ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Sitting at 6.5: Problematizing IELTS and Admissions to Canadian Universities
Author: MacDonald, Jennifer J.
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Language Tests,Second Language Learning,Language Proficiency,College Admission,Language of Instruction,Cutting Scores,Admission Criteria,Academic Achievement,Academic Language,Literacy,Correlation,Test Use,Foreign Countries,Universities,Political Influences,Educational Policy

The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) standardized English language proficiency (ELP) exam is widely accepted proof of ELP at Canadian universities. The majority of Canadian universities set very similar IELTS cut scores for admission; however, these differ from the IELTS-recommended minimum cut scores. The use of the IELTS exam as an admission tool is not unproblematic, with debates around where to set cut scores, the interplay of political and administrative concerns in setting admissions criteria, and the correlation between cut scores and student academic success. As well, the issue of essential academic skills and literacies and their relationship to the exam, curricula, and student academic success figures in the broader discussion around the IELTS exam and its use in Canadian higher education.
Revisiting Proofreading in Higher Education: Toward an Institutional Response to Editors Canada&apos;s Guidelines for Ethical Editing of Student Texts
Author: Conrad, Nina
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Proofreading,Higher Education,Guidelines,Editing,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Academic Language,Writing Skills,Writing Instruction,Graduate Students,Undergraduate Students,Ethics,Professional Services,College Faculty,Educational Policy,Foreign Countries,Integrity,Foreign Students,Costs

Anglosphere universities are a site of growing concern about students' use of professional English language editing and proofreading services for the correction of academic writing. Students' use of such services raises issues of ethics and academic integrity as well as fundamental questions about how value is allotted to the labour involved in producing written texts and providing writing instruction. In addition, the term proofreading is ambiguous, obscuring the extent to which proofreaders intervene in students' written texts. Although much attention has been focused on graduate students' use of proofreading services, there is growing recognition that some undergraduates receive proofreading as well. In response to these issues, Editors Canada (2018) has recently released new guidelines for ethical editing of student texts that, for the first time, delineate standards for professional editing of both undergraduate and graduate students' writing. These guidelines are effective in clarifying acceptable practices for editors, students, and university instructors, yet they apply only to students who seek proofreading from an Editors Canada affiliate. This essay summarizes key considerations in the proofreading debate with the aim of encouraging the development of clearer institutional and classroom policies on proofreading that will complement the Editors Canada guidelines and apply to all students.
Plurilingual Students&apos; Practices in a Canadian University: Chinese Language, Academic English, and Discursive Ambivalence
Author: Marshall, Steve
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Multilingualism,Higher Education,Foreign Countries,English for Academic Purposes,Language Usage,Student Attitudes,Creativity,College Students,Communicative Competence (Languages),Classroom Communication,Educational Practices,Learning Processes,Second Language Learning,Cooperative Learning,Mandarin Chinese,Linguistics,Literature,Peer Relationship

We present findings from a 1-year study of students' plurilingualism across the disciplines in Canadian higher education. We analyze how students exercise their plurilingual competence, focusing on the use of Chinese languages as tools for learning at a university in Metro Vancouver, Canada. The following data are presented: field notes taken during classroom observations, transcripts of recordings of students using Chinese languages while working collaboratively, and semi-structured interviews with students in which they discuss how they use languages for learning. We weigh the creative and instrumental use of Chinese languages as tools for learning against the dominance of academic English. We suggest that the tension between the use of Chinese languages during the process of learning and academic English for assessment underlies the ambivalence around which student participants perceive and practice plurilingualism in higher education.
More than Language--Evaluating a Canadian University EAP Bridging Program
Author: Van Viegen, Saskia
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Program Evaluation,English for Academic Purposes,Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Language Tests,Language Proficiency,Correlation,Foreign Countries,Foreign Students,Program Descriptions,Teaching Methods,Models,Context Effect,Academic Degrees,College Preparation,Language of Instruction,Course Content,Interdisciplinary Approach,College Students

This article highlights findings from evaluation of a bridging program for international students at a large Canadian university. Designed specifically for the postsecondary context, the program moved along the continuum from a general, skills-based approach to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teaching and learning, in which the focus may be on developing linguistic and communicative strategies common across academic subject areas, toward an approach that emphasizes context-specific, disciplinary uses of language. This shift from general to specific reflects the program's interest in cultivating a more embedded, discipline specific model for language teaching and learning in higher education, toward an English for Specific Purposes (ESAP) framework. Understanding this approach from a disciplinary literacy lens, the article describes the program model and examines relations among students' language proficiency assessments, performance in the program, and subsequent performance in degree programs.
Discourses, Practices, and Realities of Multilingualism in Higher Education
Author: Shin, Hyunjung
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Multilingualism,Higher Education,Language Usage,Universities,International Education,Canada Natives,English,Language of Instruction,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Political Influences,Educational Practices,Social Influences,Foreign Countries,College Faculty,Teacher Attitudes,Land Settlement,Criticism,Monolingualism,Second Languages,Foreign Students,American Indian Languages,Access to Education,Immigrants,Second Language Instruction

This &quot;Perspectives&quot; article explores the changing sociolinguistic realities of Canadian postsecondary institutions focusing on tensions and contradictions around two prominent discourses: internationalization and indigenization of higher education. In doing so, we focus on a common challenge: English dominance in Canadian universities. This linguistic hegemony persists in a time of Truth and Reconciliation and indigenization of education as well as within the intensified discourse of internationalization in the new global political economy. As professors of language education in two prairie province universities, we draw on examples from our own contexts and consider the potential mismatches between positive discourses about multilingualism and practices and structural realities that do not support on-the-ground multilingualism. We situate our discussion within a larger social, political economic context of contemporary colonialism and capitalism. Our goal is to introduce a critique of the ongoing role Canadian universities play in producing settler colonialism and English monolingualism as well as to provide suggestions to engage more meaningfully with multilingualism in today's higher education across Canada.
Challenging Deficit Constructions of the International Student Category in Canadian Higher Education
Author: Surtees, Victoria
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Students,Disadvantaged,International Education,Undergraduate Students,Student Attitudes,Student Diversity,Foreign Countries,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Immigration,Intercultural Communication,Language Variation,Translation,Case Studies,Peer Relationship,Student Characteristics,Immigrants,Multilingualism,Student Mobility,Study Abroad

The trend toward internationalization on Canadian campuses has been simultaneously lauded as an opportunity for promoting campus diversity and criticized for creating a campus environment that is segregated along linguistic and ethnic lines. As a result of these tensions, students labelled as &quot;international&quot; have become the focus of increasing amounts of media attention. In this article, drawing on interviews with undergraduate students (n = 13) from one postsecondary Canadian institution, I examine how the seemingly neutral labels applied to diverse students, such as the category &quot;international,&quot; operate in talk to reproduce deficit understandings of these students, particularly in regard to their English language abilities. I then provide evidence that students also construct more positive representations of international students through references to their experiences of migration and their expertise interacting with speakers of different Englishes. I offer the notion of &quot;language brokers&quot; as a helpful conceptual lens for interpreting this categorization and for reflecting on the contributions that international students make to Canadian higher education.
Institutional Roles and Identity Construction of Applied Linguistics Faculty Involved in Interdisciplinary Collaborations for Multilingual Student Success
Author: Ilieva, Roumiana
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: College Faculty,Applied Linguistics,Interdisciplinary Approach,Course Content,Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Professional Identity,Multilingualism,Teacher Collaboration,Cultural Pluralism,Institutional Characteristics,Audio Equipment,Meetings,Foreign Countries,Communities of Practice,College Students,English for Academic Purposes,Teacher Role,Language of Instruction,Correlation,Academic Achievement

This article analyzes the academic identity constructions of applied linguists in the context of interdisciplinary collaborations as they seek to integrate language and content at the curricular core of an increasingly multilingual and multicultural university in Western Canada. The study draws on transcripts of audiotaped monthly meetings, framed as a professional learning community, where participants shared and discussed existing literature on interdisciplinary collaborations in support of multilingual student success, as well as their experiences with collaboration in the institution. In this qualitative study, data were analyzed thematically, and the themes that emerged suggest complex connections between institutional roles and professional identities with the changing roles of the participants in the institution interacting with the construction of their academic identities. Overall, we conceptualize these applied linguists as cross-boundary academics who perform translational functions within the institution in negotiating their disciplinary knowledge with faculty across the disciplines. As such, they contribute to building capacity in working in a multilingual environment through their efforts to integrate language and content instruction jointly with their disciplinary colleagues.
Barriers to Reading in Higher Education: Rethinking Reading Support
Author: Andrianatos, Kristien
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Undergraduate Students,Reading Difficulties,Barriers,Reading Comprehension,Reading Processes,Compliance (Psychology),Reading Ability,Textbooks

Background: Reading is a functional academic literacy ability needed by students in higher education. In the South African context, inadequate reading ability is one of the reasons for high undergraduate attrition rates. It seems that role players within this sector are of the opinion that students have reading 'problems' that need to be 'fixed', often by generic reading courses. This article differs from the perception of reading 'problems', as reading is viewed from a lifespan developmental perspective. According to this perspective undergraduate students do not have reading 'problems' but experience reading barriers hindering their reading development and in effect their academic literacy. Objectives: This study aimed to uncover some of these barriers by means of an empirical study conducted at the North-West University (NWU). Method: The setting of this study was the Potchefstroom campus of the NWU. A qualitative methodology was chosen whereby 14 individual interviews and 7 focus group interviews were used. The purpose of these interviews was to better understand lecturers' and students' perceptions about the variables of the reading process, namely the reading ability of the reader, the text to be read, the task, and the socio-cultural context. Results: Lecturers and students perceived a number of reading barriers within each variable, namely students' non-compliance and lack of abilities, elements of the textbook and availability of lecturer notes, the format of the task, throughput pressures, and lecturers' assumptions. Conclusion: Knowledge of these barriers and knowledge of the interconnectedness of the reading process could enable role players to collaboratively rethink undergraduate reading support, in which the lecturer has a crucial role to play.
Bachelor of Laws (LLB) Students&apos; Views of Their Literacy Practices: Implications for Support in a Time of Change
Author: Bangeni, Bongi
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Undergraduate Students,Bachelors Degrees,Law Students,Legal Education (Professions),Student Attitudes,Educational Practices,Technical Writing,Persuasive Discourse,Writing Difficulties

Background: From 2020, the Law faculty has decided to discontinue the five-year Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP) stream within the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree for a variety of reasons, including students' perceptions of stigma, the poor throughput rate of this stream and the identified need to extend academic support to more students in the mainstream class. Objectives: This article argues that we need to gain insight into the struggles experienced by novice writers on the ECP to inform the nature of support that will need to be provided to LLB students going forward. We thus sought to explore the nature of the challenges experienced by two sets of first-year LLB ECP students with acquiring legal writing practices, namely students from high school and postgraduate students with degrees from other faculties. Method: Two semi-structured interviews on students' perceptions of their challenges experienced with legal writing were conducted with 12 participants. Results: Students' struggles with legal writing could be traced to difficulties with engaging appropriately with legal concepts and sources, reading effectively and accommodating the discipline's valuing of conciseness in presenting arguments. We also show how students' English additional language status and prior degrees inform these struggles. Conclusion: The article shows the value of looking to ECP students' challenges with literacy practices (legal writing) in their first year to inform support for all first-year LLB students.
The Development of Competencies Required for School Principals in Quebec: Adequacy between Competency Standard and Practice
Author: Lambert, Monique
Date: 2019-09-23
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Principals,Instructional Leadership,Administrator Education,Standards,Foreign Countries,Administrator Role,Administrator Attitudes,Administrator Effectiveness,Competency Based Education,Barriers,Educational Change,Educational Administration,School Administration

School principals deal with a variety of increasingly complex responsibilities (Trudeau, 2013). They must therefore develop and hone professional competencies that will enable them to effectively perform their pedagogical, organizational, relational, or administrative duties (Barber, Whelan &amp; Clark., 2010; Bisaillon et al., 2009; Darling-Hammond, Meyerson, LaPointe, &amp; Orr, 2010; Pont, Nusche, &amp; Moorman, 2008). In light of the many societal changes and resulting pressure on schools, many countries have developed competency standards for school principals to redefine the competencies required to successfully fulfill this role (UNESCO, 2006). Quebec has followed suit in this movement with the publication of its first competency standard for school principals in 2008. This document is used during the initial training for future school principals to develop competencies useful for this function. What competencies are needed by school leaders in relation to the challenges they face in their work? What are these challenges? Interviews with school principals (N = 13) allowed us to highlight challenges that arise in their day-to-day activities which allowed us to identify the professional and cross-curricular (behavioural) competencies that they implement to do their job.
Comparative and Critical Analysis of Competency Standards for School Principals: Towards an Inclusive and Equity Perspective in Québec
Author: Larochelle-Audet, Julie
Date: 2019-09-23
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Principals,School Administration,Inclusion,Equal Education,Foreign Countries,Standards,Comparative Education,Social Justice,Minority Group Students,Competence,Student Diversity,Special Needs Students,At Risk Students,Indigenous Populations,Leadership Styles

This article presents the results of a comparative and critical study of the competency standards of Québec school administrators compared with seven other education systems within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). An inductive-type analysis has made it possible to identify the social categories targeted in the standards, the vision of school leaders as well as the competencies that are likely to help advance educational and societal goals of equity, inclusion, and social justice. Three contrasting perspectives emerge from this analysis. In Australia, California, and the United States, principals are explicitly encouraged to take action against structures and practices that undermine the educational success and social recognition of minority groups. In British Columbia and New Zealand, statements about social diversity focus more on the transformation of individual practices. Finally, in the standards of England, Texas and Québec, only a few generic statements referring to the differentiated needs of students and their success have been identified. They are instead characterized by a managerial approach oriented toward results that are measurable and cost controlled. In conclusion, a more in-depth analysis of the Québec standards opens the door to a new competency model and recommendations.
Bullying and Interpersonal Conflict from a &quot;Dialogic Event&quot; Perspective
Author: Smith, Mark Philip
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Bullying,Peer Relationship,Private Schools,Moral Values,Student Responsibility,Ethics,Dialogs (Language),Suburban Schools,Middle School Students,Middle School Teachers,Student Welfare,Classroom Environment,Conflict Resolution,Friendship

Through discussions in class meetings of &quot;concrete situations&quot; experienced by students in their lived experience in and out of the classroom, educators have been encouraged to guide students to understand how bullying applies to their lives, and to learn the degree to which bullying is present or absent in their relationships with their peers (Olweus, 1993). In observations of and interviews about the class meetings at a private, progressive U.S. middle school, student and teacher discourses in response to students' interpersonal dynamics are found to exist within separate, parallel universes. The teachers' discourse universe presumes that the lived experience of students can be understood through and guided by abstract, Kantian-like moral universal imperatives -- specifically, the imperative to &quot;feel good&quot; and the imperative not to bully. These imperatives supplant dialogue on the events of students' experiences toward a focus on who the students are becoming rather than who they are now. This discourse of &quot;half-being&quot; maps the students' experiences upon what is known, predictable, universal, unsurprising and imagined, and assumes that students are not fully responsible for their own or each other's well-being. By contrast, the students' discourse on their interpersonal dynamics is characterized by Bakhtin's (1993) notion of &quot;being-as-event&quot; discourse, which is highly contextualized, unpredictable, and focuses upon everyone's responsibility to ongoing dramatic and ontologically charged events (either immediate or recursive in nature). The students' discursive universe is conducive to dialogue, whereas the teachers' discursive universe supplants the students' messy, unpredictable and dialogically responsible discourse, thus arresting the possibility for teachers and peers to provide meaningful and authoritative guidance to dialogic events. The reasons for teachers' attraction to Kantian-like abstract moral universals as well as the consequences of the supplanting of students' event-filled discourse with the discourse of bullying are discussed.
Logics of Accountability: Cross-National Patterns in School-Level Controls
Author: Kim, Taeyeon
Date: 2019-09-30
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Cross Cultural Studies,Accountability,Guidelines,Human Resources,Administrator Surveys,Teacher Surveys,Budgets,School Administration,Educational Practices,Educational Change,Administrative Organization,Instructional Materials,Institutional Autonomy,Classification,Scores,Foreign Countries,Elementary Secondary Education

This paper explores multiple logics of accountability by examining patterns of control of various school functions under different accountability systems. Research has shown that accountability is a global phenomenon, but how accountability is understood and enacted is locally contextualized, which implies the existence of multiple logics of accountability in practice. By linking theoretical arguments rooted in literature to empirical evidence observed in TALIS 2013, we aim to theorize logics of accountability and then demonstrate the existence of those logics across countries. We first developed a framework of logics of accountability: control-based, professional-based, test-based, and process-based accountability. We then empirically analyzed three types of control--external, internal, and mixed control--at the school level across countries and within four content areas--assessment, human resource, curriculum, and budget--to infer how each country consistently follows a logic of accountability in their schooling practices. We found that a few countries followed a relatively pure form of control-based, professional-based, and process-based logic; however, most countries followed mixed-forms of logic. Our findings provide a systematic approach for the mapping of accountability logics across countries and suggest that more thought should be paid to how the underlying logic of accountability should manifest across these different functions.