As the result of global changes, government policy and university initiatives, institutions of higher education in Canada have become increasingly linguistically and racially diverse. Traditionally -through policy, curriculum, instruction and assessment -Canadian universities have promoted a subjective, monolithic and racialised 'Standard' English. Efforts to limit linguistic heterogeneity in higher education, however, are increasingly at odds with the global flows and hyperdiversity of the world in which we live. Internationalisation of Canadian campuses has implications for university policies and practices around English language variation. Drawing on a review of relevant literature, policy document analysis and semistructured interviews with academic staff and international students, this paper explores the relationship between settler colonialism, race and English language variation at a Canadian university.
In the field of second language education, researchers increasingly call for crosslinguistic pedagogical practices meant to encourage bilingual learners to draw on all of their linguistic resources regardless of the focus of instruction or the status of the target language. These recommendations include a relaxation of the strict language separation common in many bilingual education programs. Specifically, some Canadian French immersion researchers suggest that it may be beneficial to allow immersion students to use English for peer interaction during instructional time allotted to French. In this position paper, we argue that researchers should proceed with caution in calling for increased majority language use in the minority language classroom. We use Canadian French immersion as a case in point to contend that until empirical evidence supports increased use of English in immersion, crosslinguistic approaches that maintain a separate space for the majority language may represent ideal pedagogical practices in these contexts.
Drawing on the body of North American literature related to English dialect-speaking Indigenous students schooled in majority group classrooms, this commentary paper explores two aspects of institutional racism at work in Saskatchewan schools: (a) the disproportionate representation of First Nations and Metis students in remedial language and speech programs and (b) the relationship and power imbalance between differences in home and school English varieties and educational attainment.
i-kiyohkātoyāhk (we visit) is a phrase which describes our experience of trying to recreate an online version of our way of life, being together in the language. The following report is our view of the ways nēhiyawēwin/nīhithawīwin (Cree) language learning has adapted to the COVID-19 reality since March 2020. Our hope is that by sharing the experience most familiar to us, the one we are living as learners and speaker-teacher, we offer a useful perspective and potential solutions or directions for others.
This paper presents a qualitative study of five monolingual teachers' understandings of the linguistic repertoires of their multilingual students. These teachers deliver the Saskatchewan provincial curricula in English to Hutterite colony students who are users of three languages: (a) spoken Hutterisch as a home and community language; (b) written High German as a language for religious worship and (c) spoken and written English for school and for communication outside the colony. Findings from this study demonstrate that the teachers report having had limited or inaccurate understandings of their students' linguistic repertoires prior to beginning their teaching positions. Secondly, the teacher participants' awareness of the students' language resources was, and is, an ongoing process. Finally, the willingness and ability to cultivate hybrid language use of Hutterisch and English varies from teacher to teacher. The paper concludes with discussion of considerations for teacher education and in-service teachers working in Hutterite communities.
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