Jacob Huckle Head of Multilingual Learning, Dulwich College Suzhou (Senior School)

In the second article of this four-part series, Jacob Huckle challenges educators to question cultural hierarchies and dispel the myth that English is the language of inclusion

Danau Tanu’s book Growing Up In Transit: The Politics of Belonging at an International School should be required reading for all international school teachers. Her ethnographic study of an international school in Indonesia explores the ways in which English intersects with “cultural hierarchies that privilege Western cosmopolitan capital” (Tanu, 2018, Location №1522). She explores the ways in which “the conflation of English-language fluency with being international and the high status with which it is accorded deeply impacts the subjectivities of transnational youth and their relations with others, including family members and each other” (Tanu, 2018, Location №1570). Language is never neutral. Language cannot be separated from power structures. English and other languages are embedded within deeply-rooted language and culture hierarchies that will be unconsciously reproduced if we don’t interrogate our own biases and actively work to unlearn those internalised hierarchies.

Reflection Questions:

  • How do linguistic and cultural hierarchies manifest in your school?
  • In what ways have you or others around you internalised these hierarchies?

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Respect individuals’ autonomy and agency to determine the role of English in their own lives

For some students, English is the language of their heart, deeply connected to their identity, history, and dreams. For others, English is primarily a social language, used for chatting with friends and pursuing hobbies. And for some, its main use is as a language of instruction. Each student has a unique language constellation, and the role and position of languages within that constellation will shift across space and time. The varying role of English in students’ lives renders one-size-fits-all approaches to English curricula ineffective; we should instead offer differentiated English provision that aligns with students’ needs.

Students should be empowered to self-reflexively explore their own language constellations, and their agency to determine the role of English within that should be respected by all. We should resist single stories about multilingual learners, such as deficit narratives that reduce them to labels like “EAL”, or the generalised assumption that all students attending international schools want to study at English-medium universities in Britain or North America. Instead, we can get to know each student and their multilingual profile and individualise our teaching depending on where English fits within that profile. As I explored in this blog, we can use methods such as student shadowing or creative tasks to gather ‘street data’ (Safir & Dugan, 2021) that gives us more insights into our multilingual learners, data that can be used for school transformation.

Reflection Questions:

  • What do you know about your students’ language profiles? How could you get to know them better?
  • What could you do to intentionally show students that you value their complete linguistic repertoire?

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Challenge simplistic assumptions around ‘English as the language of inclusion’ and advocate for more sophisticated approaches that don’t see linguistic diversity as a threat to inclusion

A true commitment to inclusion and belonging runs deeper and demands more of us than simplistic insistence on the use of a single language

When pushing back against ‘English Only’ policies, we often hear “English is the language of inclusion” used uncritically, almost as a catchphrase. By insisting on the use of English above all other languages, who are we including exactly? Who is – even if unintentionally – excluded? What message does it send when, as Ceci Gomez-Galvez so powerfully puts it, “we tell our learners that the only what to make sure everyone feels included is to speak the same language”?

A true commitment to inclusion and belonging runs deeper and demands more of us than simplistic insistence on the use of a single language in which some students might not yet be able (or willing) to express everything they want to express. Instead, we should develop more sophisticated language policies that prioritise educating all community members to become more aware of how language can be used to include or exclude others so we can all make respectful, inclusive decisions that honour the right to multilingualism and start from the position that linguistic diversity is not a threat to inclusion.

Reflection Questions:

  • How is English positioned in your school’s language policies?
  • How could you help students and coworkers become more aware of the ways in which language can include or exclude others and reflect on their own language use decisions from a perspective of inclusion?

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Share the burden of communication when English is used as the lingua franca

It’s often native English speakers’ inability to adapt their language use to meet the needs of a multilingual audience that hinders communication

Consider this extract from NPR’s Rough Translation podcast:

“Picture this: A group of non-native English speakers is in a room. There are people from Germany, Singapore, South Korea, Nigeria and France. They’re having a great time speaking to each other in English, and communication is smooth.
And then, an American walks into the room. The American speaks quickly, using esoteric jargon (“let’s take a holistic approach”) and sports idioms (“you hit it out of the park!”). And the conversation trickles to a halt.
Decades of research show that when a native English speaker enters a conversation among non-native speakers, understanding goes down. Global communication specialist Heather Hansen tells us that’s because the native speaker doesn’t know how to do what non-native speakers do naturally: speak in ways that are accessible to everyone, using simple words and phrases.”

In linguistically diverse spaces where English is used as a lingua franca, the burden is often placed solely on English learners to adapt their English use to ease communication (to somehow modify their accents, for example). However, it’s often native English speakers’ inability to adapt their language use to meet the needs of a multilingual audience that hinders communication. The burden of communication should be shared by all in the community, not just those learning English as an additional language. International schools place a lot of emphasis on helping multilingual learners improve their English. But shouldn’t we also intentionally seek to help native English speakers improve their communication skills so they can more effectively use English as an international language, or lingua franca, such as monitoring their speed of speech and avoiding culturally-specific idioms? Such programmes could be implemented as part of the curriculum for all students or as part of professional development provision for all teachers.

Reflection Questions:

  • How aware are you of the ways in which you modify your English use when communicating with different audiences?
  • What do you need to change about the way you communicate in certain contexts to share the burden of communication more?

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The next chapter of this series will challenge educators to address all forms of linguistic discrimination and native speakerism.

The previous article of the series can be found here. 

 

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(This article is part of a piece originally published on Medium)