peers and the online community.

This program will help Tibetan students improve their English while also fostering a sense of pride in their heritage and a desire to learn more about the stunning landscapes of Tibet. A positive learning environment and an earnest desire to improve one’s English skills will flourish when the emphasis is placed on interesting material and group work.

Successes

Student confidence and pride in their English communication skills increased noticeably after repeated practice in front of the camera. Their oral fluency dramatically increased, supporting the contention that self-confidence is correlated with foreign language profciency.

Qian’s reform of the English language education system in Tibet, which was informed by translanguaging theory, has helped Tibetan English language learners embrace their multilingualism. We believe that under China’s current political system, it is extremely unlikely that a fully inclusive and democratic curriculum that recognizes and celebrates Tibetan culture and language will ever be established. Even so, there is a lot that can be done to help minority speakers, despite the government’s strict censorship and surveillance, not only overcome language learning barriers but also affirm and promote their cultural and linguistic identities. This process relies heavily on teachers’ ability to grow professionally, as well as their own agency and ethical dedication to responsive pedagogy.

Literacy and language educators in a wide variety of settings can adapt this method of curriculum reform to meet their needs.

About the authors

Xingxing Yu holds a Master of TESOL from the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Experience in working in Chinese state-owned enterprises and her family history in remote areas of western China have prompted her to study educational inequities in China, including gender and ethnic disparities, as well as urban-rural imbalances.

Nashid Nigar has taught Master of TESOL and Master of Education programs at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. She is at the final stage of completing her PhD at Monash Education. Adopting a transdisciplinary theoretical lens and hermeneutic phenomenological narrative enquiry, Nashid has investigated immigrant teachers’ professional identity in Australia.

Qi Qian completed his Master of Education at Melbourne Graduate School of Education. He has taught at Garzê Ethnic Middle School in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. He is now teaching English in another junior high school.

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(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

“What stops Australia from doing something like Sweden has done to promote multilingualism? Is it too hard to implement mother tongue instruction in the education system of Australia?”

These questions about language education planning in Australia (where I was born and grew up) and Sweden (where I became a researcher and now live and work) were asked during an online conversation I got involved with after a conference (#ICCHLE21) organized by the Sydney Institute for Community Languages Education (Sydney University). As the questions relate directly to the topic of my Phd research, they engaged me, to say the least!

Multilingualism is a fact of life

In our globalized world, many people speak languages in addition to the official language(s) of the country they live in. Different terms , for example “home language” “heritage language” even “native language”, are used in different contexts to describe these languages and the forms of education that may exist to promote their development.

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

In Sweden they are labelled “mother tongues”, and education to promote their development is called Mother Tongue Instruction (hereafter MTI). In Australia the term “community language” is well-established, but terms “first” and “background” language are also used, specifically in the Australian National Curriculum. There are a range of different approaches to the study of community, first, or background languages in Australia.

Is Sweden really better at promoting multilingualism?

So why did the person who asked the questions above think that the Swedish model of MTI might be better for promoting multilingualism in Australia than the range of approaches that currently exist? In my thesis I argued that organizational, ideological and classroom factors impact on the opportunities for the development of multilingualism that the different models offered. Unpacking the organizational and ideological factors can help answer the questions.

How does Mother Tongue Instruction (MTI) in Sweden work?

In Sweden, since the Home Language Reform in 1977, students from primary to upper-secondary school have been entitled to apply for MTI in any language other than Swedish that they speak at home. If the student has basic proficiency in the language, more than five students in the local area apply for it and a teacher is available, the school is required to organize MTI in that language.

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

National funding for MTI is administered by local municipalities, who collaborate with schools in the organization of MTI and who employ many of the 6,183 mother tongue teachers who work in Swedish schools. While teacher education is not mandatory for MTI teachers, there are a range of teacher education programmes and professional development courses offered at universities throughout the country that prepare and support MTI teachers for their work.

MTI has a syllabus, and grades in the subject at the end of lower-secondary school can boost the scores that give students eligibility to upper-secondary school programmes. During the academic year 2020-2021, 150 languages were taught through MTI in Swedish schools.

Mother tongue instruction (MTI) within a strong policy framework

Sweden’s system, offering MTI through the national school system, is relatively unique. Although other countries may have some form of support for the maintenance and development of languages other than the national languages, there is no other country where the right to study mother tongues that are different from the national languages, is offered such strong legal protection.

Community language schools in Australia

Education in first, background or community languages in Australia is organized quite differently. It is possible to study five languages as background or first languages through the school system. Education in the other 295 or so languages spoken in Australia is organized through the community language school network.

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

Community language schools have existed in Australia since 1857 and are located in most large cities and some smaller towns throughout the country. Each state has a different approach to organizing community language education. See for example how different the systems in the Victorian School of Languages is from Queensland. New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania have their own systems as well.

While many community language teachers have tertiary qualification, not infrequently in education, they often receive only symbolic payment or work voluntarily. Most community language schools hold lessons on weekends or after school hours, and it is not always possible for all students at community language schools to gain certification or formal recognition of their community language studies.

Community language schools are disconnected from mainstream schooling

Education in community languages in Australia thus usually takes place outside the mainstream school system, is concentrated in larger cities, run by volunteers and not always recognized by the formal education system. These organizational factors can impact negatively on equality of access (for bilinguals living in remote regions) and on student motivation.

It all comes down to language ideologies and policy frameworks

So how do ideological factors impact on the promotion of multilingualism in Sweden and Australia? Language ideologies are not about truth but rather are “beliefs, feelings and conceptions about language that are socially shared and relate language and society in a dialectical fashion” (Piller, 2015). Language ideologies are thus socially situated and dynamic.

Sweden underwent a political and social transformation in the 1970s, throwing off anything associated with the “old assimilationist Sweden” and embracing the vision of “the new Sweden” (modern and pluralistic). It has been argued that it is partly because these ideas were so powerful at a community and political levels that an educational reform as radical as The Home Language Reform, a reform that politicians from every party were committed to, was possible (Hyltenstam & Milani, 2012).

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

Collaborations between researchers, activists, social scientists, and officials were instrumental in transforming attitudes in Sweden concerning the value of education in all languages (Wickström, 2015). As Sweden’s policies on mother tongue instruction have traditionally been influenced more by the academic field than the political field, it is clear that language ideologies held by policymakers in Sweden have been influenced by researchers, community members and collaborations between them, leading to the Home Language Reform of 1977 and the establishment of mother tongue instruction.

Australia’s monolingual mindset remains a barrier

In Australia, a major hindrance to funding and giving equal access to the study of a wider range of languages other than English is a very particular set of beliefs about language that researchers have called, the monolingual mindset. This is a deep-rooted, widespread belief that “Standard Australian English” is the most important language and that being monolingual is common and expected.

There is a lot of research that discusses the negative impact of the monolingual mindset on language learning and use and multilingual identity in Australia. However, policy makers do not appear to have engaged with this research, or if they have, they have not had the political means to enact legislation that would make the study of community languages more widely accessible.

Two diverse societies with different approaches to multilingualism

Although Sweden today is not socially or ideologically the same place as it was in the 1970s and there is no longer unanimous support in the Swedish parliament for MTI, the number of students who study the subject has increased steadily since its introduction. Almost one-third of the student population (Table 8A) in the compulsory school was eligible for the subject in the 2020/2021 academic year. MTI thus remains an important, elective subject in the Swedish curriculum, part of a national and systematic approach to language education.

Australia is also home to many people who speak languages in addition to English. The person who asked the questions at the beginning of this blogpost and many researchers as well believe that a national, systemic approach to education in community languages would benefit these individuals, their families, and the Australian community.

So what is stopping Australia from doing something like Sweden then? To answer this, I ask another question: Are Australian policymakers ready to listen to and collaborate with their multilingual citizens and researchers? Until they are, an Australian version of the Home Language Reform is still a way off.

(Image credit: Markus Spiske via Unsplash)

Parental engagement is a critical aspect of student achievement

When we think about student achievement, we typically think about student qualities: how smart a student is, how hard-working, or how personable. What we tend to overlook is the role parents play in their children’s school success. However, parental engagement is critical to student outcomes: parents choose a school or program for their child, they socialize their children into ways of interacting with institutions and their representatives, and they lobby for the needs of their children.

Obviously, different parents have different levels of capacity to engage with their children’s education. As a rule of thumb, middle-class parents are good at engaging with schools and this can secure significant advantages for their children. By contrast, working-class parents often face barriers to engaging with their children’s education.

Language as a barrier to parent engagement

The role of class in parent engagement is well-known, thanks to the work of US sociologists such as Shirley Brice-Heath, Annette Lareau, or Jessica Calarco.

But what about language proficiency?

For children, limited proficiency in the language of the school is a leading cause of educational disadvantage. Children who face the double burden of having to learn new content while learning a new language are bound to struggle, particularly when their double burden is not recognized, and they are compared to peers who are fully proficient in the language and ‘only’ need to learn new content.

Parents who are learners of the school language face the same challenge: being an engaged parent if you are struggling with the language of the school is extra difficult.

Given what we know about the advantages of parental engagement, language thus becomes a social justice issue: parent exclusion from full and equitable participation in their child’s schooling may negatively impact their child’s educational achievement, and have lifelong consequences for their social advancement.

How do schools bridge the language barrier?

Parents with limited proficiency in the language of the school constitute a substantial group in many societies. In some schools they make up the majority of parents.

Can a parent with low literacy in English readily find the enrollment form in their language?

What do schools do to level the playing field for these parents and their children?

That’s what my colleagues Ana Sofia Bruzon, Hanna Torsh, and I wanted to find in a recent research project investigating how enrollment information is communicated to new parents on the websites of some of Sydney’s most linguistically diverse primary schools. The findings of our research have just been published in Language and Education – the article is open access so feel free to click through to the journal!

Schools present themselves as monolingual

One of our key findings is that the school websites and their enrollment information is resolutely monolingual. Languages other than English simply do not seem to exist and they are absent from the websites. Other languages are simply not there – neither for communicative purposes (there is no information available in another language) nor for symbolic purposes (there are no phatic words such as greetings in another language).

We had selected only schools with above-average enrollment of children from non-English-speaking backgrounds. In some of the schools in our sample, the percentage of non-English-speaking backgrounds was as high as 98%. Even so, there is no linguistic trace of this diversity on the school websites.

We argue that this absence of languages other than English shuts out parents with limited proficiency in English from the moment of enrollment; in other words, even from before their child actually starts school.

Translated materials follow a monolingual information architecture

Most of the websites we examined provided the Google Translate plug-in and all had links to translated forms available on the Department of Education website.

This certainly demonstrates an effort to include parents with limited proficiency in English.

Unfortunately, a not-negligible level of English language proficiency is needed to access those translations: you need to know to watch out for English words such as “language,” “translation” or “translated version;” you need to know the name of your language in English and in the Latin alphabet; and you need to be familiar with the conventional sort order of the Latin alphabet.

All of this requires a level of English literacy that renders the translated documents inaccessible for those who need them most.

How can enrollment information be made more linguistically inclusive?

Based on our study we suggest that more attention needs to be paid to linguistically inclusive design.

Specifically, schools should provide a central hub for information in each of the school’s most frequently used languages. This is highly practical as different schools cater to different clusters of languages and 3-5 languages in addition to English will cover the vast majority of languages used in a school’s catchment area.

Such a hub page could explain what further language-specific resources are available and how they can be accessed.

Placing a link to such language-specific pages on the home page and in the flow-through navigation bars in the language-specific name (and script, if applicable) would also add a multilingual dimension to the overall website that makes visible the fact of a school’s linguistic diversity.

In short, such hub pages in languages other than English would address both the information gap and the recognition gap. And it would allow parents with limited proficiency in English to get a foot in the door from day 1 of their child’s schooling.

Read the full research article

Piller, I., Bruzon, A. S., & Torsh, H. (2021). Monolingual school websites as barriers to parent engagement. Language and Education, 1-18. doi:10.1080/09500782.2021.2010744 (open access)