Teacher Views on the Implementation of English Language Proficiency Scales for Young Indigenous Learners of Standard English

ABSTRACT

Young Indigenous students with a language background of emergent, unrecognised, and/or non-prestigious contact languages are commonly by-passed as English language learners (ELLs). Consequently, they are taught and assessed via undifferentiated mainstream pedagogy and testing, generally characterised by reported underachievement. Long-term social and linguistic minoritisation has effectively created this inequitable situation, excluding this cohort from standard school ELL processes such as on-entry identification, and specialist ELL services of assessment and needs-based support. In these challenging social-educational contexts, where, furthermore, knowledge about the varieties resulting from language contact and shift is still developing, initiating language assessment for these young Language Minority ELLs pivots on the discernment of non-specialist classroom teachers. This is clearly a high stakes assessment exercise for this otherwise invisible ELL cohort, as this evidence makes the case for language-informed responses, such as differentiated delivery of classroom curriculum. Prioritising the social context in language assessment use and drawing on exploratory practice principles, the study investigates teachers’ views on their use of the state mandated classroom-based proficiency tool (adapted to be inclusive of this Indigenous ELL sub-group). This serves to illuminate the kind of support teachers need to conduct identification and assessment for these Indigenous ELLs and to highlight the broad gaps in basic research. An analysis of the interviews elicits the “puzzles” facing classroom teachers. Findings include that direct elucidation of tool puzzles for L2 pathways in contact language contexts would be most useful, not a proliferation of extra tools nor a complexification of the current tool.

Sampela pikinini bilong ol Asples lain bilong Australia ol i save toktok long ‘nupela kain tok’, sampela taim bai yumi kolim ‘tok kriol’. Dispela nupela kain tok ol i save kirap taim ol manmeri wok long miksim ol kainkain tok ples. Dispela nupela kain tok ol i wok long kamap yet, na olsem na nogat nem bilong ol yet. Em i bilong dispela as na ol manmeri ol i no save rispekim dispela kain tok olsem ol tok ples tru.

Ol tisa bai no inap klia taim ol Asples pikinini i wok long toktok long dispela nupela kain ‘tok ples’, na ol bai skulim ol long Inglis, bilong wanem, ol bai tingting olsem ol dispela pikinini ol i save long Inglis pinis, tasol tru tru, ol i no save gut: ol i wok long lainim Inglis tasol. Taim ol tisa i paul olsem, ol bai no inap skulim ol dispela pikinini gut, na em bai luk olsem ol dispela pikinini i no gutpela sumatin – tasol tru tru, ol i wok long lainim Inglis yet.

Taim ol gavaman na skul i save pusim dispela nupela kain tok long wanpela sait tasol, na tritim ol olsem ol i samting nating, dispela kain pasin yumi save kolim ‘language minoritisation’ long tok Inglis. I no gutpela long mekim dispela kain pasin long ol pikinini husait i save toktok long dispela nupela kain tok, long famili bilong ol na komuniti bilong ol. I gat lo long olgeta skul long helpim ol pikinini husait i save lainim Inglis. Dispela lo i tok olsem, ol tisa mas askim ol pikinini long wanem kain tok ples ol i save toktok long en. Tasol dispela kain lo em bai no inap help taim ol pikinini wok long toktok long dispela nupela kain tok we i nogat nem bilong ol yet.

Planti ol tisa bai no inap save hau ol bai wok wantaim ol pikinini husait i save toktok long dispela nupela kain tok. Sampela taim dispela we bilong yusim ol kainkain tokples em i wok long senis yet. Yumi no klia tru long hamas ol pikinini i klia long ol kainkain tokples ol manmeri i save yusim. Long skul, taim ol tisa i painim aut olsem ol pikinini wok long toktok long sampela nupela kain tok, ol i ken traim painim aut sapos ol dispela pikinini i save gut long tok Inglis o nogat. Dispela em i bikpela samting tru. Taim ol i kisim dispela kain stori bilong tok bilong ol pikinini pinis, ol tisa, skul, femili wantaim komuniti i ken painim wanpela gutpela rot long skulim ol dispela pikinini.

Dispela pepa i wok long painim aut wanem samting ol tisa bilong Queensland ol i painim hat taim ol i yusim ‘mep’ bilong lainim tok Inglis wantaim ol Asples sumatin bilong ol. Edukeisen depatmen bilong Queesnland em i tok olsem, olgeta skul mas yusim dispela kain mep. Ol i tok em bai helpim ol tisa taim ol i skulim pikinini husait i wok long lainim tok Inglis yet, na ol Asples pikinini tu wankain. Em i bikpela samting long harim stori bilong ol tisa tu, bilong wanem, ol tisa mas yusim dispela kain mep bilong lainim tok Inglis.

Taim mipela i bin toktok wantaim ol tisa, mipela i bin painim aut ol i gat kainkain kwesten long dispela ‘mep’ bilong lainim Inglis. Ol tisa i laik lainim mo long ol kainkain rot ol sumatin i wok long bihainim long dispela mep bilong lainim Inglis, na hau dispela rot em i narapela kain taim ol pikinini i save toktok long nupela kain tokples. Ol tisa i laik kisim ensa bilong ol kwesten bilong ol. Ol i les long kisim planti nupela samting, olsem wanpela nupela mep bilong lainim Inglis em bai bikpela mo olsem dispela ol i wok long yusim nau, o mep bilong planti kain tokples, o wanpela nupela buk olgeta, nogat.

Taim mipela i bin toktok wantaim ol tisa, mipela i bin painim aut olsem ples, komuniti na ol tokples i bikpela samting tru taim ol tisa i wok long yusim dispela kain mep bilong lainim Inglis. Na ol narapela saveman na savemeri tu i painim aut dispela kain samting taim ol i stadi we bilong sekim na skelim save bilong Inglis bilong ol sumatin.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Cathie Elder and Susy Macqueen who generously offered advice on earlier versions of this paper; to the three anonymous reviewers who made suggestions to improve the paper; to Henry Fraser who transcribed the Wave 2 and 3 interviews; and most of all to the teachers interviewed in this study but who must remain anonymous. The study commenced under the auspices of the Bridging the Language Gap (BLG) project funded by the then federal Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) 2011-2013 and was assisted to fruition by the state education department’s Language Perspectives team which had statewide carriage for Indigenous ELL and Indigenous vernacular initiatives.

For their advice regarding the translation of the abstract into a creole, we would like to particularly thank for Kriol in Australia, Josie Lardy, Jackie van den Bos, Ngukurr Language Centre and Greg Dickson, and for Melanesian and Pacific creoles, Miriam Meyerhoff, Viveka Vellupillai, Fiona Willans and Darja Hoenigman. Darja Hoenigman provided the translation and also information about the sociolinguistic setting of Tok Pisin.

Disclosure statement

Both authors have a long-term association with the Language Perspectives team in various paid and unpaid roles, were employed with the earlier BLG and previously were members of the specialist ESL group tasked with developing the inclusive L2 proficiency scale adapted for classroom teacher use, the Qld Bandscales by Education Queensland.  One of the authors was part of the writing team that produced the NLLIA ESL Bandscales.

Notes

¹ The use of the term “Indigenous” follows the usage in current international social justice documents, and is intended to be inclusive of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait groups of Indigenous peoples in Australia. In terms of English language learners, it distinguishes the cohort who are not learning English because of an overseas language background.

² In Australia, the current terminology for school-aged children learning English is “English as an Additional Language or Dialect” (EALD). As the scope of this term is unfamiliar outside of the Australian context, the authors use the generally known terminology “English language learner”.

³ Note that Language Background Other Than English (LBOTE) appears in NAPLAN reporting. It is dubbed a ‘category of misrecognition’ by Lingard, Creagh, and Vass (2012), because it is suggestive of language proficiency. In actual fact, whether students’ English proficiency is native L1 or beginner L2 levels, they are categorised as LBOTE if they or either of their caregivers/parents speaks another language at an unspecified level (Angelo, 2013a; Creagh, 2013; Dixon & Angelo, 2014; Macqueen et al., 2019).

⁴ In the context of research on ELL assessment in schools, identification is considered to be desirable, an orientation contrasting with a critical perspective met in the language testing literature, where ‘identification’ has often been linked, justifiably, with tests as a site of power and social control (McNamara, 2007; Shohamy, 2001, 2009). In school systems, however, lack of identification of ELLs is generally equated to impeding opportunity to learn in mainstream English-medium classrooms.

⁵ In this regard, however, the Breen et al. (1997) three volume landmark Australian study should be noted.

⁶ The authors were employed on the Bridging the Language Gap (2011–13) project, as a manager and a researcher, and are hence described as “insider researchers”.

⁷ This quote is from a linguist/researcher BLG project member, who agreed to be interviewed by the authors, but who did not participate in Waves 1 and 2 interviews.

⁸ Note that this does not imply applying a simplistic reduction of the notion of academic/social L2 development (Cummins, 1984) at these early speaking levels. This can lead to the use of academic literacy programs alone with this Indigenous ELL cohort in mainstream contexts, without the teaching of the language system, even though the language is the fundamental basis by which students gain gives access to the classroom (i.e. academic) domain. What is implied is that tasks should be designed to enhance observation of the interaction between student learning and their use of the structure and features of the target language. Rather than Cummins’s Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills/Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (BICS/CALP) dichotomy with its inherent sequence, the more useful concept for this cohort would be Second Language Instructional Competence (SLIC): children develop SLIC as they learn the language of instruction well enough to understand school subject matter (cf MacSwan, Thompson, Rolstad, McAlister, & Lobo, 2017, p. 237).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Government Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) [Bridging the Language Gap].