Hello to all,
I so enjoy reading your perspectives and I learn a lot. I wish I could take advantage of the range of opportunities you share regarding professional development, but I'm not in the UK, unfortunately.
I am an American professor on a Fulbright to the University of Malta. My research is on teachers of Maltese teachers of migrants/refugees and it is like a candy store here with the layers of language and cultural issues.
The point I wanted to make has nothing to do with the above....I wanted to share insight about the British driving licence test, from a "foreigner" (American) perspective. My son (American, native English speaker) did his graduate work in London, and when it came time for him to really need to drive (musician, trying to transport drums), I insisted that he take professional lessons. He had been driving for about 8 years in the US, and is conscientious, etc, but London is a totally different scenario, driving on the opposite side of the road, for example, and opposite roundabouts.... I asked him how the test was. He said he failed the test 3 times. (The whole process took a year.) When I asked why, he said that for him it was not exactly the language (although he is transferring previous knowledge of the complex theory of driving), but a lot of the questions were not on the practice app or websites. It was numbers as well, knowing stopping distance, reading small signs in English, and he says it is even hard for him to read the small signs in English, especially while driving. He thinks that if someone doesn’t know the language well, it is a very dangerous situation.
In the US, well Florida anyway, we have the theory test in a variety of languages. However, going out for the driving test is in spoken English, so it is difficult to pass, especially if the person has taken the written part in a foreign language.
My point is only that it is a complicated situation, and not at all easy, even for native speakers.
Cheers,
Eileen
Eileen N. Whelan Ariza, Ed.D.
Professor, Teaching and Learning
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, Florida, USA
-----Original Message-----
From: ESOL-Research discussion forum and message board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Charlotte Harford
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 6:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: UK should set date for everyone to speak English, says Casey
Hi Mike (and others)
I've just been (quickly) through the Green Paper. Some of it seems daft and much of it preposterously vague. But it is, after all, a consultation document, and we are being asked for our views. I hope enough people in the ESOL field will be able to make the time to read the document and feed in views and concrete suggestions from the chalk face before the deadline (early June). It looks as though there could be a willingness on the part of the government to devote at least some extra funds for effective ESOL provision and related activities, and it looks as though there may be some open doors we could be knocking at.
Two particular bugbears of mine are the standard of English being expected of people wanting to get a British driving licence (the complexity of the language in the theory driving test), and the requirement that qualified medical people who are not native speakers of English should take the academic IELTS test and obtain scores of which not many native speakers would be capable before being able to work for the NHS. I thought I might mention these in feedback.
Obviously most of the Green Paper applies only to England. Do you know if there will be a similar document for Wales?
Charlotte
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 14/3/18, Mike Chick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Subject: Re: UK should set date for everyone to speak English, says Casey
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wednesday, 14 March, 2018, 17:52
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Absolutely! Many
thanks for taking the time to write up these thoughts - I am sure they articulate what many practitioners see and feel. While any announcement of an increase in ESOL / community cohesion funding is welcome,
it is our duty, as the folk at the chalk face, to think critically about such strategies.
Mike
From: ESOL-Research discussion forum
and message board [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of James Simpson [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 14 March 2018 17:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: UK should set date for everyone to speak English, says Casey
Hello
all
So a busy
week for ESOL, with some off-the-cuff comments from Louise Casey, followed by the release of an ‘integrated communities’ strategy by the MHCLG where English is very prominent.
Casey:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43370514
Strategy:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/integrated-communities-strategy-green-paper
Louise
Casey’s suggestion that migrants should be compelled to learn English is one of many such sentiments expressed by senior politicians of all stripes in recent years (Cryer,
Hodge, Blunkett, Blair, Cameron, Farage, Pickles, Umunna, Johnson ...). A stuck record, really. The idea that everyone should be made to speak the language by a certain date is a new one though, and at first sight it looks as if Louise hasn’t thought this
one through properly. It seems to be a bit of a non-starter on possibility as well as feasibility grounds. That is, it’s not possible to say at what point someone can ‘speak a language’, as language learning is a dynamic and continuous process with no end
state. Nor is it really feasible to test and identify those who have not learned to speak the language by a particular date, and then – what? – deport them all? In some ways, however, both the obligation to learn English (to a particular ‘level’) and punitive
measures for those who don’t or can’t do so already exist, in current immigration law. There is already an implicit obligation to learn English for settlement through the Life in the UK naturalisation and citizenship test which can only be taken in English
(or Welsh or Scots Gaelic on request). And since 2013 there is an explicit and arbitrary requirement: people applying for settlement have to pass an English language examination at level B1 on the CEFR in addition to the Life in the UK test. Not to mention
the English language requirement for spouse or partner visas even prior to entry into the UK. So yes, Louise Casey was talking nonsense, but some of that nonsense is already in legislation.
What’s
really unhelpful about Louise Casey’s comments though is - first - the element of compulsion, of obligation, and - second - the very blinkered monolingualism inherent in
what she says. New arrivals want to learn English, and indeed gaining access to the dominant language of the new country is a human right. But it’s a multilingual world we live in, a world where societal multilingualism is a huge resource, and policy needs
to get to grips with this, rather than deny it through acknowledging only one language as the language that matters. As the Council of Europe’s Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants (LIAM) project puts it, ‘A plurilingual and intercultural approach to the
teaching of the language of the host society ensures that languages become instruments of inclusion that unite rather than segregate people’ (see http://www.coe.int/en/web/lang-migrants/guiding-principles).
Political discourse in the UK needs to shift fundamentally to embrace this. Rather than demonising new arrivals for their inability to speak English, why not recognise that they want to do so? Why not see that migrants are quite capable of understanding the
importance and relevance of English, in relation to their other languages, for daily life, work and so on.
If I had my
way, whenever a politician decided to say something about the need for migrants to learn English they should (1) be obliged to frame their statement around the right of new arrivals to gain access to the dominant language of society, rather than the obligation that they have to do so; (2) be made to add to their statement the clause ‘as part of a multilingual repertoire’; and (3) accompany it with commitment
to strive towards the provision of free and freely-available, high-quality English classes to all who want them, taught by trained – and paid – teachers. I haven’t waded my way through the new MHCLG strategy document yet, but when I do I’ll be looking out
for at least a hint of these.
All the
best
James
From: ESOL-Research discussion forum
and message board [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Frank.Monaghan
Sent: 14 March 2018 16:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: UK should set date for everyone to speak English, says Casey
Well it precludes the idea
of us letting anyone in the country who fails the English Language test all border guards will have to carry with them. So bad luck if you’re a refugee.
It’s presumably illegal
under international law on that ground alone, isn’t it? Or maybe Brexit means we won’t be bothering with any of that nonsense in future.
I have a lot of time for
Louise Casey but on this issue of the relationship between language and integration she does talk some nonsense.
Frank
From:
"[log in to unmask]"
<[log in to unmask]>
on behalf of Di
Leedham <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Di Leedham <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, 13 March 2018 at 09:23
To: "[log in to unmask]"
<[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: UK should set date for everyone to speak English, says Casey
As the old joke goes
… that’s half the monolingual British population in trouble then.
Dangerous piffle, which
reinforces the refusal of government to make the most of Britain’s multilingual affordances while bemoaning our problems with MFL.
It never ends
Di
From:
ESOL-Research discussion forum and message board <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Laila El-Metoui
Sent: 13 March 2018 04:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: UK should set date for everyone to speak English, says Casey
Not sure I would agree or
that it’s actually possible!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43370514
Laila
El-Metoui
LGBT
Education Consultant & Teacher
Educator
https://lelmeducation.wordpress.com
Member of
Action for ESOL http://actionforesol.org/ and NATECLA London https://nateclaldn.wordpress.com Supporter The Ruth Hayman Trust http://www.ruthhaymantrust.org.uk Sent from iPhone
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