Angela Scarino

Language Assessment Literacy as Self-Awareness: "Understanding" the Role of Interpretation in Assessment and in Teacher Learning.

The increasing influence of sociocultural theories of learning on assessment practices in second language education necessitates an expansion of the knowledge base that teacher-assessors need to develop (what teachers need to know) and related changes in the processes of language teacher education (how they learn and develop it). Teacher assessors need to acquire concepts from diverse assessment paradigms; they need to learn to use these concepts in developing, using and analysing assessment procedures and results; they need to exercise critical perspectives on their own assessment practices for particular purposes in diverse contexts, especially in seeking to do justice to all in education. In this paper I argue that, to develop language assessment literacy with the dual goals of transforming teacher assessment practices and developing teacher understanding of the phenomenon of assessment itself and themselves as assessors, it is necessary to reconsider both the knowledge base and the complex processes of language teacher education. I draw on projects I have conducted on developing and investigating teacher understanding and practices in second language assessment, to discuss the need to work with the often tacit preconceptions, beliefs, understandings and world-views about assessment that teacher-assessors bring to teacher professional learning programs and that inform their conceptualizations, interpretations, judgments and decisions in assessment. I discuss the need in developing language assessment literacy for processes that develop teacher-assessors’ capability to explore and evaluate their own preconceptions so as to become aware of how they interpret their own assessment practices and their students’ second language learning. Through these processes they develop a deeper understanding of the interpretive nature of assessment and their own self-awareness as assessors.

How are we to understand the 'intercultural dimension'?: [An examination of the intercultural dimension of internationalisation in the context of higher education in Australia.]

Jonathan Crichton, University of South Australia Jonathan Crichton is a research fellow in the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures Education, University of South Australia. His interests include language and culture in professional practice and the internationalisation of education. Correspondence to Jonathan Crichton: Jonathan.Crichton@unisa.edu.au Angela Scarino, University of South Australia Angela Scarino is director of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures Education, University of South Australia, where she has developed an extensive research program focusing on languages and interculturality. Correspondence to Angela Scarino: Angela.Scarino@unisa.edu.au

Situating the challenges in current languages education policy in Australia – unlearning monolingualism

In situating the challenges in languages education policy in Australia in current times, I give an account of policy and curriculum development for the learning of languages in school education. In so doing, I highlight (1) the integral relationship between languages education, literacy and multiculturalism policies; (2) the meaning and consequences of the absence of a national policy on languages; and (3) the fundamental challenge of addressing the pervasive ‘monolingual mindset’, particularly in school education, as a major site for the formation of knowledge, understanding and values. I then draw on my recent experience of working on the framing of Languages as a learning area in the national curriculum, which is currently being developed in Australia, to illustrate the complexity of doing languages policy and curriculum policy work and the efforts to resist the forces towards simplification. I conclude with a discussion of the challenge of ‘unlearning’ monolingualism, both for those involved in the field of languages education and for those involved in education in general.

Heritage Languages at Upper Secondary Level in South Australia: A Struggle for Legitimacy

This paper describes how more than 40 languages gained and retained legitimacy as subjects for graduation from upper secondary schooling and for tertiary entrance selection in the South Australian educational system. Essentially the process required conforming with administrative, curriculum and community structures and fitting the mould of evolving language policies and generic frameworks. While the success of language communities in achieving this status is recognised, questions remain about overall uptake of languages and the fundamental rationale for maintenance.

The role of language and culture in open learning in international collaborative programmes

In the context of internationalisation, the delivery of higher education programmes increasingly combines open learning with collaborations among people of diverse languages and cultures. In this paper we argue that while the literature on international education focuses on mapping modes of delivery in international education, there is also a need to recognise that it is these modes, together with language and culture, which mediate the delivery of programmes. Drawing on data from a case study of collaboration between an Australian university and an educational institution in Malaysia, we argue that international education per force involves collaboration and that this collaboration is mediated.

The Role of Assessment in Policy-Making for Languages Education in Australian Schools: A Struggle for Legitimacy and Diversity

The history of the role of assessment in policy-making for languages education in Australia over the past 20 years is characterised by a complex and shifting interface between language policy, curriculum and assessment. Three phases can be identified during which significant changes occur. These highlight an ongoing struggle for legitimacy for languages as an area of study and for its intrinsic diversity. Common themes in this account include the relationship and tensions between (1) language policy and general educational policy, (2) national and State/Territory-based educational developments in Australia, and (3) the influence and consequences of both inclusion and exclusion from nationwide assessment in education. The paper demonstrates the ways in which the dominant discourses at particular moments of history shape educational policies and practices which, in turn, operate to shape the place and status of languages learning in school education of children.

Educational responses to multilingualism: an introduction

Linguistic and cultural diversity is a feature of most, if not all, modern societies, whether it results from historical processes of state formation, from the aggregation of colonial possessions and their subsequent independence or from human mobility. Diversity therefore shapes the context in which education occurs and the processes through which teaching and learning happen. However, educational systems understand and respond to diversity in different ways. This volume focuses on contemporary implications of linguistic and cultural diversity for education at school level and in higher education. It recognises that different countries and regions have experienced diversity in education at different times and in different ways. In some cases, diversity has become a new, immediate concern for education systems that are unprepared for it, while for others it is the age-old backdrop against which education has been developed. It also recognises that educational responses to diversity change over time and that different countries and regions have different histories of involvement with diversity. The recent increase of diversity in Europe, for example, has produced a sense of urgency, with European educational systems planning for some form of productive coexistence of different linguistic and cultural groups. Despite a parallel increase in diversity in Australia, a similar sense of urgency does not seem to play a role in the education system. In fact, in Australia educational responses to diversity have a longer history, but education seems to have refocused away from linguistic diversity towards a narrower monolingualism. On the other hand, while recognition of diversity in both Europe and Australia is relatively recent, countries in South Asia and Africa have been engaged with the management and mismanagement of diversity in education for centuries. Each of these contexts has a chance to learn from these different histories, trajectories and experiences of linguistic diversity in education. The articles in this volume survey the issue of educational responses to linguistic diversity from a range of perspectives. Each examines a different aspect of education and the role for languages within education. Some engage with general issues, while others examine specific cases. They show educational responses to linguistic diversity to be both complex and problematic and in so doing raise issues for consideration in framing debates around the relationship between linguistic and cultural diversity and education. In their article, Liddicoat and Curnow examine the issues that influence how policy documents position non-dominant languages in schooling. They argue that the curriculum is a space constrained by prevailing ideologies and discourses about languages that consign non-dominant languages to marginalised positions in schooling. These discourses find their origins in monolingual understandings of the nation state: as nation states view schooling as an instrument of state formation, monolingual understandings of the nature of the state inevitably shape education as a monolingual, or rather monolingualising, environment. They also argue that in any society prevailing language ideologies influence the ways that particular languages are seen as being valued or valid for particular purposes and that discourses that construct non-dominant languages as being less ‘useful’ International Journal of Multilingualism, 2014 Vol. 11, No. 3, 269–272, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2014.921174

Reconceptualising translation as intercultural mediation: A renewed place in language learning

ABSTRACT Since the 1970s translation has been discredited in languages teaching and learning. Nevertheless, it can be seen as a natural phenomenon in many domains of contemporary, globalised life. Furthermore, learners themselves have not ceased to use translation as a strategy in the process of language learning. They necessarily use their primary language as the basis for understanding and using an additional language or to use and understand their primary language in contexts in which it is a minority language. This process can be likened to the task of translators as they seek to establish a relationship with another language and culture. In this paper I discuss translation as an act of intercultural mediation. Translation in language learning is presented in two senses: as a valuable intercultural activity in itself, and as fundamental to the act of language learning. I then discuss the way in which translation has been included in the development of the new (national) Australian curriculum for languages and the contestation that has emerged in relation to its inclusion. I argue that it is a reconceptualisation of translation as intercultural mediation that permits its value in language learning to be fully realised.

Introduction: A Relational View of Language Learning

This introductory chapter, intended to both frame and provide a brief overview of those that follow, takes as its point of departure the realisation that in a world of globalization, where ‘super diversity’, multiculturalism and multilingualism increasingly characterize communities, and where language contact and cross-cultural interactions have become the norm, a change in the way in which we think about languages and languages education is needed. In particular, languages education needs to be developed on the basis of an understanding of the interplay of all the languages and cultures available in local contexts. In addition, it needs to be developed in such a way that students, as language users and language learners, become effective mediators of meanings across multiple languages, cultures and semiotic systems, thereby undergoing a process of personal transformation. We suggest that the need for such development should urge language planners, policy-makers and educators to adopt a relational perspective on language and languages that both respects and accounts for different world views and which has important implications for curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and evaluation. Each of the chapters of this volume, in its own way, provides insights into the need for and consequences of such a perspective.

Recognising the Diversity of Learner Achievements in Learning Asian Languages in School Education Settings

In the context of globalisation and super-diversity we are seeing in education an increasing mobility of students, global flows of knowledge and the internationalization of teaching and learning. This phenomenon influences learning in general and language learning in particular. In languages education there is an increasing diversity of learners with diverse life-worlds and learning trajectories, and an increasing diversity of languages offered in different settings. The impact of this diversity in education is particularly marked in assessment because of its characteristic tendency towards generalisation and standardisation. In this paper I discuss the impact of globalisation on ways of describing frameworks of learner achievement that recognise the diversity of learners. I describe a recent national study that investigated learner achievements in Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean K–12, relative to learner background and time-on-task. The resulting context-sensitive descriptions of learner achievements provide a framing of learner achievements in a way that does justice to students’ diverse linguistic and cultural repertoires.