Imagine stepping into a classroom where students expect you to embody English in its “native” form, fluency, and culture. For many non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in Australia, this expectation is a daily challenge. Yet, these teachers refuse to let such pressures define them. Instead, they embrace a “hybrid professional becoming”—an ongoing process of identity formation—seeing themselves, in many ways, as “cyborgs” in the classroom.

Inspired by Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, NNESTs use the cyborg metaphor to navigate and redefine their professional lives. They mix their multilingual and multicultural lived experiences with digital tools and fluid teaching methods, transcending rigid binaries of “native” versus “non-native” speakers. In this role, they create richer, more inclusive learning environments that challenge hegemonies.

Breaking Down the Native-Speaker “Myth”

Australian classrooms are highly diverse, yet the teaching workforce remains predominantly English monolingual and native-speaking. Many students here learn English as an additional language, making teachers’ lived experiences crucial for bridging linguistic and cultural gaps. However, native-speakerism—an age-old ideology favouring native English speakers—still shapes perceptions. NNESTs are often viewed through a deficit lens, yet they challenge this by showing that effective English teaching goes beyond birthplace or accent.

Phở bò (Image credit: Vinnie Cartabiano, Wikipedia)

Consider Natalie, a teacher from Bangladesh. Despite her experience, she often felt misjudged: “I didn’t just sense that students valued native English-speaking teachers more—I was even asked to be replaced by native speakers before I had a chance to start speaking”. Though these intersectional judgments were hard to ignore, Natalie turned them into a source of multiplicity. “It made me work harder to show that my teaching had depth and cultural awareness,” she explains.

To engage her students, Natalie wove stories, humour, and cultural anecdotes into her lessons, using language-bridging strategies to foster inclusivity. For her Vietnamese students, she joked about the pronunciation differences between “phở” (a noodle soup) and the English word “fur”, drawing laughter as they discussed similar linguistic misunderstandings. For her Lebanese students, she shared stories about common culinary traditions, sparking discussions about cultural similarities and differences. By weaving in phrases like “cảm ơn” (thank you) with her Vietnamese students and “Malual noor” (family is wealth) with her Sudanese students, she created a space where language and cultural understanding flourished, bridging worlds in a shared learning journey.

Embracing the Cyborg Identity in Teaching

Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto frames the cyborg identity as one of assembling diverse parts into a constantly evolving whole. For NNESTs, this hybrid identity defies narrow definitions of an English teacher. Their methods connect students with English while honouring their own cultural heritage, engaging students in ways that promote inclusivity.

Mahati, an Australian qualified teacher from India, exemplifies this hybridity. Though passionate about teaching, adjusting to Australian classrooms wasn’t easy. After working various odd jobs, she found her place in adult migrant education. “Teaching for me is not just a job—it’s my second home” (मेरे लिए पढ़ाना सिर्फ एक नौकरी नहीं है—यह मेरा दूसरा घर है।), she shares. Entwining her cultural heritage in literature and music with modern teaching tools, Mahati creates meaningful connections with her students. “We end sessions with fun songs from Sing with Me Book 1, and I incorporate technology to keep students engaged”, she explains. This approach enriches her classroom with a dynamic, inclusive atmosphere.

Reflective Practice: A Tool for Hybrid Becoming

Reflection is essential to this cyborg-like emergence. For NNESTs, critical reflection goes beyond simple self-assessment; it’s a transformative process to reshape and redefine their roles, tailoring their approaches to the diverse needs of multilingual classrooms and imagining themselves as cosmopolitan teachers of English.

Natalie’s experience with reflective practice exemplifies this plasticity. Despite her extensive teaching background, she continually revisits her lessons to meet her students’ evolving needs. “One of my students once laughed at me for mispronouncing a Vietnamese dish,” she recalls with a smile. “It was a learning moment for both of us—I embraced it and encouraged my students to teach me more about their culture”. Through such exchanges, Natalie moves beyond rigid teaching roles, fostering an environment of mutual learning and responsiveness.

Janaki’s story further illustrates this process. Initially, she felt out of place teaching refugees and migrants in the AMEP (Adult Migrant English Program), many of whom had experienced significant hardship. “It’s been humbling—I had to understand their backgrounds and be patient”, she shares. Reflecting on her experiences, Janaki adapted her methods, drawing on colleagues’ advice and exploring new strategies to better serve her students.

Technology: Expanding the Cyborg Identity

Technology plays a crucial role in helping these teachers develop their cyborg identities. Digital tools enable them to adapt and extend their teaching practices, creating a more inclusive classroom environment.

Namani, a young teacher who initially felt intimidated by her non-native status, illustrates this shift. She struggled with technology, worried about being seen as less competent. “I was so concerned if something went wrong with a digital tool”, she recalls. But instead of avoiding it, she mastered tools like MS Teams and Zoom, transforming her classroom. “Once I felt confident, I realized technology was actually empowering me to be a better teacher”, she reflects.

Frida took this approach even further during the pandemic, recording demo classes to improve timing and engagement. Her experience with technology underscores the cyborg concept, intermingling cultural knowledge with technical proficiency to support students. Using online platforms, she stayed connected despite the distance, teaching her students not just English but also essential digital literacy skills.

Moving from Marginalization to Empowerment

The cyborg identity empowers NNESTs to transcend limitations imposed by native-speakerism. By embracing hybridity, they resist marginalization and actively redefine their roles, affirming their experiences as cosmopolitan educators of English. The cyborg metaphor captures a journey from marginalization to empowerment, where NNESTs reclaim the narrative and leverage their unique identities as strengths.

Laura’s journey illustrates this shift. Coming from a small town in the Philippines, she initially faced students who doubted her due to her accent. “I noticed some of my students were unsure of me, maybe because of my accent”, she recalls. Though it initially unsettled her, Laura decided to use it as a teaching tool. “I always wanted to be a teacher—even as a kid, I’d teach my dolls and pretend to mark papers”, she says with a smile. By sharing her story, Laura highlighted the richness of multilingualism, encouraging students to explore their identities and celebrating diversity in her classroom.

One of Jasha’s most powerful stories involves a Lebanese student whose linguistic journey reflected the beauty of multilingualism. “She spoke French and Arabic at home, then moved to Israel, where her three boys started school”, Jasha recalls. By the time they relocated to Australia, the boys had developed a unique assemblage, mixing French, Arabic, Hebrew, and English in daily conversations. “Listening to them was an absolute joy—I’d try to catch familiar English words,” she shares. This experience reinforced Jasha’s philosophy: learning English best occurs immersively, by discussing texts without a dictionary and encouraging students to “think” in English through activities like jumbled sentences and interactive games. Her approach to grammar focuses on context rather than correctness. “Grammar is just a means to an end”, she says, embedding it within the meaning her students wish to convey.

Toward a New Paradigm in English Language Teaching

The lived experiences of these NNESTs underscore the need for a shift in English language teaching paradigms. Embracing cyborg identities, these teachers demonstrate that an educator’s value lies not in their accent or birthplace but in their hybridity, engagement, and inspiration. Recognizing NNESTs’ hybrid professionalism can help educational institutions move beyond outdated binaries and create spaces where diverse voices are celebrated.

Through their stories, NNESTs like Natalie, Mahati, Janaki, Namani, Laura, and Jasha embody Haraway’s cyborg vision: educators who transcend boundaries, integrate facets of their identities, and reshape the future of education. By embracing cyborg identities, they enrich the classroom and create a new model for English teaching in today’s interconnected world. In their journey from marginalization to empowerment, these teachers remind us that education is a space for hybridity, inclusivity and horizons of possibility—qualities that benefit students, educators, and society alike.

Reference

The blog is based on:
Nigar, N., Kostogriz, A., & Hossain, I. (2024, aop). Hybrid professional identities: Exploring non-native English-speaking teachers’ lived experiences through the Cyborg Manifesto. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 1–23.

Author Bios

Dr Nashid Nigar teaches at the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne, and has diverse experience in English language and literacy teaching, academic writing, and teacher education. Her recently completed PhD thesis, focusing on language teacher professional identity at Monash University, was graded as Exceptional—Of the highest merit, placing within the top 0.1% to fewer than 5% of international doctorates. Her ongoing research interests include language teacher professional identity and language/literacy learning and teaching.

Alex Kostogriz is a Professor in Languages and TESOL Education at the Faculty of Education, Monash University. Alex’s current research projects focus on the professional practice and ethics of language teachers, teacher education and experiences of beginning teachers.

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)

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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.

Each year, we celebrate Buwan ng Wika or (National) Language Month in the Philippines. Formerly focused only on the Filipino national language, the month-long celebration has evolved into a multilingual celebration seeking to raise awareness also of other Philippine languages, including Filipino Sign Language and indigenous tongues and writing systems. But, of course, we are free to celebrate languages any other time of the year.

At the University of Santo Tomas (UST), the oldest university in Asia, Buwan ng Wika was auspiciously extended with three events spotlighting language this year.

First, during the first week of October, new street signs were installed around the Manila campus of UST. Quite distinctive, the new signages had the familiar campus street names transliterated in Baybayin, an old Tagalog writing system largely used in the northern part of the country before the Spanish rule from 1565 to 1898. Along with other initiatives by Filipino scholars to revive this pre-colonial script, the project enriched the university’s linguistic landscape. Notwithstanding criticisms about the weak translation of an earlier version of these signs, the move reflects an appreciation for languages that are less visible.

Second, not long after this multilingual campus update, precisely on October 10, 2024, language scholars across the Philippines were rattled by the ratification of Republic Act No. 12027. This new law discontinues the mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTBMLE) policy enacted in 2013. While the MTBMLE implementation had important challenges such as limited instructional materials, among others, there was palpable panic and disappointment from groups of language teachers and scholars over the legislative imperative to repeal the language-in-education policy that advocated the use of mother tongues as medium of instruction in basic education classrooms.

The Multilingualism and Multilingual Education class under the English Language Studies Program of the UST Graduate School was not going to stand silent. Our small cohort of six (five PhD candidates and course facilitator, Dr. Pia Tenedero) responded to this issue by raising three important questions that problematize the seemingly reactive, government decision to withdraw its support of mother tongue-based instruction. We believe that, given a better fighting chance, the MTBMLE could work wonders as it did in East Timor. Our formal response and appeal (posted in the UST Department of English Facebook page) is pictured here.

Whether this and other official statements released by various universities and professional groups will or can make a difference remains to be seen. But putting forward a position statement allowed us to engage with the real-life implication of the theories we have been discussing in class since the term began in August.

Third, our class had another special opportunity to extend our appreciation of multilingualism in education contexts. On 26 October 2024, Dr. Loy Lising of Macquarie University and Language on the Move, spoke to our group in an exclusive online learning session. Anchored on the theme “The Future of Language Learning: Moving Toward a Multilingual Mindset in Education System,” the two-hour conversation was attended by about 50 language undergraduate and graduate students and teachers from UST, Mariano Marcos State University Baguio, and De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, Antipolo. Dr. Lising shared reflectively on the theme, grounded on two important, recent publications—the “Multilingual Mindset” (Lising, 2024) and the book Life in a New Language (Piller et al., 2024).

Dr. Loy Lising and the Multilingualism and Multilingual Education class of UST

Two key concepts framed the interactive discussion: linguistic hierarchies and multilingual mindset. Reflecting on linguistic hierarchies, we acknowledge the differential social value of languages (based on Ingrid Piller’s (2016) award-winning book Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice). To drive this point, Dr. Lising asked us how many languages we have and whether we and the places where we use them value these languages equally.

Multilingual mindset, which Dr. Lising defined in her article, recognizes disparities in language proficiencies, repertoires, and practices. It is “a way of thinking about language that is mindful and expectant of these variations,” which, in fact, characterize every human interaction, but are particularly salient in migration contexts. This disposition or way of seeing presents an important alternative (even, antidote) to the pervasive “monolingual mindset,” which sees the world only in terms of one language – English (Clyne, 2008).

Capping the month with a conversation that explored challenges and hopes of multilinguals based in the Philippines, we came out of it feeling more certain about the importance of language mindfulness and energized to do our part as language teachers and researchers to grow the multilingual mindset in our homes, classrooms, research sites, places of worship, holiday destinations, and everyday interactions.

This time of the year certainly taught us several ways to grow in our mindfulness of multilingualism beyond the traditional Buwan ng Wika. Afterall, languages ought to be celebrated every day of the year!

References

Clyne, M. (2008). The monolingual mindset as an impediment to the development of plurilingual potential in Australia. Sociolinguistic Studies, 2(3). 347–366.
Lising, L. (2024). Multilingual mindset: A necessary concept for fostering inclusive multilingualism in migrant societies. AILA Review, 37 (1), 35–53.
Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic diversity and social justice. Oxford University Press.
Piller, I., Butorac, D., Farrell, E., Lising, L., Motaghi-Tabari, S., & Williams-Tetteh, V. (2024). Life in a new language. Oxford University Press.

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.

Related content

• Monolingual school websites as barriers to parent engagement
• Community Languages Schools Transforming Education
• What do migrant parents expect from schools?
• Studying abroad is amazing, or is it?

Transcript (coming soon)

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。

***

Xingxing Yu, Nashid Nigar, Qi Qian

***

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.

***

(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.

A herder guards the Mongolian script (Image credit: Ayin)

As the danger of life-threatening Covid-19 has subsided, Mongols in Inner Mongolia, a region of northern China, have faced a new threat: losing their bilingual schools. In the words of a community member: “in Spring we were afraid that we would die from Covid-19, now Autumn comes and we are afraid that we may become extinct”.

Two forms of bilingual education

To understand these fears, one needs to understand bilingual education in Inner Mongolia.

In brief, there are two different modes of bilingual education in Inner Mongolia. The established mode of bilingual education over the last 73 years has been: school subjects taught in Mongolian; plus a Chinese language and literacy course from Grade 2; plus an English language and literacy course from Grade 3. What worries Mongols is the new mode of bilingual education, which involves the gradual replacement of Mongolian-medium teaching with Chinese-medium teaching across all school subjects. In the new mode, this Chinese-medium education will be complemented by a Mongolian language and literature course. This is dubbed a second type of bilingual education but it is, in essence, monolingual, Chinese-medium education.

According to a document released on August 26, 2020, from this September the Chinese language and literacy textbook used in Inner Mongolia’s bilingual schools is going to be replaced with the national Chinese language textbook. It’s also going to be introduced a year earlier, from Grade 1. This national textbook is also used in Chinese-medium schools and is much more demanding than the one currently used in Mongolian schools. This means that children whose mother tongue is Mongolian have to learn the same content as their Chinese-mother-tongue peers, and will be evaluated in direct comparison to them.

Another subtle change is in the course name: the Chinese language and literature textbook (in Chinese: 汉语文) assumes a new name, Language and Literature (in Chinese: “语文”) while the new Mongolian language and literature textbook is “Mongolian Language and Literature” (in Mongolian “mongol hel bichig”), whereas it was previously simply called Language and Literature (in Mongolian “hel bichig”) in Mongolian schools. That is, the marked version is now the Mongolian course, no longer the Chinese course.

Some Mongols have compared this name swapping to “the step-father taking the place of the father.”

The new model jeopardizes Mongolian educational achievement

This reform poses several problems.

The famous Mongolian poem “I am a Mongol” is written on a blackboard (Source: WeChat post reminiscing and mourning the impending loss of the mother tongue)

First, are Mongolian-mother-tongue children able to learn the new, and much more difficult, Chinese language and literature syllabus at this new pace, while they simultaneously learn to read and write their own language, Mongolian, from Grade 1? How will the reform increase students’ study load?

Second, what kind of national university entrance exam will be designed for those Mongolian students?

Here let me explain briefly how students from Mongolian high schools currently participate in the national university entrance exams. Broadly speaking, the national exams across subjects are written and administered in Chinese, but the exams are also translated into Mongolian for Mongolian test-takers. For instance, maths, history, politics or chemistry are examined across the nation using the same tests, except that they are translated into Mongolian for students coming from Inner Mongolia’s bilingual high schools. There is also provision in the rules for these tests to be translated into five other official minority languages, e.g. Korean, depending on demand.

Every year around 12,000 students from Mongolian bilingual schools sit translated national university entrance tests in Inner Mongolia.

There is a compulsory language component of the university entrance exam across the nation, and what differs most for Inner Mongolia’s Mongolian exam takers is this component. Their ‘foreign language’, i.e. Chinese language and literature, comprises 70% of the score, and their English language test result counts for 30%.

So what kind of Chinese language test is now going to be used for minority Mongolian students’ university entrance exam? The announcements and documents so far do not answer this important question. Surely, Mongolian students cannot compete with Chinese-mother-tongue students and the imposition of the same Chinese language test will further disadvantage Mongolian students.

Language shift in education will push Mongolian to the brink

The Mongolian language is already fragile and has entered the early stages of endangerment. In today’s Inner Mongolia, less than 40% of Mongol parents choose Mongolian bilingual schools for their children; the rest enroll their children in mainstream Chinese schools. In such circumstances, this reform pushes already emaciated Mongolian language and culture further towards the abyss of extinction within the Chinese borders.

“Save the Mother Tongue!” Protest sign against the reform on a delivery bike

Language shift in education is known around the world, and elsewhere in China, to be a major push in a wider shift away from using a minority language at home or transmitting it to younger generations at all.

The nourishment of bilingual education

Personally, I have been nourished by the well-established bilingual education system in Inner Mongolia. When I was in Grade 4, my parents sent me to a boarding school which was around three hours’ drive from my home, over a muddy, pebble-paved country road. Even though I was intimidated by the new environment when I first arrived – most people on the street and in other public spaces spoke Chinese – this bilingual school, with its Mongolian-speaking teachers, classmates and dorm mates acted as a safe haven.

This bilingual school was the mediator for the ten-year old me to transition to new urban settings and to be socialized as both an ethnic Mongol and Chinese citizen. The importance of local, co-ethnic teachers and educational environments for the well-being of minority or Indigenous children has been proven in many studies around the world.

By contrast, the poignancy and tragedy of how a mainstream educational system can fail children from non-mainstream language backgrounds, from the start, is nowhere more heart-wrenchingly illustrated than in the documentary “In My Blood It Runs” about Indigenous children at school in Australia’s Northern Territory. If the original bilingual education system is smoldered and buried underground we will see the birth of numerous minority children who follow in the footsteps of 10-year old Arrernte boy, Dujuan – the main character in the above documentary – and totter precariously on the edge of two worlds.

Established Mongolian bilingual education has proved itself

The 73-year-journey traversed by the established bilingual education system, where all classes are taught in the medium of Mongolian, and alongside that Chinese and English are taught as single subjects, has proved that this is a mature system and suitable to the situation of bilingual Mongols in Inner Mongolia.

Numerous scientists, writers, artists, translators, teachers, other essential workers and “model citizens” have grown and blossomed thanks to the environment of bilingual education. Moreover, this year, several Mongolian bilingual high school graduates gained admission to top universities such as Beijing University and Tongji University, and they outperformed their Chinese-medium-education peers in Inner Mongolia.

In addition, the current bilingual mode of education in Inner Mongolia has facilitated inter-ethnic relations and the unity of the multi-ethnic people on the northern frontier of China. But once the established mode of bilingual education in Inner Mongolia is destroyed, the change will be irreversible. This is already clear from a historical analogy: Buryat Mongols (a Mongolian minority within the Soviet Union) failed in their attempt to revive their schools and language in the 1980s, even with the backing of Soviet policy-makers who had realized their mistakes in eradicating bilingual education the 1960s (Chakars 2014).

A dark future for China’s minorities based on the Western model

If history and political education/morality subjects are taught through the medium of Chinese from 2021 onward in Mongolian schools, the rest of the curriculum will soon shift too. Then in a few years’ time Mongolian teachers, textbook translators, publishers, writers and a host of others who are involved in industries related to Mongolian language, culture, and education will lose their livelihoods. I anticipate that this will be followed by the shrinkage and eventual disappearance of Mongolian media such as TV and digital media, which are currently thriving.

If all the courses shift to Chinese-medium instruction, the university entrance exam will soon follow suite and policy makers will simply adopt nation-wide Chinese tests for all Mongolian students in a few years. If this happens, Mongolian students cannot compete against millions of Chinese high school graduates in the world’s most competitive university entrance test, which will certainly further marginalize and systemically exclude young Mongols from higher education and the job market. It will exclude them in a way similar to the exclusion of minorities in the West, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia. As such, the internal colonization of ethnic Mongols will reach its epitome and Mongolian language and culture will be wiped out in China.

Mongolian teachers’ protest sign against the education reform in central Inner Mongolia, 28 August, 2020

Concomitantly the production of large numbers of unemployed, poor, institutionally discriminated and marginalized minorities including Mongols in coming decades will plague China with many unforeseen sociopolitical and economic problems. This dire consequence has obviously been brushed aside by the group of eminent Chinese scholars Ma Rong, Hu Angang and Hu Lianhe, who boldly proposed a Second Generation of Ethnic Policies (第二代民族政策) to solve ethnic “problems” by aggressively assimilating minorities (Leibold 2012). They envisioned the “melting pot” (大熔炉) formula of the West, in particular USA, as the ultimate “solution” to the ethnic “problems” of China, even though China’s native minorities are drastically different from diasporic immigrants in America (for further details, see Elliott 2015).

China’s ethnic policies have certainly taken a drastic turn in recent years, and this has sent shock waves through the “less-famous” ethnic minorities such as the Mongols, Koreans, and those in less visible areas such as Gansu, Jilin, Liaoning, and Qinghai. What are the consequences of bringing such tribulations onto the very groups that China has held up as “model minorities”, including the Mongols? Who gains most from this rash move? Indeed, up until now, many Mongolian speakers have identified as Chinese people, and there is no need to suppress a non-existent ethnic separatism by abolishing bilingual schooling. What is the point of destroying the Mongolian language and culture that is already staggering toward the brink of extinction and to whose speakers barely anyone pays any attention?

Opposing the new medium of instruction

At present, despite their tenuous position, Mongols are fighting against the reform. In particular, they were devastated by the secret implementation of the second category of “bilingual” education mode, which violates the national Constitution, Ethnic Minority Law and Education Law as well as the Mongolian Language Act and its Regulations.

It is this surreptitious and illegal way of implementing reform that spurred Mongols in Inner Mongolia, but also outside China in Japan and Europe, to protest against it within the framework of law. In fact, from June this year the “rumor” of cancelling the first category of bilingual education surfaced and has been simmering in Inner Mongolia, yet many Mongols didn’t take it seriously as there were no official documents. It was only a week before the commencement of the new semester on Sept 1, that documents were released by the Inner Mongolia Education Bureau. Now, Mongolian parents have been actively campaigning against the reform and are refusing to send their children back to school. However, teachers and public servants are silenced and threatened with the possibility of losing their jobs if they were to speak out. For other Mongols the phantasmagoric memory of the Cultural Revolution is revisiting them and has locked their tongue. Yet others take their mourning and frustration to social media spaces despite the constant disappearance of what they post.

The goal of the on-going protests in Inner Mongolia is not to reject the content of the new national curriculum, rather it is to abort the attempt to teach it all through the medium of Chinese. Mongols hope to translate the new textbooks into Mongolian and teach them in the medium of their own language, as they have been doing for the last 73 years. Thus, our aim is to maintain the original bilingual model of education, which ensures the maintenance of the Mongolian language and facilitates the multi-ethnic Chinese nation’s progress and stability in the long-term.

References

Chakars, Melissa. 2014. The socialist Way of Life in Siberia: Transformation in Buryatia. Budapest: Central European University Press.
Elliott, Mark. 2015. The Case of the Missing Indigene: Debate Over a “Second-Generation” Ethnic Policy. The China Journal (73): 186-213,308.
Leibold, James. 2012. Toward A Second Generation of Ethnic Policies? China Brief 12 (13)

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• What do migrant parents expect from schools?
• No child left behind: a study in unintended consequences
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• The language that cannot speak its name
• Educational success through bilingual education
• Paying lip-service to diversity
• Dodgy data and language misdiagnosis
• Sink-or-swim for international students
• Educational outcomes of migrant children
• Bilingualism: Bane or Boon?
• Providing bilingual education since 1689

Dr Kerry Taylor-Leech researches early childhood education in an English-Samoan bilingual preschool

Early childhood is an important period in the physical, social, emotional, cognitive and linguistic development of a child. To support child development during that period, care for young children has been increasingly professionalized and moved out of the family and into preschools. Formal early childhood education, particularly in the year or two before entering primary, is widely considered to enhance school readiness. Overall, preschool is assumed to be beneficial for educational success.

But how does institutional childcare affect bilingual families? Most of what we know about early childhood bilingualism comes from research conducted with families where one or both parents are not only the main caregivers but also the main providers of linguistic input.

What happens to bilingual development when young children spend a significant amount of their time in institutional childcare is still an under-researched field. One reason it is under-researched is that it is rare. Where it does not exist and where childcare is through the medium of the dominant language we know that the minority language loses out early, even in institutions and contexts that ostensibly value diversity.

Against this background any form of bilingual childcare is to be welcomed. But how do they actually work?

Bilingual signage in the a’oga amata (Image credit: Kerry Taylor-Leech)

In this week’s Lecture in Linguistic Diversity, Dr Kerry Taylor-Leech from Griffith University addressed precisely this question for an English-Samoan bilingual preschool program in Queensland. The preschool, or a’oga amata in Samoan, was established in 2018 in Logan City, and the researcher and her colleagues followed the children in the program for seven months.

Although designed as an early bilingual immersion program, English dominated as medium of communication. Samoan was mostly used symbolically: it was on display in the preschool’s linguistic landscape and was used to greet, thank and praise children.

Dr Taylor-Leech explained that the main reason for the relatively limited presence of Samoan was that not all children in the room were of Samoan heritage and even those who were did not necessarily speak the language. In fact, one mother reported that, as a result of attending the program, her four-year-old daughter was more proficient in Samoan than she was herself.

Parents valued the program very much. Even more than the language, they valued that their children were oriented to Samoan values of usitai, faaaloalo, alofa and tautua – obedience, respect, love and service. In addition to providing the children with a sense of cultural belonging and a positive affirmation of their Samoan identity, the program also succeeded in enhancing the children’s school readiness.

While the program was highly successful with regard to cultural affirmation and preparation for mainstream education, it was not so successful with regard to bilingual proficiency. Because English was the dominant language in the program, the children’s exposure to Samoan was ultimately limited. Furthermore, as the presenter explained, there was no program available that would continue to support Samoan after the children had transitioned to primary school.

Bilingual childcare by Dr Victoria Benz (Multilingual Matters, 2017)

To me, the bilingual development – or rather lack thereof – in this Queensland a’oga amata sounded uncannily similar to that in the Sydney-based English-German bilingual childcare center studied by Victoria Benz. This researcher observed a number of asymmetries between the two languages – with regard to teaching practices, material resources and student proficiencies – all of which resulted in the predominance of English in this ostensibly bilingual childcare center.

If you are up-to-date with your 2019 Language on the Move Reading Challenge, you will have read the full study, the gripping sociolinguistic ethnography Bilingual Childcare: Hitches, Hurdles and Hopes, in May.

Dr Benz also found that the predominance of English was further assured by the policy environment and the attitudes of parents and teachers. Unwittingly, these meant that the two languages were pitted against each other. Even more problematically, the goals of developing bilingual proficiency and ensuring school readiness were conceptualized as in conflict with each other because when we talk about “literacy” in Australia we mean “literacy in English” and in English only.

That school readiness and bilingual proficiency are currently conceived as incompatible was also confirmed in another study investigating parental attitudes towards bilingual childrearing conducted by Livia Gerber and myself.

As long as our education system is based on an artificial tension between bilingualism and educational success, it is hard to see how even the most well-intentioned bilingual early childhood programs can actually support the aspirations of bilingual families.

References

Benz, Victoria. 2017a. Bilingual Childcare: Hitches, Hurdles and Hopes. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Benz, Victoria. 2017b. Bilingual parenting in the early years. Language on the Move
Piller, Ingrid. 2015. Paying lip-service to diversity. Language on the Move
Piller, Ingrid, and Livia Gerber. 2018. “Family language policy between the bilingual advantage and the monolingual mindset.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
Vaá, Unasa LF. 2009. “Samoan custom and human rights: An indigenous view.” Victoria U. Wellington L. Rev. 40:237

President George W. Bush signs the “No Child Left Behind” act in 2002 (Image credit: Wikipedia)

In 2001, the United States government responded to the apparent lack of quality education in the country by passing Public Law 107 – 110, also known as “No Child Left Behind”. Its purpose was “to improve educational achievement by assessing student progress through standardized testing, mandating curricular reforms, and improving teacher quality” (Mangual Figueroa, 2013, p. 333). Section 3202 of the law states that Limited English Proficient (LEP) students should be able to “meet the same rigorous standards for academic achievement as all children are expected to meet, including meeting challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards” (No Child Left Behind [NCLB], 2002, p. 283). While the intentions seemed honorable, unfortunately the policy neglected to recognize relevant second language acquisition research into how the needs of emergent bilinguals may differ considerably from the needs of mainstream students.

The “No Child Left Behind” educational policy arose during the George W. Bush administration in the United States as a piece of legislation aimed at improving low achieving schools across the country. After continued reports of poor test scores from students across the country compared to other countries around the world, the United States developed an educational policy that was supposed to encourage and incentivize schools to revise their instructional methods so as to promote higher tests scores. Initially, this might sound beneficial for all students, but the policy failed to acknowledge students’ diverse language backgrounds.

How did the policy affect English language learners?

Researchers in the field of TESOL were frustrated with the lack of attention the NCLB policy paid to evidence for the amount of time it takes students to learn a language and the specific needs of students learning such language that will be used for instruction and assessment. NCLB completely neglected the research on how it can take four to seven years for students to acquire an English proficiency sufficient for academic performance that will truly reflect their knowledge (Crawford, 2004).

NCLB’s focus on accountability disrupted ESL classrooms because teachers and school administrators were financially pressured into valuing test preparation over communicative skills building. As schools were expected to show growth and improvement in scores each year, ESL students were not given enough time to cultivate an understanding of the English language sufficient to demonstrate their content knowledge.

How did the policy affect ESL teachers?

A second unintended outcome of the NCLB policy affected teachers of English language learners. Within the NCLB Act, there was a section that discussed the necessary qualifications required for teachers. However, it only focused on the teachers of “core academic subjects” defined as “English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography” (NCLB, 2002, p. 534).

In other words, the policy overlooked the same requirements for ESL teachers, even though the policy is supposed to serve English language learners in particular.

The idea was that improved teacher qualifications would increase the overall quality of education that all students receive, including those with limited English language proficiency. Unfortunately, “this failure to acknowledge ESL as a subject in which teachers must be highly qualified effectively denies its value and status as curriculum ‘content’ and reinforces the common assumption that teaching English language learners requires little more than a set of pedagogical modifications applied to other content areas” (Harper, De Jong, & Platt, 2008, p. 271).

How did the policy affect bilingual programs?

Yet another unintended consequence of the NCLB policy was that support that had previously been in place for bilingual language programs diminished after the passage of the act. Whereas previous improvements to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) included explicit support for bilingual education, the 2002 document hardly mentioned it. That means that with the introduction of NCLB, English language learners were cut off from explicit support for developing their native language as well as English.

This flies in the face of the agreement among linguists and educators that “development and maintenance of a child’s first language is critically important to his or her psychological, linguistic, and cognitive well-being” (Cummins and Swain, 1986, p. 97).

The root of the problem here was that NCLB placed such a high level of pressure to succeed on the tests given in English that schools and teachers were discouraged from helping students develop their native language. Again, even though the language within the act suggests flexibility and inclusion, the emphasis on accountability throughout the document severely limited the attention that could be given to individual students and their specific needs.

Deficit views and unintended consequences

NCLB obviously places little or no importance on multiculturalism and multilingualism as resources for the classroom and for the nation more broadly. Regrettably, the NCLB policy approached language education through the perspective that speakers of other languages come to the classroom with deficits rather than valuable experiences and knowledge that can add to the overall learning experience in the classroom. In practice, this kind of policy marginalizes students labeled as ‘LEP’ – not only because the label itself can be considered demeaning. By ignoring relevant research in language learning, linguistics and education, the NCLB policy – despite its stated aims to raise standards – effectively further disadvantaged already marginalized students and the educators who serve them.

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References

Cummins, J., & Swain, M. (1986). Bilingualism in education: Aspects of theory, research and practice. London: Longman.

Harper, Candace A., De Jong, Ester J., & Platt, Elizabeth J. (2008). Marginalizing English as a Second Language Teacher Expertise: The Exclusionary Consequence of “No Child Left Behind“. Language Policy, 7(3), 267-284.

Building the Danish boar fence (Image credit: NDR)

Fences are popular these days: not only in the US with its border-wall-to-Mexico saga but also in Denmark, which recently started to build a fence to ‘secure’ is border to Germany. The official reason for the Danish fence is to keep out wild boars who might be crossing into Denmark from Germany. Its efficiency is highly contested … Although not directly related to issues of language, there are striking parallels between the swine fence and what I, a linguistic ethnographer with 15 years of experience in the area of multilingualism and linguistic diversity, have witnessed, researched and documented in Danish schools.

With the notable exception of English, Denmark is a country strongly beholden to the norm of monolingualism. That is, there is a wide-spread understanding that the normative situation is such that everybody speaks one language. In our case, this language is Danish. Monolingualism may seem paradoxical in Denmark, a country with only 5.7 million inhabitants, which is located in close proximity to countries such as Sweden, Norway, Germany and Poland, and which depends on international trade and exchange. As a result, Denmark is home to people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and in terms of human mobility, efficient fences are even more of an illusion than a realistic substitute for policy. Yet, for the political establishment such insights seem hard to reach and to integrate with an increasingly strong focus on the idea of the nation.

The norm of monolingualism affects many citizens with a linguistic repertoire which includes resources associated with multiple languages. Despite this diversity, the monolingual norm is produced and reproduced in various ways and in many societal domains, but particularly in education. Accordingly, it is not uncommon to witness statements such as the following: “In Denmark we speak Danish. You have the right to learn all the languages you want, but it needs to take place in your spare time.” (Inger Støjberg, now Minister for Children, Gender Equality, Integration and Social affairs; the statement was made in 2012, when she was a member of the opposition). In the quote, “Danish” is used in three different meanings: as the first language of the majority population; as the official language of Denmark; and as the most important language taught in schools. The point argued for was that the state had no responsibility towards minority children’s mother tongue education.

In fact, there is only one educational setting where so-called immigrant languages are legitimate: Mother Tongue (MT) education. MT education is located within the regular school system but outside compulsory education  (for details on MT education in Denmark, see Salö et al. 2018). In my team’s research with MT classrooms in and around Copenhagen we found that MT education is still filtered through the lens of Danish monolingualism as MT education is almost exclusively viewed with regard to its effects on Danish.

The official aim of MT education is to ensure students’ linguistic competences in the language regarded as their mother tongue, and their cultural and societal competences with respect to what is formulated as their “country of origin”. Furthermore, MT education is supposed to foster metalinguistic development, enable general participation in school and society in the “host country,” i.e., Denmark, and encourage a global perspective on language and culture (Ministry of Education 2009: 3).

In terms of public opinion (as articulated in letters to the editor, editorials, interviews with politicians, and even academics), there is a general consensus to focus on MT education in terms of its effect on Danish. This aligns with the quote above. As everyone holds that in Denmark we speak Danish, the teaching of those other languages that are associated with immigrants needs to be justified with reference to Danish. This understanding of MT education is widely shared among both supporters and opponents.

The rationale for MT education according to the Danish Ministry of Education

Yet, such effects of positive transfer were never in focus in the classrooms we followed, nor were they part of regular assessment. In fact, MT classes are entirely marginalized. They are ‘fenced’ in relation to general education, and have no relation to whatever else goes on in schools. None of the mainstream teachers or school authorities seem interested in MT education classes. This makes it completely mysterious how the “effect on Danish” should ever come about. To us, there seemed to be more obvious ways to evaluate the relevance of such educational initiatives. For instance, in terms of the classes’ effects on the students’ Arabic, Persian, Polish, or Turkish competences.

Another point is that MT classrooms include participants from a range of backgrounds, a range of relations to the supposed country of origin, and to the language taught. Consequently, one cannot expect consensus about what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘bad’ language, or more or less ‘appropriate’ language (Karrebæk & Ghandchi, 2015).

In the Persian MT classrooms we followed, for example, children came from families who were political, religious, or other types of refugees, who were supporters of the current Iranian government, or who had no explicit political stance and had moved to Denmark for job opportunities or family reasons. In recognition of this diversity, the teacher aimed to create an “ideology free” space. This would enable all students to meet, regardless of their backgrounds. Yet, one way of doing this was to exclude anything that could be associated with the current Iranian government, and even with Arabic language and culture. The use of Arabic loanwords often caused controversy in the classroom. This approach made sourcing educational materials difficult because the teacher refused to use any materials that included pictures of women in hijab. Such images, he felt, would compromise his “ideology free” classroom. On the other hand, the traumas of refugee children went unrecognized. They largely remained unspoken and if they were articulated, they were ignored and suppressed. This created awkward situations and made it difficult for some children to find themselves reflected in the classes.

In the Turkish MT classroom, the diversity among the participants created other difficulties. In this class, the most striking difference concerned the teacher. He was of Kurdish origin and his Turkish language included features that revealed this background. In general, there are strong negative associations with Kurdish-Turkish, and we saw children, and a few parents, voice this in more or less direct ways (Karrebæk & Nergiz, 2019). The teacher, however, had few options to find another job, and we doubt that anybody had thought about how an internal Turkish conflict would play out in a Copenhagen MT classroom, and how this could or should have been handled by the employing authorities.

My work with linguistic diversity in education has shown how immigrants are evaluated and valorized in relation to their Danish competences; how languages other than Danish are, by and large, ignored, devalued and suppressed by the authorities; and how children growing up in this linguistically narrow-minded atmosphere struggle to integrate their mother tongues into an attractive public identity. This is not to say that these outcomes are planned or even desired by Danish authorities. Rather, they result from a severely limited imagination when it comes to multilingualism and cultural diversity. The discursive means to imagine cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity differently are currently lacking. After all, “in Denmark we speak Danish”. These beliefs and attitudes create a difficult work climate for MT teachers as they have to stay in fenced-in areas in a national setting very unfavorable to the use of immigrant languages. They curtail a good educational climate and obstruct any constructive engagement with MT education.

Nobody really seems to care what goes on in MT education because it is understood as being of little relevance and value – to society at large and ultimately to the children themselves. MT classes were fenced off from the children’s regular schooling experiences. Arguably, this neglect even paved the way for  “importing” conflicts from elsewhere.

In short, the orientation to standard Danish and monolingualism leads to marginalization of some children, alienation of others, poor learning conditions, and lots of missed learning opportunities, a linguistically poor society, and a society haunted by globalization and a world which it tries to keep out with a fence.

References:

Karrebæk, M.S. & Ö. Nergiz (2019). Language ideologies, the soft g, and parody in the Turkish mother tongue classroom. Multilingua https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2018-0086

Karrebæk, M.S. & N. Ghandchi (2015). ‘Pure’ Farsi and political sensitivities: Language and ideologies in Farsi complementary language classrooms in Denmark. Journal of Sociolinguistics 19(1): 62-90.

Sahlö, L., C. Hedman, N. Ganuza & M.S. Karrebæk (2018). Mother tongue instruction in Sweden and Denmark: Language policy, cross-field effects, and linguistic exchange rates. Language Policy 17(4), 591-616

Cover page of the first textbook in the Lift Off series

Although the Saudi government does its best to provide effective English language teaching and learning, there are widespread concerns in the country about the low level of achievement in English among Saudi students. Many researchers have tried to identify the reasons for this situation. My research focusses on the representations of culture and cultural identities in English language textbooks used at different stages in Saudi schools. As textbooks are the main teaching resource in Saudi English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms, my research investigates the imagined communities created in these textbooks.

My MRes thesis explored how the two imagined communities of the Saudi source culture and the foreign target culture are created for Saudi students In six textbooks of the Lift Off series that is compulsory in Saudi middle schools.

Findings show nuanced and diverse representations of Saudi characters. By contrast, the representation of foreign characters is overly simplistic and involves heavy gender imbalances. While equal numbers of Saudi men and women are represented, representations of foreign women are relatively rare.

In addition, the findings show a nuanced portrayal of Saudi and Islamic cultures (i.e. the religion of Saudi learners), while representations of Western culture(s) are uniform and reductionist.

Gender segregation is represented as the norm in this Saudi EFL textbook

The compulsory EFL textbooks examined in my MRes research could be described as embracing a Saudi-centric ideological perspective, which creates a strong connection between learning English, Islam and Saudi cultural practices. At the same time, these books only show aspects of Western culture that are acceptable from an Islamic perspective, whereas aspects that are incompatible with Saudi culture and Islam are largely ignored. For example, gender segregation is represented as the norm not only in Saudi culture but also in the target cultures of English language learning.

This misrepresentation and oversimplification may impact Saudi learners and their English learning negatively by depriving them of learning about the culture and communities of the target language. Therefore, my research suggests that the administrators of EFL programs and curricula in Saudi Arabia should pay closer attention to the importance of introducing language textbooks that include rich imagined communities and characters with complex identities from both the source and the target culture to help students understand these communities and attain a high level of linguistic and intercultural competence in English.

Reference

The full text of my MRes thesis entitled “Evaluating the Representations of Identity Options and Cultural Elements in English Language Textbooks used in Saudi Arabia” is available here.

Dr Fadila Boutouchent during her guest lecture at Macquarie University

When she was in kindergarten, my oldest daughter came home one day talking about “our soldiers” who “went to war for us“. It was the Anzac Day history lesson, a day which commemorates Australia’s involvement in World War 1 and the loss of life which resulted. However, just who was that “us” supposed to be?

My daughter has past and present relatives from the (former) Austro-Hungarian, British and Ottoman empires. As is true of most Australians, during WW1 my daughter’s ancestors would have actually been on both sides of the battle. This made me particularly uncomfortable with the idea of pitching a unified “us” against “them”.

As a parent, I expect my school to utilize a curriculum which is inclusive, not exclusionary and divisive. In fact, most of the time, they do. This was the only time I could recall that our school had tapped into this way of thinking about culture and belonging.

Educational curricula are powerful sites for the construction of national identity.

How does that work in a diverse society? What happens to newcomers who may not fit the dominant imagined identity? How can schools fullfil their obligation to meet the needs of students of diverse backgrounds while still attempting to instill a shared sense of identity and belonging?

The research of Dr. Fadila Boutouchent (University of Regina, Canada) addresses these important and fascinating questions and asks how immigrant parents perceive their children’s education, particularly in Francophone schools, which have as a central role the maintenance and construction of a Canadian Francophone identity. As part of the Lectures in Linguistic Diversity series at Macquarie University, Dr. Boutouchent presented her research on these schools in the small city of Moncton in New Brunswick, Canada.

New Brunswick is a province with a bilingual language policy, which means that citizens have the right to access services in either French or English. In addition, New Brunswick prioritizes French-speaking immigrants, in order to maintain its Francophone community.

In the Canadian context, research into immigrant students has tended to focus on Anglophone schools which are in the majority, have more experience with and are better resourced to manage the needs of diverse students. In contrast, little is known about the experience of migrant children in Francophone educational contexts, which are managed by the Francophone community.

Bilingual welcome sign at the entrance to Moncton city (Source: Wikipedia)

So how do recent migrant families fit into this picture? Dr. Boutouchent and her team sought to understand how immigrant families perceive their children’s education before and after their arrival in Moncton, and how they are involved in their social and educational integration.

The researchers interviewed 14 parents of families who had migrated from Africa or the Caribbean between 3-10 years prior and whose children were enrolled in Francophone schools. They found that there were some key issues for immigrant parents across the group.

The first was that immigrant parents felt they were not informed about the school system before arriving in Moncton. In particular, they did not know about the existence of Francophone schools. This group of parents was mostly highly educated and had very high expectations of their children’s educational success. Although they had trusted that the school would be good quality because it was in a developed country, some were disappointed, and one mother even said she would have liked to teach her daughter at home if she had been able to.

These issues of quality were at times compounded by language. The local variety of French is quite distinct. The Acadian French identity is historically very strong, and is marked by an accent which may be difficult for newcomers. This is similar to my own research on adult migrants in linguistic intermarriage who reported that they had unexpected problems with the Australian English accent on arrival.

The Chiac slogan “Right Fiers!” (“Right proud!”) has caused controversy (Source: cbc.ca)

We know from the previous lectures in the series that children’s willingness to speak different languages changes over time and that schooling is a key time for the formation of language habits. A particular challenge for immigrant children in Moncton is constituted by the fact that local youths speak a variety called Chiac, a mixture of French and English. Francophone migrants raised with standard French found Chiac incomprehensible and alienating.

One participant reported that her son began to stay inside during break times because he could not understand or speak to his fellow students.

If you can’t speak to other kids, how can you feel like you belong?

Parents also reported that their children experienced bullying and racism, and that the schools were not always well-equipped to manage the needs of refugee children who were not at the same educational level as their peers. They also regarded the lack of inclusive, multi-ethnic content in the curriculum as a problem.

There are no easy answers as to how to balance the educational and linguistic needs of newcomers with those of old-timers, but a good first step is to listen to the voices of those who are living the encounter. Small cities, like small schools, have the advantage that the distances between people and institutions are smaller, making both problems and solutions more visible. This also means that change is potentially easier to implement.

Dr. Boutouchent finished her lecture by making the case that Moncton is a site where Francophone schools could become “spaces for intercultural communication and nourish a culture of understanding and acceptance”. That sounds like a goal which all schools and parents could agree on.

Reference:

Benimmas, A., Boutouchent, F., & Kamano, L. (2017). Relationship Between School and Immigrant Families in French-Language Minority Communities in Moncton, New Brunswick: Parents’ Perceptions of Their Children’s Integration. In G. Tibe Bonifacio & J. L. Drolet (Eds.), Canadian Perspectives on Immigration in Small Cities (pp. 235-253). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Colours of the alphabet

February 21 is International Mother Language Day and serves as an opportunity to discuss and promote the use of first-language medium education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that up to 40% of the world’s population does not have access to education in their home language. This is the result of language policy, teacher training and resource issues and language beliefs. The minority language-speaking students behind this statistic face significant educational disadvantages that can have a lasting impact on their learning and participation into adulthood.

The 2016 documentary film, Colours of the Alphabet, presents this difficult situation from the perspectives of three young children in Lwimba, in rural Zambia. This film follows Steward, M’barak and Elizabeth as they commence grade one, cleverly depicting some of the challenges they face navigating their earliest learning experiences, in languages they do not know. The situation in this multilingual, post-colonial setting are anything but straightforward.

Directed by Alastair Cole, the film forms part of a larger research project led by four UK universities, which “aims to filmicly reveal the complexities of our multilingual world, specifically focusing on linguistic anthropological perspectives of minority languages use and education”. The film achieves this goal, presenting this Zambian case study, which subtly brings together opinions, policy and experiences around education in a multilingual environment where many of the students do not have the opportunity to learn in their home language. Avoiding the use of any explicit narration, the film follows the three young students, living in a predominately Soli-speaking area in rural Zambia, during their first two terms of grade one. It is a carefully combined collection of footage of the children travelling to and from school, in the classroom and playground, and interviews with the children’s teacher and another of the school’s teachers, and with the children’s parents and a local elder.

Cleverly reflecting its title, the film begins with an explanation that different coloured subtitles will be used to represent the different languages – orange for Soli – the local language, green for Nyanja – the main language of instruction, purple for Bemba – which is used during religious singing at one point in the film, and white for English. This provides a visual representation of the linguistic rollercoaster that Grade 1A faces during their introduction to schooling.

As explained in the interviews accompanying the in-class footage, national education policy requires classes to be taught in Nyanja. For many of the students, like Steward, who speak Soli at home, this causes major problems. Some face difficulty understanding even basic requests to sit down, or talk about what they did on the weekend. Their teacher, who comes from another region, speaks very little Soli and at various times we see her seeking assistance from her students to translate simple sentences for her students when they appear unresponsive to the questions or requests she makes in Nyanja.

As pointed out early in the film, Zambia’s dominant regional languages each represent a separate group of people, and their use is inherently political. In a bid for neutrality and unity, English was instituted as the official language. This means it is introduced from the very start of primary education. However, the incorporation of English-language teaching and the use of English as the medium for some lessons – and especially in teaching the children about good manners – only adds another layer of complexity. This creates a double linguistic barrier for many of the students and reinforces a hierarchy of languages in which English as national and global language is of ultimate value, followed by the regional language common in urban centres (in this case Nyanja), and finally, the local Soli.

The effects of these challenges on the students are often very clear and sometimes heartbreaking. Steward’s struggles over the course of the year are particularly touching – especially in one scene where he stays behind at the end of class, silently crying at his desk, his teacher unable to coax him into sharing his problems with her. However, the classroom footage and Steward’s own example makes it clear that the students’ face more than just linguistic barriers. Grade 1A comprises of at least forty children of various ages who attend school each morning (Grade 1B is the afternoon class, led by the same teacher). Various scenes show children squabbling over learning materials and some children not even having a pen or pencil to bring to class to do their work. Class attendance is patchy at best, with class dwindling to just seven students on the final day of Term 2. Interviews with Steward’s father suggest that his home life may also be a source of struggle for him.

While the choice to prioritize Nyanja and English in the classroom creates serious challenges for these young students, many acknowledge and often accept the reasons behind these choices. Teachers who do not speak Soli can obviously not use it to teach, and even those who do speak it, like another teacher interviewed in the film, may not be comfortable using it to teach concepts that they themselves learned in another language. Likewise, there is a lack of learning resources, like books, in the language. The students’ parents also speak about how important it is for their children to learn English – the official language of Zambia – and see it as fundamental to their children finding good careers and succeeding in the world. Even Elizabeth’s parents, who believe that she would learn much more efficiently in Soli, acknowledge the importance of her learning English – because “everything is written in English”.

The political and ideological reasons for favouring more powerful languages, and ultimately valuing English most highly, create a significant stumbling block. Perhaps the most poignant scene in the film is where the teacher is attempting to teach the class the Zambian national anthem. She explains a little about its background, about Zambians being proud of having struggled and being an independent nation, free from its past colonial oppressors. The teacher then starts singing “Stand and sing for Zambia, proud and free, Land of work and joy in unity…”. In English. The students stand facing their teacher, trying to copy the sounds of these words, in the official and most highly valued language of Zambia and its education system: English – the language of neutrality and unity in a country of over 70 languages, but ironically also the very same language of the country’s colonizers, the independence from whom the anthem celebrates.

While the parents and teachers acknowledge the linguistic difficulties the children face, they accept this reality and focus their energies on supporting the young students to do their best within the existing system. Yet, if we explore the beliefs, policies and influences behind this system more closely, their validity begins to fall apart. For example, research suggests that students who are introduced to English later, after having their first language as the medium of instruction in their early years of study are actually likely to do better at learning it. The inability of the teaching staff to use Soli (either because of their own linguistic background or because they did not study in this language) is arguably a result of policy rather than a mere coincidence. The absence of Soli as a language of education – including in higher education – over the course of one generation nearly guarantees its absence in the next. As UNESCO suggests, such an issue could potentially be addressed through programs emphasizing training teachers from regional areas who have the requisite languages skills.

The elder interviewed for the film shares his love for the Soli language, which he sees as having a rich tradition, and his beliefs that the language is actually growing in strength. However, the distinct domains in which these different languages have been used, along with all the other challenges dealt with in the film, mean that despite the many benefits of first language education, it may be hard for local people like him to even imagine Soli becoming the language of instruction. When the interviewer proposes the idea of Soli-medium schools, he stops to think and smiles. “Could this happen? Is it possible?” he asks. “We would love that, but can it be?” Still, once he considers this, we see his ideas quickly develop and with a twinkle in his eye he goes on to suggest that students could even go to university and get a degree in it. “It would be nice”, he says.

Colours of the Alphabet delicately presents the complexities that Steward, M’barak and Elizabeth confront in their first two terms of primary education, in a classroom where the local language, Soli, has no place. Their experiences suggest that lack of access to education in one’s own language, while a surprisingly common phenomenon on a global level, helps to create or entrench serious inequalities in our societies: at the very least, these students have to work much harder to achieve what other students learn through their first languages. This film is therefore an important one in drawing our attention to this very real and pervasive challenge, which is highlighted on International Mother Language Day.

My call to use language shaming as a lens through which to explore processes of language subordination, domination and (de)valorization struck a chord at the conference and I have since received a number of emails asking for the write-up of my lecture. The slides that accompanied the lecture can be downloaded here and conceptually the lecture was based on Chapters 3 and 7 of Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice. Additionally, I’ve decided to start a mini-series devoted to explorations in language shaming here on Language on the Move. What follows is the first entry in this series.

#ICMLXVI @rejadam Dr Robert Adam emphasising the concept of "language shaming" (re: Prof Ingrid Piller) pic.twitter.com/O5GOgQWDPP

— efsli (@efsli) August 29, 2017

A persistent theme in linguistic diversity is that some ways of using language are heard or seen as indices of laziness, stupidity and backwardness. Speakers of non-standard varieties and particularly migrant speakers are often denigrated in this way.

Teachers may well be amongst the worst offenders when it comes to making migrant students feel inferior. For instance, a sociolinguistic ethnography with Burmese migrant students in a high school in Southwest China by Li Jia provides numerous instances of language shaming. The focus of the research was on the language learning and educational experiences of students from Myanmar who had come to China for their high school education. Many of these students had a Chinese background and most had studied Chinese as an additional language for a number of years prior to coming to China. Even so, their Chinese was different from the Chinese of local students: there were the usual accent differences and additionally there were significant differences in literacy: the Burmese students had had far less opportunities to practice Chinese literacy than the students who had been educated in China throughout their entire school career. Furthermore, they had usually been instructed in traditional Chinese characters and they had learnt to use pinyin according to a different transliteration system.

Chemistry presentation by Year 11 student (Source: Li, 2017, p. 234)

These observable linguistic differences were mostly seen in terms of deficit and often became the focus of student-teacher interactions as in the following example, where a migrant Year 11 student was required to deliver an oral presentation in his Chemistry class. The topic of the presentation was about the weather and specifically temperature fluctuations and cold spells. When the student had finished his presentation and the teacher provided feedback, the feedback had nothing to do with the content of the presentation. Instead, the chemistry teacher focused on the student’s language. He pointed out some unfortunate vocabulary choices made by the students as well as spelling mistakes. The teacher summed up his assessment of the student’s Chemistry presentation as follows:

你看都是高二的学生了，寒潮的潮字都不会写。

Look, you are already a Year 11 student and how come you can’t even write the word “spell”? [as in “cold spell”; “tide”] (Quoted from Li, Jia. 2017, p. 234)

The comment focusses on the language of the presentation instead of the content and denigrates the student by linking the spelling mistake to his age – a typical example of language shaming.

This kind of language shaming is detrimental to the student in at least two ways: first, the student is obviously humiliated and his personal worth is being questioned in highlighting that his Chinese language proficiency is substandard for his age cohort (and ignoring that he is not a first language speaker of Chinese but a Chinese language learner). Second, the focus on language instead of content deprives the student of a learning opportunity.

That means that language shaming has the pernicious effect of not only denigrating students’ language proficiency but also jeopardizing their overall educational success, including achievement in the subject area. Language shaming thus serves to instill the very “stupidity” is claims to diagnose.

Poster with the school’s hair style regulations (Source: Li, 2017, p. 179)

Being scolded for the way they spoke Chinese was but one of the ways in which the students were subjected to a deficit discourse. It was also other aspects of their bodies and behaviors that were subject to criticism: they were often seen as not conforming to the strict dress code of the school or as lazy and careless with the tasks assigned to them. During classroom observations it became obvious that teachers sometimes spent up to half the lesson “criticizing Burmese students who did not obey the school rules” (Li, 2017, p. 248).

While one isolated incidence of the kind that occurred in the Chemistry lesson may be easy to write off, for the migrant students in the study such incidences of language shaming were regular occurrences; and it was their regularity that left deep psychological scars, as another student confided in the researcher:

我8岁来中国学习汉语，一开始什么都不明白, 真的很想回家，特别是老师骂，大姐姐欺负我的时候，感觉真的很无助。 […]

I came to China to learn Chinese at the age of 8. At the beginning, I didn’t understand anything, and I was missing home very much especially when I was scolded by my teachers and bullied by older students I really felt helpless. (Quoted from Li, Jia. 2017, p. 148)

Like all systems of oppression, language subordination has a psychological component, and shame is a key mechanism that leads oppressed people to accept their oppression: sociologists consider shame as a key aspect of poverty as it leads poor people to accept that their poverty is their own fault and to accept that the rich deserve to be rich. Similarly, theorists of racial and colonial oppression have long noted a psychological component where those who are subject to racism and colonialism may come to accept their oppression as justified because an inferiority complex has been instilled in them.

The examples of language shaming offered here come under the guise of teaching and must be considered a key tool in the arsenal of social reproduction. A first step in breaking their power is to call them out for what they are.

Make sure not to miss out on future installments in the series “Explorations in language shaming” and subscribe to our alerts in the bottom right corner of this page.

References

Kaufman, G. (1996). The Psychology of Shame: Theory and Treatment of Shame-Based Syndromes (2nd ed.). New York: Springer.

Li, J. (2017). Social Reproduction and Migrant Education: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography of Burmese Students’ Learning Experiences at a Border High School in China. (PhD), Macquarie University. Retrieved from http://www.languageonthemove.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/LI_Jia_Social_reproduction_and_migrant_education.pdf

Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied Sociolinguistics. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. [for your chance to win a copy, tweet about #linguisticdiversity by Oct 10; details of the draw here] ]]> https://www.languageonthemove.com/explorations-in-language-shaming/feed/ 36 20607 https://www.languageonthemove.com/educating-burmese-migrant-students-in-china/ https://www.languageonthemove.com/educating-burmese-migrant-students-in-china/#comments Fri, 22 Sep 2017 01:51:56 +0000 http://www.languageonthemove.com/?p=20594

Dr Li Jia (4th from right) with her supervisor, Professor Ingrid Piller, and members of the Language-on-the-Move team

The Language on the Move team is proud to celebrate another PhD in our group. Dr LI Jia was awarded her PhD degree by Macquarie University for her thesis about “Social Reproduction and Migrant Education: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography of Burmese Students’ Learning Experiences at a Border High School in China.”

Congratulations, Dr Li Jia!

The thesis takes the reader to the Chinese-Burmese border area of Yunnan province in South-West China, and begins as follows:

Excerpt from Li Jia (2017), “Social Reproduction and Migrant Education: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography of Burmese Students’ Learning Experiences at a Border High School in China”

Borderlands are often flashpoints for political or ethnic tensions. At the same time, they may also be sites of heightened intercultural engagement and contact. The China-Myanmar border area is an example of the latter, where in recent decades people’s desire to interact with each other and to understand each other’s languages and cultures has increased substantially. As a native of the China-Myanmar border area, I was born and brought up in a Chinese border town close to Myanmar, and many of my relatives and friends to this day work and live on the Burmese side of the border. Like many Han people, my family has kept our ancestral book, which traces my family’s presence in the region back to the military migrations during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The book records the male names of each generation and highlights the images of those who bore official ranks. Despite the fact that my family can clearly trace our Han ancestry over six centuries, our lifestyle is quite different from that of Han people in more central areas of China. As border people, we find it much easier to go “abroad” to Myanmar than to travel “nationally” outside of Yunnan province. Border people are conveniently allowed to travel to designated Burmese border towns without applying for a visa. Crossing this international border for us often means little more than crossing a bridge, a road or a river. Living in the border area, we are more familiar with the tropical foods imported from Myanmar and Thailand than many of the foods advertised on Chinese national television.

Trilingual signage at the Muse checkpoint on the China-Myanmar border

Despite this familiarity, interactions between Chinese and Burmese are not necessarily deep. Over the past three decades, Burmese people can also be seen across all walks of life on the Chinese side of the border particularly in domestic work, on construction sites, in restaurants, shops, hospitals and schools. However, despite their increased visibility, I grew up knowing very little about this group of “familiar strangers” who cover their faces in thanaka, a yellowish-white cosmetic paste made from ground bark, and who wear longyi, a sarong-like skirt, and flip-flops in the streets. At a very basic level, my research was motivated by the desire to learn more about interactions between the “familiar strangers” calling the Chinese-Burmese borderlands home.

The interactions I am interested in are embedded in significant socio-economic and developmental differences between China and Myanmar. With China and Chinese people the “senior partners” in most border relationships, Chinese language learning is of immense economic value to Burmese people. For instance, Burmese workers are often paid differentially according to their Chinese language proficiency. The owner of a seafood restaurant in Tengchong explained to me that she paid the lowest wages to Burmese workers who could not speak any Chinese and who were washing dishes in the kitchen. Servers with some Chinese proficiency were paid more and could hope for further pay increase if they improved their Chinese. The top job in the restaurant was being a cashier and was reserved for the most fluent Chinese speaker. When I asked the cashier how he had learned Chinese, he explained that he had learned all his Chinese on the job. Having migrated to Tengchong from Myanmar two years earlier, he spoke the local dialect fluently. His dream for the future was to improve his standard Chinese, to move to Shanghai, to marry a Shanghainese girl and to start his own seafood restaurant. His story is not unusual. As I discovered over the course of my fieldwork, Chinese language learning plays an important role in the trajectories, experiences and aspirations of border people from the Burmese side of the border.

“Learn Chinese, Double Your World”: Promotion of Chinese as a global language

Burmese border people are not alone in learning a new language to be able to communicate more efficiently in the border regions. While Burmese may not be as essential to the socio-economic prospects of Chinese citizens as Chinese is to those of Burmese citizens, there is no doubt that Burmese language learning is beneficial and widely desired. For instance, a Tengchong policewoman, Ms Lei, told me that she had been recruited into the police force because of her Burmese proficiency. After failing the national university entrance exam, Ms Lei had to look for a job in her home town. Unsure of her prospects, she considered the importance of Burmese and decided to attend an evening school. Compared to English, Ms Lei felt it was so much easier to learn Burmese. It took her only two months to pass an interview for a border trade company selling agricultural machinery and equipment to Myanmar. This job experience helped her improve her Burmese greatly because she had to communicate with her Burmese customers every day. With her enhanced Burmese skills, she got a chance to work for the police emergency hotline. From there, she got promoted to a police officer role that focussed on the registration of Burmese migrants. Normally, such a position can only be attained by someone with a university degree but for Ms Lei Burmese proficiency proved more valuable than a university degree. Again, Ms Lei is not unusual, and many border people orient to local transnational opportunities rather than more centralized opportunity structures. Apart from being successful in finding work with a government institution, Burmese language skills are particularly useful in the burgeoning border trade with Myanmar.

Stories such as these are part of the everyday experiences in the border region, where people have come to realize the increasing importance of interacting with each other and knowing each other’s languages in doing business, making money, looking for a good job, gaining promotion or even creating a desirable marriage. For Burmese migrants, the hope that learning Chinese will improve their future is not only observable in worksites such as the restaurant described above, but also from the fact that an increasing number of Burmese students are sent to high schools on the Chinese side of the border for their formal education. As an educator, I decided to focus my research on this group of young people caught up in the socio-political transformation of the borderlands and the corresponding intense transnational interactions they experience. What are their educational trajectories and experiences?

Migration for educational purposes has become common practice as students and their families seek a better future. In the twenty-first century, educational migration is no longer confined to English-speaking countries and “the West”. Many Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore and mainland China are emerging as popular destinations for international students (Chiang, 2015; Gu & Patkin, 2013; Kang, 2012). Therefore, there is a necessity to extend existing research in migrant education to include a greater diversity of sociolinguistic contexts (Piller, 2016a, pp. 1-15). Considering the increasing prominence of Chinese language promotion worldwide and very little research on international students’ learning experiences in mainland China, this thesis aims to contribute to the knowledge of migration, Chinese language education and social justice, in general, and of Chinese border high school education and Burmese students’ language learning experiences, in particular.

Want to read more? The full thesis is available for open access through our PhD Hall of Fame.