Across the higher education sector, staff express concerns with some students’ language competencies. I’ve had chats with colleagues across institutions who are worried that some students’ grasp of English just isn’t good enough to engage with their studies fully. It’s a problem that crops up across disciplines and, of course, is a huge challenge for some students.
To start, I wanted to share a personal story of my own experience.
Ireland is a bilingual country. I grew up speaking what we call “kitchen Irish” with my family. This cúpla focail (couple of words) consisted of basic primary school vocabulary, but not remotely something considered fluent. Despite my protests, I was sent to an all-Irish-speaking secondary school.
It was a very strict all girls’ Catholic school. Speaking a word of English was met with severe threats of expulsion. Every subject was conducted entirely in Irish, including English! I learned French for four years through a language I did not speak. Likewise, I didn’t even know that díolachán was the term for selling while undertaking Business Studies.
I was out of my depth every single day. I was also met with unkind stern reproachment from almost all the teaching staff. And throughout, I was wholly miserable.
Learning became a horror story, an endless daily source of fear and anxiety. I went from loving learning to loathing education. I cried every night before French class, knowing that the blocks of text I was meant to know off by heart would see me publicly humiliated four days a week.
By the end of my four years at that school my Irish language skills were excellent, and I had caught up enough to succeed in my studies. But the journey to get there was painful.
Ultimate academic success was of little meaning to me when the learning journey was torture.
Why is this relevant?
I’ve observed a trend with some staff faced with students’ low English aptitudes: low empathy response with a high intolerance of language errors. This echoes my own lived experience, so I know that this response does not help the student. In fact, it actively hinders them. It stops them wanting to engage more out of fear, and it breeds resentment for the learning environment. And if something doesn’t work, why keep doing it?
We personally can’t resolve the systemic problem of poor language skills when that issue crops up, but what we can do is act with kindness and compassion as the first response. For some reason, typically lovely people turn off their empathy switch when it comes to students not perfectly delivering in class, especially around English language proficiency.
A recent article noted that “Language tests can’t tell if overseas students are well prepared” pointing out that there is a difference between what the tests recognise and what demands are like in reality. Notably, the article highlights a gap in academic literacy “an understanding not only of language but also of academic conventions, knowledge construction, critical thinking and academic integrity”.
What can we do?
In response to common hurdles, here is some practice we can all lean in to so as to soften the issue:
- Lead with encouragement. Encourage students to embrace the support services around them, such as through Study Skills, the Centre for Academic Language and Development and the Global Lounge. Encourage them also to actively and critically read, prepare to engage in class activities, and engage with social clubs to develop greater confidence. Help students to navigate local systems so they can connect with these resources.
- Remember the individual. Rather than imagining all international students as one homogeneous block, recentre practice on the individual. Not all students from one culture or region are the same, so don’t treat them like they are!
- Remember, students can grow and improve. Don’t write someone off because of an early foible.
- Articulate expected standards, illustrated with examples. Many students do not engage out of fear rather than lack of skill due to perfectionism or assumed standards – something called Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA). These highly skilled students may not understand that imperfect engagement is welcome and encouraged. Students can also experience academic culture shock, so articulating norms and expectations can help them negotiate these more easily.
- Listen to the student voice. Identify opportunities to invite the student voice of students with English as an additional language. This can ensure that both small and big issues from the student perspective can be identified and responded to.
- Reflect on your own standards. British cultural norms often prioritise grammatical perfection. This can become a blighted hidden curriculum for students. Reflect on your own expectations and whether they are essential to your intended learning outcomes. Also reflect on how your normative attitudes towards language result in any bias or attitudes that may be (unintentionally) non-inclusive (see Jenkins & Wingate 2015).
- It’s not all on what the student does. We can reflect on how we are articulating things and our choice of words (idioms, metaphors, accent, pacing and chunking, etc.) – asking if small tweaks could improve our practice towards greater inclusion. Likewise, illustrative examples and case studies could enhance or detract from students’ connection with subject matter because they may be too culturally specific.
- Lead with kindness. When things do go entirely wrong, respond with kindness rather than anger or frustration. Even if a student is going to fail, we don’t have to make the experience worse for them by venting our negative feelings at the student.
Next steps for leaders
Ultimately, I do think there is a case for the sector to revise its standards and checks on English language proficiency. It is an uncomfortable admission, but there are students working their way through a system that isn’t catching that their language skills are not up to scratch – and this sets them up for stress and possible failure, and sets up staff for a teaching struggle. That is a challenge for our leaders to contend with in support of the best for our learning community.
For now, the best we can do is make the best of the current situation through compassionate pedagogical approaches.
Relevant reading
- Shi, Xiaqian (2023) English language proficiency, academic language difficulties and self-efficacy: a comparative study of international and home students in UK higher education. PhD thesis, University of York. https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/34638/
- Henderson, J. (2009). “It’s All About Give and Take,” Or Is It?: Where, When and How Do Native and Non-Native Uses of English Shape U.K. University Students’ Representations of Each Other and Their Learning Experience? Where, When and How Do Native and Non-Native Uses of English Shape U.K. University Students’ Representations of Each Other and Their Learning Experience? Journal of Studies in International Education, 13(3), 398-409. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315308329788
- Zhang, H., & Tan, H. (2024). Foreign language anxiety and study abroad: Chinese students’ voices of experiencing foreign language anxiety during their graduate study in Australia. Cogent Education, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2024.2367303
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