Fee-Paying English Language Learners: Situating International Students’ Impact on British Columbia’s Public Schools

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between international education and English as an additional language (EAL) education in British Columbia’s public education system. Drawing on a wide range of data generated as part of a longitudinal study of high school aged fee-paying international students (FISs) in an urban school district in British Columbia, I make the case that FIS recruitment and presence is having a socializing impact on EAL education in British Columbia’s public schools. In contrast to the way FISs are accounted for in official government statistics, I show how, across multiple actors and dimensions of the public system, FISs are routinely treated and represented as English language learners (ELLs). I argue that these routinized constructions are evidence of the multilayered socialization of EAL education by internationalization efforts in British Columbia’s K-12 sector, and discuss some of the ways this FIS socialization is consequential for EAL learning and teaching in public high schools. I situate my discussion of the FIS-EAL relationship within the larger context of applied linguistics and education-related research on internationalization and educational migration in K-12 settings, and raise questions about how FIS socialization is relevant to discussions of public education.

Hosting Early Study Abroad Students in Ontario: Internationalization of Education Dynamics in Secondary Schooling

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From Near and Afar: International Secondary School Students’ Career Influences

“…Their limited life experience, and levels of maturity and development intertwine with immediate demands for learning in a new environment (Cheng & Yang, 2019), compounded by the lack of local social support and particularly the lack of peer connections (Kim & Okazaki, 2014; Walsworth et al, 2021). Some students do not have appropriate preparation for navigating local secondary educational systems, leading to challenges for academic and psychosocial adaptation (Deschambault, 2018; Kuo & Roysircar, 2006).…”

Toward Linguistically and Culturally Responsive Teaching in the French as a Second Language Classroom

“…Canadian schools have seen a steady increase in English language learners (ELLs) over the past decades (Cummins & Persad, 2014;Duff , 2007), more so recently due to the growing number of international students (Deschambault, 2018). In British Columbia, alongside pull-out sheltered English language classes, students learning English as an additional language (EAL) are generally integrated into mainstream content classrooms (Gunderson, D'Silva, & Murphy Odo, 2014), requiring that all teachers have some knowledge about and are open to linguistically and culturally responsive teaching approaches .…”