Margaret A. Kettle

Agency as discursive practice: From nobody to somebody as an international student in Australia

As more and more students pursue an international education, there is a need to investigate how these students deal with the demands of their study programs in the new academic context. This paper introduces one such student, a Thai English teacher named Woody,2 and looks at the ways that he engaged with a Master of Education program in Australia. I analyse the transcripts of two interviews that I conducted with Woody in his first semester using Faircloughs model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The analysis is interested in the social and institutional demands that Woody identified as impacting on the course, and the strategic action that he took in response to them. I argue that by undertaking this action, Woody was “working” as an agent of his own change. The analysis highlights a proactive and strategic engagement on Woodys part, a point that has been missed in much of the literature on the international student experience in Australia.

Interpretations of formative assessment in the teaching of English at two Chinese universities: a sociocultural perspective

Formative assessment is increasingly being implemented through policy initiatives in Chinese educational contexts. As an approach to assessment, formative assessment derives many of its key principles from Western contexts, notably through the work of scholars in the UK, the USA and Australia. The question for this paper is the ways that formative assessment has been interpreted in the teaching of College English in Chinese Higher Education. The paper reports on a research study that utilised a sociocultural perspective on learning and assessment to analyse how two Chinese universities – an urban-based Key University and a regional-based Non-Key University – interpreted and enacted a China Ministry of Education policy on formative assessment in College English teaching. Of particular interest for the research were the ways in which the sociocultural conditions of the Chinese context mediated understanding of Western principles and led to their adaptation. The findings from the two universities identified some consistency in localised interpretations of formative assessment which included emphases on process and student participation. The differences related to the specific sociocultural conditions contextualising each university including geographical location, socioeconomic status, and teacher and student roles, expectations and beliefs about English. The findings illustrate the sociocultural tensions in interpreting, adapting and enacting formative assessment in Chinese College English classes and the consequent challenges to and questions about retaining the spirit of formative assessment as it was originally conceptualised.

The enactment of formative assessment in English language classrooms in two Chinese universities: teacher and student responses

The College English Curriculum Requirements, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Education in 2007, recommended the inclusion of formative assessment into the existing summative assessment framework of College English. This policy had the potential to fundamentally change the nature of assessment and its role in the teaching and learning of English in Chinese universities. In order to document and analyse these changes, case studies involving English language (EL) teachers and learners were undertaken in two Chinese universities: one a Key University in the national capital; the other a non-Key University in a western province. The case study design incorporated classroom observations and interviews with EL teachers and their students. The type and focus of feedback and the engagement of students in assessment were analysed in the two contexts. Fundamental to the analysis was the concept of enactment, with the focus of this study on the ways that policy ideas and principles were enacted in the practices of the Chinese university classroom. Understandings of formative assessment as applied in contexts other than the predominantly western, Anglophone contexts from where many of its principles derive are offered.

Transitioning to Academic Success: Textual Change and Reflexivity in the Writing of International Postgraduate Students

This chapter proposes a model of reflexivity in the second language writing of international postgraduate students. The model accounts for textual change and the strategies that students use to mediate their transitions as second language (L2) writers from academic failure to success.

Teachers’ Reinterpretations of Critical Literacy Policy: Prioritizing Praxis

Recent conservative reviews of Australia’s national English curriculum argue for a return to less critical approaches to English language education and a stronger emphasis on traditional, functional approaches to provide adequate English learning experiences for school-age students. This neoliberal shift poses a threat to adolescent learners from varied cultural and linguistic backgrounds because it demands second language learning without critical engagement with the political, social and cultural conditions that the learners are experiencing. The authors argue that newly arrived English as an additional language (EAL) learners need opportunities both for academic skills development and critical engagement with the new conditions of their lives. The authors use critical discourse analysis to highlight the historical dilution of critical literacy across iterations of state curricula in Australia, and the ways teachers mediate and mitigate the curriculum changes in lessons for EAL students. The findings indicate that while critical approaches to second language education are under threat at the policy level, teachers are continuing to promote them through contextualized, contingent, and at times, covert, classroom practices. The detailed description of these practices demonstrates the ongoing commitment of teachers to the power of critical engagement to enhance the lives of their EAL students.

Connecting Digital Participation and Informal Language Education: Home Tutors and Migrants in an Australian Regional Community

Abstract This chapter describes a social living lab with volunteer language tutors and adult migrants in a regional town in Queensland, Australia. The aim of the lab was to build the language teaching capacity and digital skills of the tutors as a foundation for teaching English to the migrants who had settled with their families in the area. The social living lab enabled ‘a space of encounter’ that prioritized participant coconstruction and afforded attention to both research and the community needs. In Australia, migration and settlement are increasingly impacting regional and rural communities as skilled migrants provide much-needed labour in abattoirs and other workplaces. In this particular town, many of the migrants were Brazilian on a temporary skilled visa, known as the 457 visa. The Brazilian women were supported in their English learning by the government-funded Adult Migrant English Program based at the local Technical and Further Education college. Because of the women’s work and family commitments, the language teaching was largely delivered through a home tutoring program conducted by the volunteers, many of whom were retired, community-orientated women from the local town. The chapter highlights the processes of building a learning community and fostering digital participation, and provides an example of informal language education in a rural setting undergoing cultural and linguistic change. It also proposes extensions to thinking on social living lab methodology that respond to calls for greater theorization of practice.