Academic Discourse Socialization, Scaler Politics of English, and Racialization in Study Abroad: A Critical Autoethnography

In this age of rising animosity to newcomers in host societies, study abroad students are often reported to receive maltreatment and discrimination. To this end, I conducted a critical autoethnographic study that responds to the trajectory of my English language learning in the UK and explores my adjustment difficulties and factors such as racialized linguistic discrimination. It also reveals the types of agency that I employed in the process of academic discourse socialization and unpacks causes and processes of renegotiating and reconstructing my identity as a learner and user of the English language. The data for this study was gathered from Facebook posts, written assignment feedback, and my personal narratives and memory. The study reveals that upon finding myself in a community different from what I had imagined prior to my sojourn and with contested power dynamics between local peers and international students in classroom discourse socialization, I became disappointed and stressed and that, in turn, obstructed my learning process. However, my personal investment and agency later led me to develop my own community of practice with those who shared similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Meanwhile, I received what seemed to me to be racial discrimination based on my identity as a non-native speaker of English, which was the result of a scaler politics of English and perhaps blatant racism toward a student of a third-world country that saw my use of English as inferior. Therefore, the study invites institutions in host countries to reflect on their language orientation and how it is responsive (not responsive) to newcomers

A research agenda for English-medium instruction: Conversations with scholars at the research fronts

Since English-Medium Instruction (EMI) has emerged as an important field of policy and research, there are a multiplicity of issues that are unexamined but need critical attention. This paper features some key scholars of EMI who together highlight contemporary issues of EMI as a field of research and its primary future research agendas moving forward, including appropriate methods of collecting information about EMI. The nine researchers, who represent different geographical contexts (South/East Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America), have offered their views regarding the future research agendas of EMI. Based on the conversations with these researchers, this paper presents eight strands of EMI research agendas that need to be carried on

“Your English is so good”: Linguistic experiences of racialized students and instructors of a Canadian university

Racism has increasingly been exposed and problematized in public domains, including institutions of higher education. In academia, critical race theory (CRT) has guided scholars to uncover everyday experiences of racism by highlighting the intersectionality of race with other identity categories, among which language constitutes an important, yet underexplored, component. Through the conceptual lens of CRT and counter-storytelling as a methodological orientation, this study investigated how racialized graduate students and faculty members at a Canadian university experienced racialization and racism in relation to issues of language, including communication and the use of ethnic names as semiotic markers. Individual and focus group interviews generated participants’ stories, to which we applied a thematic analysis. Participants generally felt that they were forced into pre-determined and essentialized categories of race, ethnicity, nationality, and language. Racialized non-native speakers of an official language—English or French—often received compliments or inquisitive comments on their language proficiency, which further accentuated their raciolinguistic Otherness and caused pain. Conversely, racialized native speakers did not report receiving compliments on language. For East Asian participants especially, speaking White English seemed to offset their racial stigma and psychologically separated them from non-native, English-speaking East Asian immigrants who looked like them. These experiences indicate normative expectations. The participants felt they were expected to not only speak, write, or communicate in the White normative language and manners, but also to use or not use an Anglicized name against their will. These impositions were questioned and resisted by some participants, and antiracist consciousness was expressed. The participants’ voices encourage universities to validate their stories as well as their ways of telling their stories

Sustaining Critical Approaches to Translanguaging in Education: A Contextual Framework

Translanguaging remains a timely and important topic in bi/multilingual education. The most recent turn in translanguaging scholarship involves attention to translanguaging in context in response to critiques of translanguaging as a universally empowering educational practice. In this paper, seven early career translanguaging scholars propose a framework for researching translanguaging “in context,” drawing on the Douglas Fir Group\u27s (2016) transdisciplinary framework for language acquisition. Examining translanguaging in context entails paying attention to who in a classroom wields power, as a result of their greater proficiency in societally valued languages, their more “standard” ways of speaking these languages, their greater familiarity with academic literacies valued at school, and/or their more “legitimate” forms of translanguaging. In our framework for researching translanguaging in context, we propose three principles. The first principle is obvious: (1) not to do so apolitically. The other two principles describe a synergy between ethnographic research and teacher-researcher collaborative research: (2) ethnographic research can assess macro-level language ideologies and enacted language hegemonies at the micro- and meso levels, and (3) teacher-researcher collaborations must create and sustain inclusive, equitable classroom social orders and alternative academic norms different from the ones documented to occur in context if left by chance

English medium instruction in South Asia’s multilingual schools: unpacking the dynamics of ideological orientations, policy/practices, and democratic questions

This article provides a critical review of English medium instruction (EMI) policy/practices in the K-12 multilingual schools in South Asia, especially in Nepal, India, and Pakistan. Employing Bourdieu’s (1993) lens of ‘linguistic capital’ and ‘linguistic marketplace,’ the article takes stock of (a) the development of EMI and its ideological and pedagogic motivations, (b) the models of EMI policy in relation to mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) and their practices, and (c) social justice concerns that arise from such policies/practices. As the review of research and policy/practices reveals, EMI is ideologically perceived as a means of acquiring the linguistic capital, often believed to provide access to the global economy; and, therefore, a liberating tool for socioeconomically minoritized groups. Such ideology has, then, oriented the concerned bodies to position EMI within the framework of MTB-MLE in South Asian countries, creating the discourse of inequality and injustice for different social groups. The article continues the argument that the language policies, which are being developed/practiced in the lure of economic globalization, ignoring the local realities, become a source of marginalization along the lines of class, ethnicity, gender, and regions

English as a medium of instruction, social stratification, and symbolic violence in Nepali schools: Untold stories of Madhesi children

Despite the state’s commitment to the mother-tongue-based multilingual education policy, the use of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) is widespread in Nepal. Previous studies have documented the ideologies and practices of EMI policy, but the context of Madhes (Southern Nepal) is still underexplored. This chapter reports on the findings from an ethnographic exploration of the EMI policy practices in a public school located in a minoritized ethnic community in Birgunj, Nepal. Drawing on theories of “language ideology” and “symbolic power/violence,” this chapter argues that the ideology and practices of EMI policy create a context of symbolic violence and social reproduction for Madhesi ethnic and class minoritized children, while elite and dominant ethnic groups are endowed with educational privilege. Framed within neoliberal and nationalist language ideologies, EMI has become the most celebrated but an unplanned and unequal policy model of education. Further, languaging practices in the EMI school reveal the legitimacy of English and Nepali over students’ mother tongue, developing a case of political, educational, and psychological struggles for Madhesi children. I argue, in the chapter, that a plurilingual practice cannot be fully claimed as liberating without including students’ mother tongue

Reproduction of nationalist and neoliberal ideologies in Nepal’s language and literacy policies

The paper explores how the discourse of nationalist and neoliberal agendas have shaped the conceptions of literacy education in Nepal, the ramifications for social stratification. As the review shows, the ruling elites tactfully imposed their language, culture, and knowledge in literacy curricula in the name of national unity, but to maintain their status quo. Later, literacy planning was ideologically oriented to the neoliberalism, which overtly espoused the English language and its associated culture and knowledge as must-have literacy skills for global socioeconomic mobilities. In both cases, the local languages, culture, and knowledge have been ignored in literacy education, resulting in an ideology for minoritized groups to accept Nepali-English bilingual/bicultural literacy skills as valid and their languages, cultures, and knowledge as deficit and valueless. The article, therefore, argues that the increasing growth of globalization and neoliberal logics is altering the construct of literacy, especially in terms of its purposes and uses, taking it beyond the local cultural and communicative practices to the global

Teacher Preparation for Primary English Education in Nepal: Missing Agendas of Diversity and Inclusion

Despite emergent research documenting the teaching and learning of English in early grades in Asian contexts, the policies and practices of preparing teachers for those early grades are hardly researched. Particularly in Nepal, the knowledge about primary (or even secondary) school English teacher preparation is scarce. To this end, this review paper analyzes existing educational policies and training models and programs for preparing primary school English teachers in Nepal, with a special focus on the ways, and the extent to which such policies and practices respond to teachers’ critical competency (i.e., knowledge, skills, and desire for addressing diversity and inclusion). The analysis demonstrates that regardless of legal provisions to prepare primary teachers for diversity and inclusion, pre-service university courses and in-service teacher training curriculum and programs do not seem to prepare teachers to deal with social justice concerns in their diverse classrooms. Contemporary primary teacher education programs rather limit their focus on general pedagogic skills, English language proficiency, teaching methodologies, and instructional material design

Elite appropriation of English as a medium of instruction policy and epistemic inequalities in Himalayan schools

This study reports on an investigation into the perspectives of different stakeholders (e.g. administrators, teachers, students, and parents) towards motivations for introducing English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy in low-resourced public schools, serving minoritized students, and language ideologies that form its practices. Framed within the notions of neoliberalism and elite bi/multilingualism, this study provides a nuanced understanding of ideological and implementational discourses of the EMI policy in the K-121 context, which contributes to the emerging field of EMI. As the analysis of interviews and focus groups with the above stakeholders from five different schools in Mt. Everest region and the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal reveals, the key motivations for EMI were to help students gain social and material (economic) capital as EMI was perceived as a means to achieve English skills and quality education. However, such desires, guided by neoliberal logics, have put the minoritized students under delusion because the insufficiency of English proficiency among both teachers and students and the lack of rudiments to effectively implement EMI have created a ‘comprehension crisis’ and ‘epistemic inequalities’ for minoritized students. The findings also illustrate how neoliberal ideologies have led to the practice of elite bilingualism in EMI classrooms, also influencing the local language ecology