Constant Leung
Vol. 18, No. 2 August 2003 3
Teachers’ discursive constructions of
ethno-linguistic difference: Professional
issues in working with inclusive policy
ANGELA CREESE – School of Education, University of Birmingham
CONSTANT LEUNG – King’s College London, University of London
ABSTRACT
In recent years British education policy for school-aged children has stressed an
inclusive agenda for all. For pupils from ethnic/linguistic minorities this means
that they are to be included in the underdefined but unproblematically imagined
‘mainstream’ educational processes, where all students should be enabled to
benefit from the publicly funded educational provision. (For a collection of
policy statements, see for example, DES 1985; SCAA 1996; TTA 2000 and
QCA 2000.) At the same time there is also recurring anxiety over persistent
racism and ethnic minority ‘under-achievement’; these concerns are seen as a
manifestation of ‘exclusion’ of minority groups from the rhetorically constructed
accessible inclusive whole. And yet, minority languages and cultural practices
are often sidelined (for instance, the very peripheral curriculum status conferred
on minority community languages). In other words, the mainstream curriculum
and educational practices are selectively inclusive and ambiguously exclusive at
the same time. This reflects an unresolved tension in both policy discourse and
policy analysis.
Against this backdrop we discuss how this policy (and discourse) of inclusiveness
works out in specific instances of teachers addressing issues of ethnic
diversity and language pedagogy for minorities. We focus on two specific aspects
of school education policy: multiculturalism and English as an additional
language (EAL). The discussion will first look at policy as an interpretive process
(and not as a fixed meaning). We then adopt this perspective to discuss some
of the ways multiculturalism and EAL policies are interpreted and taken up by
teachers involved in two studies (Creese 2001; Davies and Leung 2001). We
will reflectively comment on some of the epistemological reasons for the interpretive
approach we have adopted at appropriate points in the discussion. We
conclude by making some brief comments on professional responses to policy
and their implications in terms of future professional development.
Policy in practice
In this discussion we use the term policy to refer to formal policy and quasipolicy
statements as well as other discursive expressions found in relevant
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ANGELA CREESE AND CONSTANT LEUNG
official curriculum documents. We will not attempt a comprehensive listing of
all policy statements on ethno-linguistic matters; the official documents cited
here have been selected to highlight the policy tendencies under discussion.
We would argue that an educational policy, such as inclusion, which is
indirectly concerned with making decisions about cultural values, the uses
of languages, and the users of languages is, among other things, a policy on
cultures and languages. The educational policies of inclusion have emerged
from a constellation of views which has coalesced into sets of ideological
perspectives and policy/professional discourses. In this discussion we are
principally interested in the interaction, indexically represented by their
discourses, of two groups of professional participants: policy makers and
teachers. The discourses of these participants support, maintain and undermine
the ideologies of inclusion and the policy documents which purport them.
In looking at the ways teachers’ discourses index the concept of inclusion
and its policy documents, we attempt to consider some of the political and
educational dimensions of this policy with reference to teachers and their
views on language/s and ethnic minority children in English schools.
The link between educational ideologies and language policies has been
made explicit elsewhere. Tollefson (1991, 1995), for one, has explored the
connections between ideologies of power in the modern state and the development
of language policies. He has shown how the Swann Report in Britain,
by projecting the need to construct a ‘mainstream’ society based on a conflictfree
notion of social and ethnic pluralism, argues that the role of mainstream
education ‘cannot be expected to … reinforce the values, beliefs, and cultural
identity which each child brings to school’ (DES 1985: 321). The Report
accepts a monolingual ideology which regards the English language as a central
unifying factor in ‘being British’. In a similar vein, Ricento (1998, 2000a:
205) argues that:
… the evaluation of the relative effectiveness of bilingual education policies in
US public education varies according to the operating assumption and expectations
of different interested constituencies, but that the underlying and
nearly universally shared goal of education policies – the cultural and linguistic
assimilation of non-English speakers – reflects ideologies of language and
American identity that have become hegemonic, especially in the wake of the
Americanisation campaign, 1914–1924.
Within the language planning and policy literature there is now a realisation
that concepts such as inclusion, bilingualism and multilingualism are
conceptually complex and ideologically laden (Ricento 2000a, 2000b; Ager
2001; May 2001) and that language planning is not a neutral problemsolving
process. Moreover, ideologies of language are linked to other ideologies
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TEACHERS’ DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF ETHNO-LINGUISTIC DIFFERENCE:
PROFESSIONAL ISSUES IN WORKING WITH INCLUSIVE POLICY
that can influence and constrain the development of language policies.
Ricento (2000b) argues for a paradigm which considers the political and the
economic dimensions of the social and cognitive in language behaviour.
In more or less liberal democracies we can expect a huge variability of
views in the ways teachers talk about and respond to the notions of inclusion,
diversity and difference. The belief that it is possible to ‘deliver’ a strategy or
a policy in the public arena in a straightforward way is increasingly being
called into question (Ball 1997; Ricento 2000a). For instance, Ball (1997: 270)
argues that we need a much more localised understanding of how policy works:
The prevailing, but normally implicit view is that policy is something that is
‘done’ to people. As first-order recipients ‘they’ ‘implement’ policy, as secondorder
recipients ‘they’ are advantaged or disadvantaged by it. I take a different
view … That is, as noted earlier; policies pose problems to their subjects, problems
that must be solved in context. Solutions to the problems posed by policy texts
will be localised and should be expected to display ‘ad hocery’ and messiness.
Responses indeed must be ‘creative’. Policies do not normally tell you what to do;
they create circumstances in which the range of options available in deciding
what to do is narrowed or changed or particular goals or outcomes are set. A
response must still be put together, constructed in context, offset against or
balanced by other expectations. All of this involves creative social action of
some kind.
We see here policy presented as an interpretive and potentially messy
process. As Yanow (1996) observes, the relationship between policy and
implementation outcome is not necessarily linear and straightforwardly topdown.
Participant mediation in the implementation process involves, among
other things, interpretation and negotiation of policy meaning; at a local
level policy meaning is often filtered through institutional and individual
experiences, values and perceptions. Another way of saying this is that, in
relation to education, policy positions and goals are cultivated in the particular
social realities of policy makers which may not be shared by those outside
the decision-making process. As a result, we might expect policy meaning to
be understood and interpreted differently in school communities. Thus,
individually and collectively teachers within their school communities will
operate policy according to their local contexts, experiences and values, even
where there is a strong element of statutory compliance. They will interact with
policy not in a one-to-one reading of what ‘is required’ but in an interactive
frame which involves their own interpretation within localised communities
of practice1.
One possible benefit of this kind of conceptual approach to the relationship
between policy and teacher discourses is that we can begin to see teachers’
responses to and representations of policy as situated within a particular
6 Prospect Vol. 18, No. 2 August 2003
ANGELA CREESE AND CONSTANT LEUNG
ideological environment. This is important because it allows us to see that
teachers are not to be held solely responsible for the variations and inconsistencies
in their ‘takes’ on policy. We explore this in the second part of this paper.
Inclusive society: From difference to commonality
One of the recurring themes of domestic politics in contemporary Britain
has been the need to find a way of living with ethno-linguistic diversity.
According to the current statistics, about 4 million (6.7 per cent of 58.7
million) of the total UK population are from ethnic minority backgrounds.
And this figure is likely to grow rapidly because of the combined effects of
natural population growth and accelerating immigration projected for the
next twenty years.
(Source: The Guardian, November 2002)
Figure 1: The ethnic minority population (percentage of total population
in UK)
In the school population it is estimated that 10 per cent of the students are
of ethnic minority heritage and over half a million students come from
homes where English is not the first language. (DfEE 1997)
Ethnic and linguistic diversity is celebrated in social and educational policy
statements. For instance, in a speech made to an audience of black teenagers,
the Home Secretary is reported to have made the following statement:
Wherever we come from, whatever our roots or our faith, we have a stake in
being British and we can be proud of that. Celebrating diversity and building
a fairer, more confident multicultural nation with a fresh, strong sense of
national identity is an important and timely project. Having confidence in
yourself and holding on to a dream of what you can achieve is so important.
Nothing should hold you back in reaching your full potential. I want a society
that gives you these chances, a society where each of you, regardless of colour
or race or religion has an equal opportunity to succeed. It is your future and
we need to hear from you. (TTA 2000: 7) (Emphasis added)
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1951 1961 1971 1976 1981 1983 1991 2001
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TEACHERS’ DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF ETHNO-LINGUISTIC DIFFERENCE:
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This statement reflects a view of society where the construction of a
fairer and multicultural nation is a two-way affair based on equal worth:
‘society’ will give everyone, irrespective of racial and religious difference, an
equal chance to succeed and ‘minorities’ are invited to make an active effort
to participate in this new nation-building project. There is an implicit partnership
in this formulation which can be traced back, at least, to the Swann
Report (DES 1985: 5) which was charged with a specific brief to address
educational issues for ethnic minorities:
We believe that a genuinely pluralist society cannot be achieved without the
social integration of ethnic minority communities and the ethnic majority
community within a common whole. Whilst we are not looking for the assimilation
of the minority communities within an unchanged dominant way of life,
we are perhaps looking for the ‘assimilation’ of all groups within a redefined
concept of what it means to live in British society today. (Original italics)
Like the Home Secretary’s statement quoted above, the report explicitly
acknowledges the existence of ethnicity as a key consideration and argues for
a particular kind of inclusive and active pluralism. Thus it can be seen that in
the past two decades there has been a fairly consistent policy direction.
Educational inclusion:The construction of an open-access
mainstream
The sentiments concerning social inclusion seen earlier are very much reflected
in the more specifically education-oriented policy statements. For instance:
Many children in English schools regularly speak a language other than English
and about 200 different languages are used by pupils in the classroom. Such
linguistic diversity is an asset. It provides an opportunity for pupils to gain firsthand
experience, knowledge and understanding of other cultures and perspectives.
It also helps to prepare pupils for life in a multicultural society by
promoting respect for all forms of language. Variety of language is a rich
resource which schools should use as they implement the National Curriculum.
(NCC 1991: 1)
The majority-minority coming together view of society is clearly reflected
in this perspective of school education. Linguistic diversity is presented as
an asset in the creation of an inclusive multicultural society. That is, other
languages are promoted for their role in fostering a deeper understanding of
cultural diversity, not for their role in teaching and learning processes. The
English language predominantly maintains this function. Perhaps it is not
surprising then that all teachers are expected to take on the responsibility
of teaching English to those ‘bilingual’ students who are more or less new
to English:
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ANGELA CREESE AND CONSTANT LEUNG
Language teaching is the professional responsibility of all teachers … The
National Curriculum is for all pupils except the few for whom modification
and disapplication is appropriate … Providing access to the curriculum for
bilingual pupils means planning and implementing schemes of work which
meet individual needs. The pupil’s own level of language development should
provide the starting point for work. (NCC 1991: 1)
The ‘access’ to the curriculum referred to in this advice has been largely
interpreted to mean the use of classroom strategies such as the use of visuals
and realia to convey meaning, hands-on activities to encourage direct participation,
and the use of matrices and true/false exercises to bypass some of
the more complex language demands. In other words, the focus of attention
is on classroom process. With the possible exception of grammar (DfES 2002),
there has been little explicit and disciplined discussion on the systematic
development of EAL and students’ L1 language learning, that is, language
curriculum issues (see NCC 1991; SCAA 1996; QCA 2000 and DfEE 2001
for official curriculum statements; for a discussion see Leung 2001).
While the official statements on multiculturalism and EAL are technically
advisory, in practice they form a prominent and unavoidable part of teachers’
professional environment because many of the ideas embedded in these statements
are operationalised in key working documents such as the inspection
criteria used to evaluate teaching quality (for example, OFSTED 2001).
Method
This discussion makes use of two sets of teacher interview discourse data. The
first set is drawn from a year-long ethnographical study in three London
secondary schools in which the aim of the project was to look at the policy
of inclusion in classroom practice through the eyes of collaborating teachers
(Creese 1997). The ethnographic and semi-structured interview data comes
from 26 teachers in total. Twelve of these were EAL teachers and fourteen
were curriculum subject teachers. Of the twelve EAL teachers, six teachers
were bilingual Turkish-speaking EAL teachers. The remaining EAL teachers
were not bilingual in a classroom community language other than English.
The second set is drawn from a project which was an evaluation study of
an EAL in-service training course. The data reported here are part of a corpus
of interviews with 25 class or subject teachers who participated in this training
course (Davies and Leung 2001). The teacher quotes are drawn from the semistructured
interviews with the participants at the beginning of the training
course; the purpose of these interviews was to establish the teachers’ professional
views on EAL-related issues.
Both sets of data were selected and analysed in the same manner. First,
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the individual researchers selected interview transcripts which touched on
issues of inclusion. These data sets were then exchanged with the second
researcher. Next a process of interpretation began as each researcher separately
offered their interpretation of the transcripts to one another. Finally
several themes were settled on as being salient across the two different sets of
teacher interview data. These themes resonated with the themes emerging
from the policy documents. Two of the themes are discussed in this paper:
first, notions of linguistic difference and its place in the mainstream classroom;
and second, the conceptualisation of EAL and its perceived impact
on students’ intellectual/language development.
Linguistic difference:The role of other languages in the
mainstream classroom
We have argued above that a certain continuity exists in the policy direction
taken by successive British governments toward developing a particular view
of multicultural Britain. Inclusion in Britain today incorporates differences
in race, religion and roots (see earlier Home Secretary quote). The absence
of linguistic differences incorporated into this view is marked. Speaking
another language is not a difference included in the current nation-building
agenda. However, this absence also tracks a continuity in past and present
policy documents. Support for other languages in public policy has never
moved beyond a minimal transitional endorsement with the expectation of
eventual full acquisition and use of English in the public domain. The use
of languages other than English in England is seen as the remit of the
home.2
Within education policy documents we see a similar ‘under’ endorsement
of other languages. They are viewed as providing a rich resource for
the learning of English language and their use is transitional only.
The National Curriculum recognises that variety of language is a rich resource
which can support learning in English. Where appropriate, pupils should be
encouraged to make use of their understanding and skills in other languages in
learning English. (SCAA 1996: 2)
However, there is an increasing criticism of this ‘rich resource’ view of
other languages as it does little more than ‘celebrate’ bilingualism to indicate
moral and social approval (Bourne 2001; Creese 2000, in press; Martin-Jones
and Saxena 1996, in press). It is rarely translated into systematic curriculum
action. The point made is that minority languages are, as a rule, not used in the
classroom by teachers or students in arguably the most important of schools’
aims, the guided construction of curriculum knowledge (Mercer 1995).
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ANGELA CREESE AND CONSTANT LEUNG
Therefore, the marginal use, if at all, of minority languages functions in ways
which lower their status within the school setting. The inclusive rhetoric of
government policy towards linguistic difference, then, is held at the level of a
celebratory discourse without any real bite. Now let us turn to consider how
some teachers talked about linguistic diversity in their classrooms.
As we would expect, teachers express a huge variety of views regarding the
use of other languages in mainstream classrooms. These include an endorsement
of the ‘rich resource’ and transitional view of bilingualism put forward
in policy documents.
Teacher data Extract 1
Yes it [students’ first language] can be a great support, it can be a great pastoral
support. I don’t know whether sometimes it stays too much part of the classroom.
I don’t know. I mean, this is a vague observation, but when sometimes a
lesson is accessed by translation, I don’t know whether that is terribly helpful
... I think there is a bit of a risk in terms of too much use of mother tongue
from teacher to pupil within the classroom. Outside the classroom, yes, for
different purposes, but within the classroom it can be risky.
(Deputy head, secondary school)
This deputy head puts forward a general position very similar to the policy
documents above but with qualification. The utterances ‘… sometimes it
stays too much part of the classroom …’ and ‘… when sometimes a lesson
is accessed by translation, I don’t know whether that is terribly helpful …’
seem to question the value of minority first languages for teaching and
learning purposes. Other languages have a place in schools for pastoral purposes
but not for classroom work. And indeed we can see the construction
of the school classroom as an English only zone in some teacher discourse.
Teacher data Extract 2
I think it should be used as rarely as possible. And I am not sure if that is
because I cannot use it and I am jealous. Maybe it is that slight ego thing, that the
way I do it is best and because the way I do it is in English, there is that side of
you that thinks this is the best way of doing it.
(EAL teacher, secondary school)
A similar sentiment to Extract 1 is expressed here. However, the teacher
offers a set of even more complex personal and professional views. The sense
in ‘… I am not sure if that is because I cannot use it and I am jealous’ seems
to point to a perceived futility of promoting the use of minority languages
when teachers do not have the expertise and, at the same time, there appears
to be an acknowledgment that knowing another language is a good thing in
itself. This EAL teacher presents his work as supporting the acquisition of
Prospect Vol. 18, No. 2 August 2003 11
TEACHERS’ DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF ETHNO-LINGUISTIC DIFFERENCE:
PROFESSIONAL ISSUES IN WORKING WITH INCLUSIVE POLICY
English through curriculum learning. Like many teachers working in primary
and secondary schools, the belief is that learning English can best happen in
the rich input context of the mainstream classroom. And yet teachers also
express a dilemma and uneasiness with this view. In the following quote, the
teacher is responding to the question, ‘Do you think bilingual children learn
best in the mainstream classroom?’
Teacher data Extract 3
It depends on their language ability. Where we have complete and utter beginners,
no I don’t think they should be in the classroom. They are just so demanding
in terms of time, you either teach them or you don’t and if you teach them
nobody else gets a look in, or the amount of time they have from me is so
minimal that it is not fair on anybody. Yes, I am always conscious that they
want more time ... On the other hand you are aware that the lesson is coming to
an end in five minutes time, you want to do an overall summary for everybody
and often it is much quicker to say well, that is the answer, and do it for them.
(History teacher, secondary school)
In this quote we can see the overall pressure and responsibility the subject
teacher feels towards the curriculum and the lack of responsibility that he
feels towards teaching English. However, such is the pressure for curriculum
transmission, that we can see an interesting endorsement by subject teachers
for the use of minority languages in the classroom beyond the limited
minority language as ‘rich resource’ function.
Teacher data Extract 4
I don’t discourage the use of the first language if people need to communicate
in it. I am quite happy if it clarifies. I mean, I can’t use it myself because I have
no idea. But if somebody said yes, he could understand this if we translated it,
then yes. Because as I said, my aim is to get them to understand. I don’t care if
they understand in English, Turkish or whatever.
(Geography teacher, secondary school)
This teacher, in contrast with the other teachers cited above, seems to take
an instrumental view of language as a medium of instruction; this view seems
to say: if using Turkish gets the job done, then let’s use it. The pressures of delivering
the statutory curriculum content may be linked to this instrumental view.
The use of minority languages for curriculum learning in secondary
schools was fairly consistently endorsed by subject teachers in the ethnographic
data (Creese 1997, 2002). This went hand in hand with the request
for bilingual EAL support or the subject teacher expressing an interest in
teaching the subject area bilingually. Below three teacher transcripts from different
schools are given.
12 Prospect Vol. 18, No. 2 August 2003
ANGELA CREESE AND CONSTANT LEUNG
Teacher data Extract 5
I wish I could have a Turkish-speaking member of staff, who could come in and
help. But obviously that is not possible, because of lack of resources. But yes,
sometimes I come out of lessons and I feel I’ve failed in my job to try to get to
all the children, you know, I’ve failed to help kids who couldn’t understand
what I was saying because of the language barrier and I do wish I had Birgul
(bilingual EAL teacher) in the class. And I’m sure that sometimes the pupils
also feel that ‘I wish Birgul were here so that they could understand what Sir
was trying to tell me.’ But I do see that as part of the teaching process, you
know, having to struggle to get to a pupil’s understanding and level.
(Mathematics teacher, secondary school)
Teacher data Extract 6
We do not do enough about different cultures, about their cultures, getting
them involved, bringing their culture into the classroom. I would love to do
teaching technology in another language, things like that. I would love to
make it more cultural because it tends to be very, very, white, middle-class
teaching that happens, certainly within the food area, I’ve noticed. Perhaps
you could come in, you could have a technology lesson, look at in another
language, look at it in another culture. (Technology teacher, secondary school)
Teacher data Extract 7
If I were head here I would employ a few more Turkish teachers without a
doubt and I would have them in the class. You know in different classes ... I
think first and foremost support and I would have a very clear program of
what I wanted to do. You know I’d maybe attach a Turkish teacher to every big
department and have them working with that department. You know something
like that could be real and it could work. But I don’t think there is any
urgency, I don’t think they see that ... I mean this is all to do with money ...
definitions of success are dictated by league table and I mean Turkish kids are
not going to show well in the league tables no matter what you do, so you
know they are going to take a back seat. (English teacher, secondary school)
These teacher quotes suggest that there is a body of opinion that, in
addition to adopting an instrumental view of language (that is, it doesn’t
matter which language you use, as long as the students can learn through it),
values a curriculum that is more permeated with multilingual practices. The
point made in the utterance ‘… definitions of success are dictated by league
table and I mean Turkish kids are not going to show well in the league
tables no matter what you do, so you know they are going to take a back
seat’ seems to reflect this teacher’s cynical appraisal of the assumptions and
priorities operating in the education system.
In this section we have tried to present a composite view of teachers’
discourses on minority languages in the mainstream. We see traces of
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TEACHERS’ DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF ETHNO-LINGUISTIC DIFFERENCE:
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top-down policy discourse in the local discourses of teachers, particularly in
respect of the views of other languages as transitional rich resources.
However, we also see a bottom-up discourse on linguistic and cultural diversity
not presented so obviously in policy documents. Our data show teachers
endorsing the instrumental use of minority languages for curriculum learning,
an approach which until now has not been addressed professionally but
may be understood in relation to the pressures teachers are under to deliver
the curriculum.
EAL as a curriculum issue
The data in the following section are drawn from a study of a professional
development program (Davies and Leung 2001). Under the current initial
teacher training arrangements, EAL is not a main subject option, and
trainee teachers cannot gain a qualified teacher status by studying it. Some
local education authorities organise in-service courses on EAL to extend
teachers’ knowledge and skills. The teacher participants on this particular
course were secondary and primary subject or class teachers without previous
formal training in EAL. We will focus on two of the recurring themes
that have emerged from the data. The first is concerned with how the
teacher participants construed EAL as a discipline. Responding to questions
in a semi-structured interview on why they joined the in-service course and
what they might wish to gain or learn from the in-service course on EAL
issues, the following extract of teacher discourse represents a broad direction
in the data:
Teacher data Extract 8
It has always been my belief, my philosophy, that if every student is given the
chance even though we have different levels, we will all be able to develop
the potential that we have. So that is one of my main aims of entering this
course … First and foremost I want to see that they love the subject. There are
some individuals who like to be there but some of them think, you know,
because they are very weak in English they feel that they don’t want to come,
not that they don’t want to come because they think I’m going to be harsh on
them or something but I’m not, but what I want them to note is that we are
just here to help them so they will be able to know that it is because of them
that I’m here to help them and therefore they will be able to enjoy the lesson
as we go along. (Secondary teacher)
Teacher data Extract 9
Well, I think fundamentally being a teacher our business is educating children
and the most important part of that business is our relationship, that is, if you
14 Prospect Vol. 18, No. 2 August 2003
ANGELA CREESE AND CONSTANT LEUNG
have got a teacher who hasn’t got a good relationship, who doesn’t understand
the children, then they are not going to be able to gain the children’s confidence
or be able to teach the children. The children aren’t going to have any respect
for them. Where else if you have got a teacher that has got their confidence and
understands them and understands how they work and how their background
works, then in terms of pushing the children on and producing not just academic
standards but social standards and behavioural standards is a really, really
important thing. (Primary teacher)
These remarks were made at the beginning of an in-service training course,
so it would be unreasonable to expect the participants to have an insightful
and detailed view on the content of the in-service program. But what is
interesting is the conceptualisation underpinning these remarks in terms of
what EAL is. It would seem that the participant teachers here were expressing
professionally responsible but highly generalised and cross-disciplinary
views of the importance of being helpful and approachable to students, the
need to motivate students, and the need to build good relations with
students. These qualities, arguably, are equally important in the teaching of
all curriculum areas and for all students. We would suggest that these remarks
reflect a perception of EAL as a highly diffused curriculum process directly
concerned with the humanistic aspects of schooling and teaching. The fact
that (non-EAL) secondary subject teachers and primary class teachers
appeared to hold such a view is quite telling. We might ask ourselves, were
these teachers to be taking an in-service course in another curriculum area in
which they were non-expert, such as the teaching of science or mathematics,
would they show a similar concern with just the humanistic aspects of
teaching? Or, could we expect that at the start of such a science or mathematics
‘taster’ or ‘familiarisation’ course, teachers would express a desire to
receive some specific subject content input in the disciplinary area under
study? Put differently, it would be reasonable to expect that in any discussion
on the teaching of, say, mathematics, there is likely to be at least some reference
to the subject content such as ‘number’ and ‘measure’. And yet, when EAL
is discussed this does not seem to be the case. In Extracts 8 and 9 above, the
absence of any mention of the content of EAL is noticeable. The two
teacher quotes focus on pedagogy in the widest possible sense. They are
focused on the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’ of learning. Obviously, the ‘how’
is a concern for all teachers in all subject areas. What is missing in these quotes
is the ‘what’ of EAL, the absence of which suggests that the teaching of EAL is
being constructed as a ‘content-free’ aspect of teaching. EAL is represented
as a kind of ‘sensitive’ encounter and engagement between the teacher and
EAL students, rather than as a subject area with its own knowledge base of
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educational/applied linguistics and language learning. In a sense we can see
the influence of the policy discourse on teachers. When there is little sustained
and systematic discussion on the learning/teaching content of EAL in
policy documents, then this process-oriented conceptualisation is perhaps
unsurprising.
When invited to say something about their individual concerns about
EAL in general, we found two main types of expressed opinions in the data,
which can be exemplified by the following two quotes:
Teacher data Extract 10
Well, there is one thing I feel quite bad about it is that when sometimes the
children speak in their own language in the class … but they are not really
[encouraged] to communicate really in class with their own language …
(Secondary teacher)
Teacher data Extract 11
Yes, children where their parents are not helping. I’m talking about in the sense
of parents who can’t read or write, not English per se, but any other language
and I have interviewed some of them and you would be surprised most of
these students that I have parents (unclear)3 speak even Urdu or in their local
dialect they speak but they can’t read or write themselves, and the children
therefore have this very weak background because they are very weak in
English and also because their parents can’t even speak English, their grammar
and construction is not good enough. And therefore they are lost in two
worlds, they come to school, we help them, but once they are in the home,
homework is not done because there is nobody to explain … so I’m worried
that they are being left out, these children are being left out.
(Secondary teacher)
The first of these two teacher quotes represents a personal response to linguistic
diversity which is consistent with the official policy position. The
second is indicative of a particular concern among some teachers that EAL
children are, in a fundamental way, suffering from the lack of support
because the home situation is so very different from what the school or the
teachers themselves would consider to be a supportive environment. The
idea that ‘[the students] are lost in two worlds’ seems to suggest the diglossic
situation these students live with is not conducive to development in
English. The difference between the home language (and cultural) practices
and the school’s expectations is seen as a difficulty or a potential problem.
From the point of view of this discussion, we note that the first of these two
quotes raises questions about school-based institutional ethos and practices
which may suggest a collective local disposition which is divergent from the
public policy stance. Here the teacher was expressing a concern about the
16 Prospect Vol. 18, No. 2 August 2003
ANGELA CREESE AND CONSTANT LEUNG
negative evaluation of EAL students’ other languages in school. The second
is indicative of a view that cultural and linguistic diversity is a deficit from
an ethno-linguistic-majority perspective. The students in question are seen
to have the wrong kind of cultural and linguistic capital. This perspective is
at variance with the official construction of a multiculturalism that is based
on an assumption of equal worth of all parties involved. These examples
indicate that divergence from a central policy may occur at an individual
teacher level as well as at the level of institutional practice.
Policy as issue-raising and problem-solving
The teacher discourse reported here strongly supports the view that educational
policy, just like any other area of public policy, in a society such as Britain
cannot be regarded as a blueprint for straightforward interpretation and
implementation. Yanow (1996: 8) points out that ‘[t]oo much of policy
analysis, implementation studies, and descriptions of policy process is shaped
by the assumption that all human action is literal and instrumentally rational’.
In reality policy statements tend to represent an expression of a developed and
articulated position based on a particular point of view. Educational policies
are no different from any other kind of public policy in this respect. As Ball
(1997) argues, the first-order participants, in this case teachers and schools,
have to work out a local response based on their interpretation and evaluation
of policy meaning.
The British inclusive education policy acknowledges linguistic diversity
among the student population, and at the same time endorses a form of
transitional bilingualism that privileges English as the preferred language. It
promotes active majority-minority participation in the mainstream educational
arena which appears to place a premium on projecting a two-way process of
majority-minority interaction, and to underplay the differentials in participants’
(majority or minority) background or current readiness for such engagement.
The teachers in our studies appeared to have interpreted and responded to
policy in ways which reflect a mixture of personal and professional concerns.
When one of the teachers said ‘I cannot use [students’ L1] … maybe it is
that slight ego thing, that the way I do it is best …’, it was a highly personal
response. When another teacher said that ‘my aim is to get them to understand.
I don’t care if they understand in English, Turkish or whatever’, it was a professional
response invoking the concern of a subject teacher to help students
understand content.
It is not suggested here that the current inclusive education in Britain is
a ‘failed’ policy in the sense that the key tenets of this policy are wrongheaded
or ill conceived. What we are suggesting is that if we are to understand
Prospect Vol. 18, No. 2 August 2003 17
TEACHERS’ DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF ETHNO-LINGUISTIC DIFFERENCE:
PROFESSIONAL ISSUES IN WORKING WITH INCLUSIVE POLICY
what a policy means, and how it works out, we need to pay attention to the
ways policy meanings are understood and taken up by practitioners/teachers.
The implementation of a policy clearly does not entirely depend upon individual
teacher interpretations and responses. However, for an educational
policy to be something that teachers can work with productively, and not just
a requirement to be carried out as a kind of ‘performativity’, then it has to
resonate well with teachers’ perceptions and concerns. This means that policy
makers and planners may have to take note of the ways the rational and the
cognitively known elements of policy interact with teacher values, and local
practices and concerns. Conventionally policy-oriented professional development
activities tend to assume universal teacher complicity and to focus on
practical implementation issues. Our analysis and empirical findings would
argue that professional development activities should pay a great deal more
attention to explicating and developing policy meanings at a local level, taking
into account prevailing teacher values and institutional practices. An open
top-down and bottom-up interaction between central policy and local
responses will assist effective policy analysis and evaluation; it will also help
promote a consciousness of the need for continuous rethinking and updating
of central policy and local practices.
NOTES
1 The recent experience of the implementation of Proposition 227 in California is a
good case in point; accounts provided by Maxwell-Jolly (2000) and Garcia and
Curry-Rodriguez (2000), among others, show the complex interaction between
policy and local realities.
2 Even the home context as a place to use other languages has recently been called into
question. See the Home Secretary’s recent remarks on using other languages at home
(Guardian Unlimited, 2002)
3 Key: (unclear) = unclear audio recording
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Bourne, J. (2001). Doing ‘what comes naturally’: How the discourses and routines of
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TEACHERS’ DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF ETHNO-LINGUISTIC DIFFERENCE:
PROFESSIONAL ISSUES IN WORKING WITH INCLUSIVE POLICY
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English as an additional language
policy: Issues of inclusive access and
language learning in the mainstream
CONSTANT LEUNG – King’s College, London
ABSTRACT
English as an additional language (EAL) in school education has been mainstreamed
in England since the mid-1980s. The current EAL policy, rooted in
a time when there was a perceived need to tackle racism, has been strongly
motivated by principles of equality of access to educational provision. The
integration of EAL students into the mainstream curriculum has been a policy
priority. However, the development of EAL as language pedagogy within the
mainstream curriculum has received insufficient attention. The three-fold aim of
this article is (a) to give a conceptual account of the current EAL policy, which
is built on a view of EAL as a pupil-support strategy without a recognised
curriculum base, (b) to identify some of the strengths and problems of this
policy in terms of curriculum provision, teacher practice and teacher training,
and (c) to discuss some of the curriculum and pedagogic tensions and contradictions
facing EAL within an educational environment that has been shaped by
extensive curriculum specification and prescription. This discussion assumes
that mainstreaming of EAL students is a necessary step toward genuine educational
integration, but by itself it is not sufficient to promote effective language
and curriculum learning.
Context
The United Kingdom (UK), as a nation state, has long experience
of societal multilingualism within its borders because of the presence of
Welsh, (Scottish and other varieties of ) Gaelic, Scots and other indigenous
languages. However, since the 1960s and 1970s the nature of this societal
multilingualism has changed dramatically because of the arrivals of the large
groups of new Commonwealth citizens whose first language was not
English. And more recently its membership of the European Union has
meant citizens from other member states can take up employment and
residence in the UK without major hindrance. The continuing need to
meet the labour demands of the economy has also meant the recruitment of
workers from other parts of the world. These movements of people have
96 Prospect Vol. 20, No. 1 April 2005
CONSTANT LEUNG
meant that English as an additional/second language has become an
important social and educational policy concern (for example, Bullock
1975; Department of Education and Science (DES) 1985; Commission for
Racial Equality (CRE) 1986; Department of Education and Science (DES)
1989; Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) 1999;
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) 2000; DfEE 2001). At
present over 659 000 school-aged students are recorded as having a mother
tongue other than English in England and Wales, about 10 per cent of the
school population (DfES 2004). And it has been estimated that there are
almost half a million adults whose first language is not English and ‘who
have little command of the English language’ (DfEE 1999: 19). These raw
figures clearly do not accurately reflect the actual levels of English language
competence of these speakers of other languages, nor do they tell us the
types of language learning needs to be addressed. But they provide a glimpse
of the considerable scale of this educational issue.
This article examines the current policies on EAL in state-funded schools.
Young people can stay at school up to the age of 18 to complete their
Advanced Level studies (essential for university matriculation). Some leave
school at 16 and go on to further education (FE) colleges to re-take their
school leaving examinations and/or to follow Advanced Level or
vocational studies. There is a school EAL policy, which covers all primary and
secondary schools. The English as an additional/second language policy
for the post-16 sector operating in FE colleges and other adult education
institutions – generally referred to as English for Speakers of Other Languages
(ESOL) – is quite different from the one for school EAL. Although this
discussion is mainly concerned with EAL in school, I will mention the ESOL
policy and provision where appropriate to provide a fuller picture of the
current policy situation affecting all students with EAL up to the age of 18 in
different types of educational institutions.
Terminologically I will use the official labels EAL and ESOL. Given the
devolved nature of political administration in the UK, my observations and
comments are largely confined to policies and practices in England. I will
first describe the current school EAL and other related policies in
curriculum terms. Next I will discuss some of the ways in which EAL has
been understood, interpreted and enacted at the ‘shop-floor’ level by
teachers in the prevailing policy environment. After that I will discuss some
of the strengths and drawbacks in terms of teacher practice and teacher
professional knowledge. The overall aim is to offer an informed discussion
on some of the long-term educational and pedagogic questions engendered
by the current policy and curriculum provision. It is assumed that
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ISSUES OF INCLUSIVE ACCESS AND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE MAINSTREAM
mainstreaming of EAL students is a desirable and necessary step towards
greater social integration and participation by language minority students,
but this process should be accompanied by a pedagogy that integrates EAL
with curriculum content in systematic and principled ways (Davison and
Williams 2001; Leung and Franson 2001a).
EAL in school education
The approach to EAL in England has shifted over the years from an English
as a Foreign Language (EFL) perspective, which prioritised language
learning and paid relatively little attention to the broader curriculum, to
a particular interpretation of the idea of mainstreaming. Before the
mainstreaming policy was put into practice, EAL students were often taught
in separate language centres with little or no access to the mainstream
curriculum for periods of time up to 18 months (see Townsend 1971;
Leung and Franson 2001b). From the point of view of this discussion the
most significant policy shift occurred in the mid-1980s when the mainstreaming
of EAL received explicit official endorsement (see CRE 1986;
National Curriculum Council 1991; School Curriculum and Assessment
Authority (SCAA) 1996; QCA 2000; DfEE 2001 for policy statements).1
At the point of its inception this policy was designed to remove a barrier to
equality of access to education, that is students should not be denied access
to the mainstream curriculum, irrespective of their English language
competence. Under this particular interpretation of mainstreaming, all
students who are in the process of learning EAL, with the possible exception
of those who are in short-term English language induction courses in some
schools2, are expected to follow the statutory National Curriculum in
age-appropriate classes. In other words, EAL students are expected to learn
English while engaged in curriculum subject work. EAL does not have a
subject status in the National Curriculum.
It is important to note here that the National Curriculum is a standardsbased
framework with detailed content specifications and stages/levels of
attainment in all the key subjects such as English, Science and Mathematics
(see for example, DES 1989; DfEE and QCA 1999). In effect the
curriculum specifications and assessment criteria for the National
Curriculum subject English and its associated literacy curriculum serve as
a set of common content specifications for both mother-tongue Englishspeaking
students and those who are still in the process of learning EAL.
EAL staff are encouraged to work collaboratively with their subject
colleagues in mainstream lessons. Partnership Teaching (DES 1991), a model
for subject and EAL teachers to plan, teach and develop the curriculum
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CONSTANT LEUNG
together, is the officially endorsed modus operandi for all teachers working
with EAL students. In terms of teacher preparation, EAL is not a main subject
specialism in initial teacher training and there is no mandatory specialist
qualification. The last of the state-funded pre-service EAL (as subject
specialism) teaching training courses in higher education institutions were
withdrawn in the early 1990s. In one official press release it was reported that
‘the proportion of specialist staff with appropriate qualifications is now as
low as 3 per cent in some LEAs [local education authorities]’ (Office for
Standards in Education [OFSTED] 2002). Specialist EAL teacher training,
where it exists, tends to be in-service, non-qualificatory, voluntary and
localised (although there is a small-scale pilot in-service training project
funded by the central authorities this year for the first time since 1992).
In general, EAL is seen as a supra-subject phenomenon; it is regarded as a
general teaching and learning issue, and not a specific language teaching and
learning issue. The idea that ‘all teachers are teachers of EAL’ is often stated in
official policy and advisory documents. So in a sense the mainstreaming of
EAL is more about student participation in a common curriculum, and much
less about integrating the specialist pedagogic concerns of EAL-minded
language teaching into the mainstream curriculum. This particular approach
to an ‘EAL-across the curriculum’ perspective is built on a set of pedagogic
principles which I characterise as ‘person-oriented’ (see Leung 2003 for
a related discussion). This orientation can be traced back to the liberal
humanistic perspective on language development. An early proponent of this
perspective was Levine (published posthumously, edited by Meek 1996), who
saw mixed ability teaching in mainstream classrooms as a potentially effective
response to meeting the language learning needs of EAL students. Levine
emphasised the importance of ‘letting children have their own voice’ (Meek
1996: 15, italics in original). It is suggested that, for instance, in the English
(subject) classroom the idea of students having their own voice means, inter
alia, setting a teaching context whereby EAL students are encouraged to
engage with ideas and projects which reflect their own interests as well as
to work collaboratively in small groups with one another. In this perspective,
social interaction between students and between students and teachers is seen
as pivotal to additional language development. While the importance of the
curriculum and the teacher’s work is acknowledged, the focus of attention is
on the ‘dynamic and dialectical learning relationships’ (Meek 1996: 118). The
English language is considered in terms of (a) the ‘underlying systems of rules
which govern native speakers’ use of English’ and ‘structure’ (for example,
sentence level grammar) (Meek 1996: 22–23) and (b) communicative
competence in an abstract process sense:
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ISSUES OF INCLUSIVE ACCESS AND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE MAINSTREAM
In so far as communicative competence equates with having learned language
behaviour which is both appropriate and effective for the context of our lives,
we all probably learn what we are able to do – no matter how different that is
in kind or extent – in much the same way. That is to say, we are, and have
been, open to external stimulae and motivation to learn the code and its
appropriate use while, at the same time, having the opportunity to exercise an
innate drive to learn on the code and on the situations and contexts in which
particular parts of it are used … If these observations are applied to the
communicative teaching of an additional language, it must surely suggest a more
active role for learners in the learning-teaching process, and a more interactive
one, allowing development from the data of the environment.
(Meek 1996: 123–4)
The language teaching agenda for the teacher in this conceptualisation is
essentially responsive or reactive in that the kind of teacher intervention
made is dependent on the needs or interests shown in the active work of the
EAL student. In a fundamental sense the student takes the lead in this
conceptualisation of pedagogy.
Teachers are expected to see EAL development as part of the overall learning
needs of individual students. Conceptually, additional/second language
teaching and learning are considered as an inherent part of the wider communication
and participatory processes in the classroom. The ‘EALness’ of this
approach lies in its emphasis on making classroom activities ‘accessible’ to all
students. This perspective has been further elaborated in the officially promoted
Partnership Teaching model (Bourne 1989; DES 1991; DfEE 2001):
Learning is best achieved through enquiry-based activities involving discussion
… To learn a language it is necessary to participate in its meaningful use …The
curriculum itself is therefore a useful vehicle for language learning … A main
strategy … for both curriculum learning and language learning is the flexible
use of small group work … (Bourne 1989: 63)
At the very beginning of the introduction of the National Curriculum
teachers were advised that:
Like all students, bilingual students should have access to a stimulating
curriculum which, at the same time, helps their language development …
• Oral and written responses at different attainment levels can be encouraged
by the use of a balance of open-ended and structured tasks.
• Matrices, true/ false exercises … can help to ensure that achievement is
not entirely dependent on proficiency in English.
• Exercises with some repetitive element/ such as science experiments …
provide a pattern which supports language development.
(National Curriculum Council 1991: 1–2)
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CONSTANT LEUNG
A few years later broadly similar advice was offered:
Effective planning … makes use of variation in teaching styles, including
direct instruction and one-to-one tuition, which offer students learning EAL
talk opportunities for concentrated listening as well as participation in group
talk requiring interaction. (SCAA 1996: 13)
More recently this approach is demonstrated in an official video showing
EAL and subject staff working together to devise classroom activities which
aim to make complex subject content more understandable and ‘doable’ for
EAL beginners by using visuals, devising student tasks with reduced
(English) language demand, and encouraging EAL students to use their
first language (with peers and teaching staff where possible) to gain
understanding of subject content meaning where possible (for further details
see DfEE 2001).
The school EAL policy does not provide tangible resources for the teachers
in the forms of a dedicated curriculum, mandatory subject-based preservice
or in-service training, or teaching materials. EAL posts in school are
part-funded by a time-limited supplementary central grant, the Ethnic
Minority Achievement Grant, which is used to cover a variety of initiatives
related to the raising of attainment by ethnic minority (not just EAL) school
students and related staff training. Seen in this light the school EAL policy
approximates to Anderson’s (1984) notion of a symbolic policy which, in
effect, represents an official declaration of preferences with relatively low levels
of material and/or legislative resources attached. This situation contrasts quite
sharply with the post-16 policy and provision (see next section).
Wider context: English literacy in the National Curriculum
and ESOL for 16+
EAL students are expected to develop their English knowledge and skills
through the full range of school subjects. One particular recent curriculum
initiative, the National Literacy Strategy (DfEE 1998), is of particular
salience to this discussion. The literacy curriculum produced as part of this
strategy was initially designed for primary schools. More recently many of
its conceptual ideas and some of its curriculum contents have been extended
for secondary schools. Because this initiative has gone through name
changes as it developed and extended itself over the past few years3, for
reasons of brevity, from now on I will refer to the successive government
actions in the past decade to increase the levels of attainment in literacy
simply as the ‘literacy strategy’.
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The literacy strategy was developed as a response to the perceived failure
of schools to produce the levels of literacy (and numeracy) skills required for
competitive international trade and technological innovation (Barber 1997).
It was argued that a more disciplined and rigorous literacy curriculum was
needed to supplement the teaching of English in the National Curriculum
and to push up standards. At the same time, a series of achievement targets
was set for different phases of school education, for example, 85 per cent of
the 11-year olds were expected to achieve Level 4 (Level 8 is the highest) in
national English tests in 2004.4 The initial National Literacy Strategy
(DfEE 1998) sets out a term-by-term curriculum content specification, ‘the
Framework for Teaching’, for the first six years of school education. The
following is a small extract from the Year 1, Term 1 statement:
Word level work: phonics, spelling and vocabulary …
Phonological awareness, phonics and spelling
1 … to practise and secure the ability to rhyme, and to relate this to
spelling patterns through:
– exploring and playing with rhyming patterns;
– generating rhyming strings, for example, fat, hat, pat;
2 … to practise and secure alphabetic letter knowledge and alphabetic
order;
3 ... to practise and secure the ability to hear initial and final phonemes in
CVC words, for example, fit, mat, pan…
4 to discriminate and segment all three phonemes in CVC words …
Sentence level work: grammar and punctuation …
Grammatical awareness
1 to expect written text to make sense and to check for sense if it does not;
2 to use awareness of the grammar of a sentence to decipher new or
unfamiliar words …
Sentence construction and punctuation
5 to recognise full stops and capital letters when reading and name them
correctly …
Text level work: comprehension and composition …
Fiction and poetry
Reading comprehension
1 to reinforce and apply their word-level skills through shared and guided
reading;
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CONSTANT LEUNG
2 to use phonological, contextual, grammatical and graphic knowledge
to work out, predict and check the meanings of unfamiliar words and to
make sense of what they read …
Writing composition
8 through shared and guided writing to apply phonological, graphic knowledge
and sight vocabulary to spell words accurately …
Non-fiction
Reading comprehension
12 to read and use captions, e.g. labels around the school, on equipment …
Writing composition
14 to write captions for their own work, for example, for display, in class
books … (DfEE 1998: 20–21)
This highly specified literacy curriculum comes with an equally welldefined
pedagogy. When the National Literacy Strategy was first
implemented, schools were advised to set aside one hour each school day for
the teaching of literacy. The Literacy Hour, itself, was to be organised into
four segments: 15 minutes of whole class reading and writing, 15 minutes of
focused word or sentence work, 20 minutes of group or independent work,
and 10 minutes of plenary discussion. Although the National Literacy
Strategy has not been made statutory (unlike the National Curriculum itself ),
the powerful policy endorsement and public promotion meant that a vast
majority of primary schools has incorporated it into their school day in the
late 1990s. The literacy strategy in general has now been extended into
the secondary schooling. While the official insistence on adhering to some
aspects of its formal infrastructure, for example, the Literacy Hour, has been
relaxed a little recently, the notion of literacy teaching, as defined and
developed by the strategy, has impacted significantly on the teaching of
English and EAL in school. Although this literacy curriculum, the Framework
for Teaching, has been unmistakably designed to address the literacy teaching
issues for the general English as Mother Tongue (EMT) school population, it
also states that:
It is important that pupils with English as an additional language derive full
benefit from the National Literacy Strategy. The Framework for teaching,
and the Literacy Hour in which its objectives are taught, emphasise careful
listening, clear speech, supported reading and writing, phonemic awareness
and access to formal styles of written English. These emphases, and the
participative nature of whole-class and group work helps in teaching children
who speak EAL, where teachers take full account of their specific needs.
(DfEE 1998: 106)
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I will look at some of the policy-related issues generated by the literacy
strategy in relation to EAL in the last section of this article.
In the post-16 sector there is a different curriculum framework for EAL.
The Adult ESOL Core Curriculum (DfES 2001) was introduced as part
of a national policy initiative on adult education entitled ‘Skills for Life’. It
is linked to the National Standards for Adult Literacy (DfEE, QCA and The
Basic Skills Agency 2000), which also provides a mapping framework for
the various national curricula and key skills levels within the state sector
education and training provision. The Adult ESOL Core Curriculum is
a standards- and outcomes-based teaching and assessment framework. It
is part of a national initiative to raise levels of basic skills and to create
accessible conditions of educational entitlement. It has five levels: Entry 1,
Entry 2, Entry 3, Level 1 and Level 2. Like many other additional/second
language curricula, language, knowledge and skills are split into four
components: speaking, listening, reading and writing. The level descriptors
and the sample language and activities in this curriculum strongly suggest
that a functional perspective, often found in materials produced for the
international English language teaching market, has been adopted. For
instance, for Entry 2 Listening we find:
Basic Skills Standards level descriptor
An adult will be expected to:
1 listen for and follow the gist of explanations, instructions and narratives …
Component skill and knowledge and understanding
1a recognise context and predict general meaning
– be able to identify a situation and/or speakers, for example, in a
personal narrative, informal conversation …
Example of application and level
Recognise topic of conversation between friends, for example:
– So, how’d it go on Sunday?
– Oh, it was a wonderful day … lovely flowers … she looked fantastic,
but really nervous. The ceremony wasn’t too long, and the party
afterwards was great … lovely food … (DfES 2001: 124)
There is also a separate specification of key grammatical structures for
each level. For instance, for Entry 1:
Simple sentences
• word order in simple statements,
subject-verb-object, for example: She likes apples
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subject-verb-adverb, for example: He speaks slowly …
subject-verb-prepositional phrase, for example: He lives in London …
(DfES 2001: 30)
It is clear that ESOL has been granted a fully-fledged curriculum status
and a recognised body of disciplinary content. In many ways the Adult ESOL
Core Curriculum represents what Anderson would refer to as a material
policy because it provides ‘tangible resources … to their beneficiaries …’
(1984: 116). The official agencies are now introducing sponsored teaching
materials, teacher training and teacher qualifications.5 From the point of view
of educational policy study, the co-existence and co-presence of two very
different EAL policies, which can serve an overlapping section of the student
population (16 to 18 year olds), is in itself an interesting phenomenon. I will
comment on some of the issues raised by the incommensurability of these two
policies in the closing discussion.
EAL policy in practice
Policies are ‘operationalised statements of values’ (Ball 1990: 3). The
cumulative official pronouncements and advisory statements on EAL
teaching over a period of some 20 years represent the preferred values of
policy makers and policy backers. But promulgating a policy is quite
different from its actual implementation, particularly when the policy
concerned is largely symbolic in nature. To put it differently, how
practitioners understand and work with policies is not necessarily a
straightforward matter of technical and practical application. Ball argues
that we need a much more localised understanding of how policy works:
… policies pose problems to their subjects, problems that must be solved in
context. Solutions to the problems posed by policy texts will be localised and
should be expected to display ‘ad hocery’ and messiness. (Ball 1997: 270)
As Yanow (1996) observes, the relationship between policy and implementation
outcome is not necessarily one-way and top-down. Participant
mediation in the implementation process involves, among other things,
interpretation and negotiation of policy meaning. At a local level, policy
statements are often filtered through institutional and individual experiences,
values and perceptions. This is almost certainly the case in teaching in
England where the immense complexity in terms of curriculum, context and
expertise undermines any attempt at uniform mechanical proceduralisation.
Teachers will encounter policy statements not as menus of practical actions
to be followed, but as a set of licences and constraints which interacts with
their own interpretations in the context of localised practices. This view
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doesn’t suggest that one should deny the influence of policy. But we have to
understand policy impact in terms of local practices, taking into account the
constraints and licences it confers on practitioners. We will now look at some
aspects of policy meaning and implementation at the shop-floor level.
There is little doubt that the mainstreaming approach to EAL in schools
has produced some inspired teaching and remarkable student achievement.
For instance, Travers and Higgs provide an account of the exceptional
achievement of a Year 9 (approximately 14-year-old) French-speaking student,
Chlève, from the Democratic Republic of Congo who managed to produce
the following autobiographic piece after only 18 months in the English
|school system:
The memory of my grand father
When I was born I never know that this would happen to me. I never know
that one day I will lost my grand dad.
My grand dad was a person who had a good heart …
(Travers and Higgs 2004: 31)
Chlève’s achievement is attributed to his personal ability and a particular
teaching approach:
Chlève has made remarkable progress. He is an articulate, able student, keen
to learn. He has also been supported and challenged in the steps he’s made. He
has been provided with opportunities to work collaboratively, have access to
artefacts, visual resources, to read and analyse models of fluent writing and
make use of prompts …
A relationship has developed between Chlève and his teachers and other
students, enabling learning and language development to happen. ‘Human
relationships are at the heart of schooling’ writes Jim Cummins: The
interactions that take place between students and teachers and among
students are more central to student success than any method for teaching
literacy, or science or math. (1996) (Travers and Higgs 2004: 29)
We can readily see the person-oriented perspective at work in this
analysis of success. Chlève’s achievement is attributed first and foremost to
his ability, and the strong and supportive social relations that have
developed around him. Classroom techniques (for example, using visuals)
and strategies (for example, devising collaborative group work) are mere
props in this account. The explicit insistence on foregrounding the affective
human dimension (and the revealing of the student’s potential) as the key
factor for this student’s achievement is highly significant. The learning of
English (or science or math) is incidental evidence of success, but it is not at
the centre of the pedagogic discussion. Subject-based teaching methods are
certainly not foregrounded in this approach to pedagogy.
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This celebratory account of Chlève can be seen as a piece of powerful
affirmation of what the current EAL policy can produce (for further discussion
see OFSTED 1994; 1997; 2002). It gives licence to focus on developing
strong and positive human relations (therefore countering undesirable values
and practices associated with racism and language discrimination), which is
undeniably an important aspect of effective pedagogy. It also privileges the
pedagogic value of prioritising students’ immediate participation in classroom
work nested in supportive human relationships and support. There are
other similar official accounts of this approach, for example, DfEE (2001),
DES (1991) and OFSTED (1997). This emphasis on the affective and the
participatory dimensions of EAL dovetails very well with a strong public
policy endorsement of equal opportunities and harmonious inter-ethnic
integration in educational discourse concerned with ethnic minorities.
However, not all EAL students have the same affirmative learning
experience as reported in the Travers and Higgs account. The fundamental
disinterest in additional/second language learning issues has also meant that,
in the past 15 years or more, there has been little systematic and sustained
teacher training and professional development that prioritise EAL-minded
language teaching and curriculum development. Some ten years ago, one
school inspector’s report observed that:
Less effective in-class support [EAL and content teachers working together]
was often characterised by a lack of collaboration between the teachers … lack
of agreement about the purpose of lessons and the respective role of teachers
led to conflicting messages and tasks which pupils found confusing. [Support,
often EAL] staff who simply acted as intermediaries between the class teacher
and the pupils, by dictating model answers, did little to foster pupils’ learning.
(OFSTED 1994: 3)
Recent research that colleagues and I have undertaken in this area of
education has indicated that there are some very serious teaching and
expertise-related professional issues associated with the lack of systematic
discipline-based training.
In a study of teacher assessment of EAL student performance, Leung
and Teasdale (1997) show evidence that teachers operate native speaker
norms when assessing EAL students’ use of spoken English. In another
study of EAL assessment practices in primary schools, Leung (1999) reports
that, inter alia, students’ personalities (as perceived by teachers) and ‘ethnic
minority’ home circumstances (including parents’ standing in the local
community) are used as explanatory factors to account for their progress (or
lack of ) in language development and English language performance in
school. Creese and Leung (2003: 13) report a recurring theme of EAL being
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conceptualised as a ‘caring’ discipline by mainstream teachers. For instance a
secondary subject teacher, at the beginning of an EAL in-service training
course, offered this account of EAL as a practice:
It has always been my belief, my philosophy, that if every student is given the
chance even though we have different levels, we will all be able to develop the
potential that we have. So that is one of my main aims of entering this course
… First and foremost I want to see that they love the subject. There are some
individuals who like to be there but some of them think, you know, because
they are very weak in English they feel that they don’t want to come, not that
they don’t want to come because they think I’m going to be harsh on them or
something but I’m not, but what I want them to note is that we are just here to
help them so they will be able to know that it is because of them that I’m here
to help them and therefore they will be able to enjoy the lesson as we go along.
(Creese and Leung 2003: 13)
Cable, Leung and Vazquez, in a small-scale study of the EAL beginners
induction programs run by five secondary schools, find that there is a
mixture of reasons:
… the avowed purpose of the provision was to enable students to learn
English. However, other related purposes were also high on respondents’
agendas. Providing a more focused English language learning experience with
a concentration on fewer subjects was seen as a high priority by one of the
induction programme providers. Preparing students for the demands of
the mainstream curriculum and confidence building were cited as important
by one of the other providers. One of the respondents highlighted the
opportunity for students and staff to establish close relationships in a safe and
secure environment as being a key function of the withdrawal [induction]
group. This was described in terms of ‘a break from intensive pounding’ and
to ‘give their brain a break’ … (Cable, Leung and Vazquez 2004: 8–9)
These findings can be seen as manifestations and consequences of
the specific approach advocated by the prevailing EAL policy, which has
diverted attention away from, indeed de-legitimised, explicit EAL learning
and teaching issues. The diverse interpretations and practices of EAL
within the teaching profession signal a lack of clear and coherent
understanding of EAL pedagogy. None of this would matter if EAL
students were performing on par with other students. But there are signs
of long-term underperformance. For instance, in a study of academic
writing produced by 177 students aged 16 (or over) at school and further
education college, including 130 focal EAL students, a majority of
whom have been in the English school system since primary school,
Cameron reports that, inter alia, there are discernible differences between
the focal EAL and EMT students. The EMT students were predicted
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to be at C/D grade (that is not highest achieving) in their school leaving
English examinations.
The strongest differences between the less successful EAL writing (Focus
group) and the EMT writing emerged within texts at the level of words and
phrases, particularly in the use of ‘small’ word such as prepositions, delexical
verbs (for example, do, make, put) and in respects of word grammar such as
agreements and endings. (Cameron 2003: 9)
The research findings reported here, together with persistently low levels
of English language and general school achievement among groups of EAL
students from, for instance, the Pakistani and Bangladeshi minority
communities, point to a need to understand both the strength and the shortfalls
of the current EAL policy (for further discussion on ethnic minority
achievement see, for example, DfES 2004; Gillborn and Mirza 2000).
Inclusive education and EAL: A need for policy extension
In this final section, three policy-related observations are made. First, the
current mainstreaming practice in England has been successful in integrating
EAL students in the life of mainstream schooling. It has also created an
officially endorsed educational context for EAL and content teachers to
collaborate on teaching and materials development. However, the personoriented
perspective on EAL has, so far, tended to focus on making the
classroom processes ‘accessible’, that is helping EAL students to engage with
content-learning activities through a combination of hands-on activities,
visuals and so on. The central assumption is that EAL development will
follow active participation in the curriculum. As we have seen earlier, talented
and knowledgeable teachers and able students can produce remarkable
outcomes. But the lack of systematic attention to EAL as a language teaching
and learning issue has over time served to reduce the expertise base in the
school system. The research into aspects of teacher knowledge and teacher
professionalism, cited earlier, suggests that a person-oriented EAL perspective
focused on classroom communication and participatory processes is
conceptually ill-equipped to address additional/second language teaching and
learning issues adequately. The requisite expertise is in short supply.
Legitimate and important EAL-minded language teaching and learning issues
have rarely been addressed, for example, the need for a differentiated
curriculum and pedagogy for the teaching and learning of lexicogrammar,
pragmatic conventions and academic genres in the context of the National
Curriculum for EAL students with different educational backgrounds, at
different ages and at different stages of EAL development. (See Schleppegrell
and Colombi 2002 for a collection of relevant discussions.)
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Second, the highly specified program of teaching of the literacy strategy
has raised complex issues for EAL. The content of the Framework for
Teaching (DfEE 1998), for instance, is an age-graded curriculum devised
with EMT speakers in mind. While some EAL children in the early primary
years may benefit from the highly specified teaching content, other EAL
students who enter the English schooling system at a later age, say ten, with
little previous English learning, may find the Year 5 literacy curriculum
not helpful for their needs because it assumes progressive year-on-year
accumulation and development of language and literacy knowledge in
English. The current EAL policy, as we have seen earlier, is built on an
assumption that teachers should respond to emergent student needs and
interests; the mainstream literacy curriculum is a highly pre-specified, staged
and teacher-led teaching framework. An adherence to this framework
necessarily negates one of the strongest arguments for the person-oriented
perspective, that is teachers’ freedom to respond to different student needs.
Another obvious issue is the extent to which a mother tongue-oriented
literacy program can be regarded as automatically appropriate for EAL
students. For instance, how important is it for an early stage EAL student to
learn about phonemes? (For a further discussion on the appropriateness of
the mainstream literacy curriculum for EAL students, see Harris, Leung
and Rampton 2002. See also Wallace, this volume, for discussion of
implications of the Literacy Hour for EAL students.)
Third, the co-existence of the two very differently conceptualised EAL
policies, school EAL and ESOL for further and adult education, raises a
very interesting point about the intellectual basis of policy making. As
things stand at present, a young person at the age of 16, on leaving school
and entering a further education college, can experience completely
different kinds of EAL provision. Unlike the school situation where English
learning is meant to be embedded in subject or curriculum learning, the
ESOL provision in the further and adult education is very much a distinct
and time-tabled subject. The Adult ESOL Core Curriculum (DfES
2001: 3) has been developed for migrant workers, refugees and asylum
seekers, and members of settled minority communities who ‘work long and
irregular hours and therefore cannot attend classes regularly’. Would such a
curriculum be suitable for the needs of a young person who has already
studied in a local school for, say, five years and will now follow a university
matriculation examination course? And would such disjuncture in provision
for 16 to 18 year olds not undermine the respective stated educational bases
and claims of legitimacy for both school EAL and ESOL policies?
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EAL is an important area of school education and will be even more so
in future as the population becomes more diverse. For the best part of 20
years, school EAL has been oriented towards social integration and inclusive
non-discriminatory curriculum practices. There is no question that this is
an important achievement for a multi-ethnic and multilingual society.
However, the need for EAL to address language teaching and learning issues
has not disappeared, no more than the issues of teaching and learning
science would disappear in an inclusive approach to science. There is now a
need to create some policy space to examine how EAL language teaching
and learning can be developed more explicitly within the mainstream
curriculum context.
NOTES
1 For a detailed discussion on EAL policy developments since the 1960s see Leung
2001; 2002; 2003; and for an international comparative study see Mohan,
Leung & Davison 2001.
2 This area of curriculum practice has received very little official attention. For a
discussion see Cable, Leung & Vazquez 2004.
3 The National Literacy Strategy has been re-presented as the literacy elements
of the National Strategy for secondary education and the Primary Strategy for
primary education in the past three years.
4 This target has not been met. For national school test results see http://www.
standards.dfes.gov.uk/performance/pdf/KS2nsr2004_Summary.pdf?version=1
5 See Skills for Life website http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/
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