Conference Agenda

Limiting opportunities to investigate, critique, and advance equity, inclusion and justice in language policy and planning is the layperson’s understanding of “policy” as solely that which is officially codified. This research study sampled 10 “unofficial” language policies drafted by university students in the U.S. (who work as pre- and in-service educators), which were collected from graduate courses offered in Fall 2022, Summer 2023, and Fall 2023 via the learning management system, Canvas. Guided by a critical discourse analytic approach, the language policy text data will be deductively coded for student labels and regimentations of linguistic categories e.g., constructions of academic versus home/social language (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Rosa, 2016; Rosa & Flores, 2017), and inductively coded for emergent themes. This paper presentation contributes to the body of work evidencing the discursive turn within the social sciences and increases understanding of various social issues, especially those perpetuated by and in schools. Indeed, illuminating pre- and in-service educators’ beliefs about language and language users has implications regarding the need for educator preparation programs to promote linguistically affirming policies that sustain student identities, cultures, and languages.

Classrooms are microsocieties where teachers have the power to control, mediate, and impose their language learning beliefs. For plurilingual ‘non-native’ English speaker teachers, their own language learning experiences are also catalysts for how they approach language teaching, by extension ‘crafting’ and ‘implementing’ their own classroom language policy. Such dynamics are evident especially in international education ecologies in the Global South- products of globalization and neoliberal agenda. In this paper, I take a researcher-practitioner stance to investigate language learning beliefs of four middle school Chinese English teachers in an internationalised school in southern China and attempt to actively make sense of how their ‘personal and professional language policies’ are shaped. Although I was an expatriate teacher, I had worked in the system for several years, alongside these teachers. Drawing on qualitative data from individual semi-structured interviews, I employed interpretative phenomenological analysis to attempt to understand these plurilingual teachers’ lived experiences vis-à-vis their languaging beliefs. As well, I tried to employ reflexivity, as an insider-researcher at that time, to make sense on how such similar experiences translated to ‘policies’ and practice. I also centered theoretical concepts from language teacher identities to provide nuances to these interpretations. General themes from the findings indicate that teachers create their own language policy in relation to contexts-mediated needs and that whilst there is a strong belief in English only policy, there is also a tension between the personal and professional selves with respect to languaging. These conversations highlighted one often overlooked aspect of institutional language policy implementation- the affective dimensions and relationship building of both teachers and learners. The paper aims to suggest nuances in terms of language policy crafting and implementation in English medium internationalised schools.

A challenge in postcolonial communities is ensuring quality and inclusive education for all learners. That is the case of Saint Lucia, an island-nation that after gaining its sovereignty from Great Britain in 1979, continues striving towards revitalizing their French-Creole heritage (Hilaire, 2009). Central to this effort is the teaching and learning of Kwéyòl, a French-lexicon Creole language emerged from linguistic contacts contextualized in colonization and slavery (Simmons-McDonald, 2006). A new language policy creating a bilingual program to teach Kwéyòl and Standard English in all public schools was approved in 2018. However, to this date the new policy has not been implemented. This way, the 2005 Language Arts Curriculum which does not include Kwéyòl as a language to be taught, remained in place. As a result, educators performed an educational language policy framed on Creoleness as local knowledge in which Kwéyòl is its central tenet.

This paper draws from a 10th-month ethnography of educational language policy conducted in Saint Lucia. Theoretically centered on a Caribbean-Global South transmodern approach, this research seeks answer the following research question:

• What Discourses framed the educational language policy performed by educators to teach and learn Creoleness alongside Kwéyòl?

Data are drawn from classroom observations, engagement in school activities, everyday conversations with educators, and transcripts of semi-structured interviews conducted with the three focal participants of the larger study. The analysis consisted of two steps: first a thematic analysis guided by Johnson’s (2013) five categories of analysis for language policy, and second a discourse analysis that incorporates Gee’s (2015) views on Discourses, Johnson’s (2013) notions on policy texts, and Buttler’s (1999) ideas on performativity. Findings reveal how Creoleness’ Discourses are performatively brought to life to teach Creoleness alongside Kwéyòl. Results suggest the need for a decolonial approach to future educational policies to assure responsive education for all learners.

Kazakhstan’s trilingual education policy which aimed to introduce English medium instruction (EMI) for STEM subjects starting in 2020 in all schools is facing challenges. Proponents say EMI in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math is necessary to join the global economy. Critics say teaching Science in English only is nearly impossible, and therefore plurilingual approaches such as translanguaging in Kazakh and Russian are necessary. English teachers, teacher educators, future, and new teachers are under continuing pressure to produce 25% of the population with high proficiency in English by 2050.

Little is known about the experiences, beliefs and practices of foreign language teachers and teacher educators, who are tasked with implementing language policy while often feeling unprepared and insufficiently supported to carry out these tasks. For example, translanguaging is reported everywhere as a solution while discouraged everywhere by educators and officials alike.

We will examine teacher experiences, beliefs and practices through a combination of classroom observations at teacher education programs, and in schools, urban and rural, Kazakh-medium and Russian-medium. We will interview teacher candidates in their practicum at schools and follow them during the following two years as beginning teachers, as well as their teacher educators and experienced colleagues. We aim to bring greater understanding of teachers’ and teacher educators’ beliefs and practices, what they do and why they do it, while bringing them into dialogue with research evidence on these issues. Over a three-year project, our findings will shed light on these challenges in Kazakhstan education and contribute to a positive change in pre-service and in-service language teacher education, practices at the school level, and policies at provincial and national levels. Most significantly we expect changes in language-in-education policy and practice to be more tolerant of plurilingual practices and translanguaging and to incorporate them actively in support of student learning.