M. Obaidul Hamid

• The University of Queensland

In this article, we draw upon notions of datafication and data citizenship to explore assessment practices in Singapore schools. Interviews with teachers, principals and students illustrated how they were actively involved in a much more ‘educative’ form of engagement with data, characterized by efforts to ameliorate consequential negative effects...

This entry examines relationships between world Englishes and global tests of English, highlighting key issues and debates based on a review of theoretical and empirical works. From an initial position of indifference and misunderstanding, language testing communities seem to have conceded to the necessity of incorporating varieties of Englishes in...

This article examines the space for modern languages in Inner CircleEnglish countries including Australia, UK, and USA against thecontinued rise of English as a global lingua franca. It is reasonableto surmise that the global popularity of English – demanded by theOuter and Expanding Circle and mainly supplied by the Inner Circlecountries will leav...

While a growing body of literature has illustrated how neoliberal discourses of English and employment have come to shape English language teaching (ELT) textbooks in a globalized world, little is known about how the translation of these discourses into pedagogical practices is mediated by the social class structures in postcolonial societies. In t...

Globalisation has created a structural demand for developing nations to introduce English earlier and for everyone in their education systems. This mass introduction of the global language is rationalised as an investment in human capital development to strengthen national capacity for participation in the global economy. Focusing on the Bangladesh...

This study employs an interpretive argument framework to explore the disjuncture between the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and real‐life language practices, drawing on test‐takers' perceptions and lived language experiences in Australia. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 17 participants from diverse national bac...

This chapter examines the current situation of English in ASEAN and the Southeast Asian region. This unfolding of English can be associated with the de-facto and de-jure adoption of English as the sole working language of ASEAN in the past six decades. Specifically, the chapter examines the dominant ideologies of English including English for devel...

The concluding chapter of the book revisits the rationale for undertaking the research on LPP in ASEAN. The findings of the study derived from interviews with LPP scholars and key ASEAN officials and based on analysis of available policy documents as reported in Chaps. 4, 5 and 6 are summarised in this chapter to present the main argument. The chap...

Chapter 4 offers insights into the process of language policy and planning in ASEAN, seeking to explain why and how English was chosen as the sole working language. The chapter provides an account of the under-researched LPP process, drawing chiefly on data from the interview participants and analysis of policy documents. We highlight the key facto...

This chapter discusses theories and principles as they relate to language policy and planning (LPP) at the supranational level. The chapter first examines types of LPP, with a particular focus on status planning and acquisition planning. The section that follows explores the LPP context of the book, which is the ASEAN. The discussion of agency in L...

This chapter provides an introduction about language policy and planning (hereafter, LPP) of international organisations and rationalises the selection of Association of South East Nations (ASEAN) in this book. The chapter then presents an overview of ASEAN as an intergovernmental organisation, within which the ASEAN Way is introduced as part of th...

This chapter looks into the future of LPP in ASEAN. Instead of predicting how the linguistic future may unfold in ASEAN and the region, the chapter prioritises remaining this future. The LPP scholar participants and policy officials were invited to reflect what an ideal ASEAN LPP may look like, as an alternative to the current English-only regime....

After laying the theoretical foundation in Chap. 2, this chapter briefly discusses the methodology employed for conducting the research reported in the book. However, the chapter is not simply an account of the technical and practical aspects of research process and procedures. Its innovation is marked by the very choice of mainly applied linguists...

Many studies have reported language problems faced by international students in cross-cultural study-abroad settings. The present study investigated Chinese international students’ linguistic insecurity during their study-abroad in Australia, and the strategies that they deployed to manage this. Based on interviews with ten students from two differ...

This article examines the transformation of applied linguistics knowledge production in the Global South taking postcolonial Bangladesh as a case. In the 1990s, one could not locate even a dozen applied linguistics articles in international journals authored by Bangladeshi researchers. However, in about two decades, Bangladeshi researchers can clai...

While Bourdieu’s conceptual resources, including his theorizing of field, capitals, and habitus, have been utilized by scholars in educational research, these theories remain under-used in English-language education (ELE) research, particularly in developing country contexts where ELE is being systematically oriented toward instrumentalist goals as...

This article examines English language teaching (ELT) policy, textbooks, and pedagogy in the neo‐nationalist era that followed 9/11 in Muslim‐majority Bangladesh. Informed by the Douglas Fir Group's transdisciplinary framework of second language learning, the examination substantiates the ideologies of economization , de‐Islamization and awamizatio...

We draw upon Appadurai’s ‘scapes’ and Latour’s Actor Network Theory (ANT) to interrogate historical and spatial flows in relation to specific testing technologies. We reveal how testing systems, conceptualised as actor-networks, rearticulate colonial legacies of inequality which are intensified by new and emerging technologies. ANT helps trace soci...

Private tutoring (PT) has emerged as an unavoidable feature of education in many parts of the world. While PT is usually understood as shadowing mainstream education, private tutoring in English (PT-E) as a sub-type has come to take on a life of its own due to the widely recognised instrumental value of English as a global lingua franca. English is...

In this article, we contest globalised notions of data as ‘universally’ beneficial, necessary and ‘evidence-based’. We do so by drawing upon narrative accounts of the problematic ways data impact educators researching and working in university and schooling settings over time and in varied national contexts. We reveal how data are transient and oft...

This article draws on a framework based on Bernstein’s three-message systems of schooling and Ball’s notion of policy cycle to examine how the human capital development goal incorporated into the Bangladesh secondary English curriculum has been translated into pedagogy and assessment practices. Data were collected from classroom observations and te...

The original version of Chapter 6 was inadvertently published with the introduced error ‘sss’ in the Abstract. The chapter has been updated.

The discourse of English Language Teaching (ELT) development aid for the Global South has undergone significant changes since its introduction in the post-WWII period. Specifically, in the contemporary context of globalisation, both the aim and operation of ELT aid exhibit the influence of neoliberalism. This article examines policy documents about...

Economisation or the alignment between education policy/practices and employment has emerged as a dominant trend in education in the globalised world. This employment orientation in education has come to shape English language teaching (ELT) policies and curricula in developing societies, emphasising the need for preparing students as skilled human...

The ideological role of English, beyond its instrumental value, is reported to be immense. British colonial rule deployed English as an ideological tool which facilitated colonial subjugation and religious conversion. Connections between English and evangelism have widened in the postcolonial and globalising world, leading to labelling English as a...

The relationship between language planning and education is described by terms such as language in education planning (LEP), which is a subtype of language policy and planning (LPP). Although LEP is limited in scope because of its association with education only, it has attained special significance because the broader societal language policies ar...

Characterised by media saturation and hypermobility, contemporary society has presented polymedia as an integral element of family life. The expansion and recognition of polymedia in language learning calls for exploring its role in heritage language (HL) maintenance. However, despite growing research interest in polymedia in diverse realms, there...

Children’s writing development is a matter of concern for Australian and other education systems. Factors related to the nature of writing as a literate skill, school writing pedagogy, and diminishing role of writing in a screen-dominant environment may account for this educational concern. What happens in a child’s writing when immigrant parents a...

Linked to citizenship cultivation, character education is understood as a specific approach geared towards fostering desired character traits in students at all levels of education via formal and informal learning activities. A wide range of macro and micro social problems are attributed to moral deficiencies in the economically and technologically...

This article investigates Chinese-Australian parents’ ideologies and visions about the maintenance of Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) as well as their struggles in using family language policy (FLP) as defence and coping mechanisms to address tensions associated with the transgenerational transmission of CHL. Language policy defined as an asse...

Drawing on the epistemologies of the Global South and the sociolinguistic reality of English in postcolonial Bangladesh, this article conceptualises English as a Southern language. This conception recognises the imperative of English for postcolonial societies in an English-dominant world while also emphasising the necessity of breaking away from i...

This chapter provides a critical examination of the potential social outcomes of bilingual education (English + Sinhala/Tamil) in multilingual and multiethnic Sri Lanka. Specifically, we explore the potential of English as a medium of instruction in bringing together divided ethnolinguistic groups who may be segregated by ethnically based mother to...

This study investigated Cambodian academics’ conceptions of research and the research-teaching nexus. Drawing on interviews with 30 academics, the study reveals mixed and contrasting conceptions of research held by the academics. They understood the value of research which, they also believed, contributed to teaching. The analysis also shows that t...

In a world where linguistic and cultural diversity is increasingly celebrated, opting for English as the sole working language, as stipulated in the ASEAN Charter, on pragmatic grounds, has made ASEAN an interesting case study from the language policy and planning (LPP) perspective. ASEAN's LPP can be understood as the manifestation of the principl...

This chapter provides a critical examination of the potential social outcomes of bilingual education (English + Sinhala/Tamil) in multilingual and multiethnic Sri Lanka. Specifically, we explore the potential of English as a medium of instruction in bringing together divided ethnolinguistic groups who may be segregated by ethnically based mother to...

This chapter provides a nuanced analysis of how neoliberalism has come to shape the English Language Teaching (ELT) policy field in Bangladesh. Employing a qualitative approach, and drawing on document analysis, we traced neoliberal influences in the field since the 1990s. Our analysis reveals an ideological shift towards linguistic instrumentalism...

Although washback has been widely explored by applied linguists and education researchers, little attention has been paid to teacher agency in relation to it. It is critical to understand how language teachers navigate their pedagogy and respond to the broader curricular goals at a time when schools and teachers are being governed using examination...

Engagement in research is crucial for university academics to fulfil their tripartite roles related to teaching, research, and service. While there is a substantial literature that examines how academics perceive and engage in research, studies investigating research engagement of academics in the Global South remain limited. Employing a qualitativ...

With the exponential growth of English-Medium Instruction (EMI) provision in higher education, which is rapidly outpacing empirical research, this book outlines approaches to EMI in a range of regional contexts to exemplify different interpretations of implementing EMI policy in higher education. The book provides an in-depth understanding of evolv...

This article explores the sense-making experiences of one specific stakeholder group in education reform – school leaders – who find themselves wedged by significant material challenges, on the one hand, and disparate reform efforts, on the other hand. The research draws upon experiences from the Philippines where reform efforts are significantly c...

Over the past few decades, many Southeast Asian governments have promoted English language education (hereafter ELE) as a linguistic pathway for developing human capital and improving global economic competitiveness of their nations. However, Kirkpatrick (2017. Language education policy among the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Eur...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has deployed English not only as its sole working language but also as a tool for forging regional identity, unity and solidarity among its ten member‐states. Drawing on the concept of ‘imagined communities’ and, by extension, ‘imagined identity regionalism’, this article provides a critical examin...

As global language policy, English language teaching (ELT) development aid is as old as the field of language policy and planning. Contemporary discourses of ELT aid management acknowledge voices of project beneficiaries such as teachers. Beneficiary testimonials may satisfy the neoliberal demand for accountability, efficiency and evidence of impac...

This chapter provides an overview of the policy and planning of Arabic as an instance of early language learning in the religious stream of education (known as madrasa) in Bangladesh. Drawing on historical and ecological perspectives, we first contextualise the policy and practice of Arabic in the madrasa sector. We then utilise a language-in-educa...

Although most international organisations are, in principle, multilingual, the ten-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has adopted a radical approach by operating monolingually, ostensibly for convenience and pragmatism. In order to provide an evaluation of the ASEAN policy context, this paper compares and contrasts ASEAN to two...

Tourism is a service industry that demands well-trained professionals with internationally accredited skills including English language proficiency. Meeting such demands has been one of the foremost concerns of the ASEAN ministries of tourism and education. In collaboration with ASEAN member countries and the Australian government, Indonesian Minis...

The growing recognition of the varieties of Englishes constituting the world Englishes (WE) and related paradigms calls for replacing teachers’ existing language ideologies with WE-oriented beliefs and preparing them to teach with WE awareness. Since WE has yet to be part of mainstream education and teacher education, formal and informal interventi...

This article examines Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ experiences of language choice in communication with people of different ages and in different relations to them in their family and ethnolinguistic community. Concepts of power, solidarity and marked and unmarked choices are adapted to examine the students’ strategies of language choice. I...

English language education (ELE) in Bangladesh went through significant policy reforms towards the end of the twentieth century. A landmark policy change was the shift from traditional grammar-based language education to communicative language teaching (CLT), corresponding to a shift from academic to job-market orientation of curricular goals. The...

English language education policy is a subset of language in education policy, also known as language acquisition planning (Kaplan and Baldauf,.Language planning: From practice to theory, Multilingual Matters, 1997). Language in education policy refers to the deployment of language in education contexts, shaping the character, processes and outcome...

This paper analyses reflections upon the nature of recent educational policymaking in Singapore. Drawing upon the authors’ individual and collective autoethnographic analyses of a series of reflective notes jotted down after discussions with educators from private and public schools in Singapore, the Academy of Singapore Teachers, and FutureSkills...

Drawing on the positioning theory and the conditions for language use, this article examines Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language choice in interactions with their same-ethnicity and majority peers, focusing particularly on their communication motives underlying this choice. Findings suggest that in regulating their language alternation pr...

Academics are under increasing pressure to publish, particularly in peer-reviewed journals. This external pressure is clearly expressed by the “publish or perish” dictum. Studies have shown that academics’ engagement in research and their research productivity are influenced by personal as well as environmental factors. Based on an extensive review...

This chapter examines the sociolinguistic reality of English in Bangladesh from the perspective of world Englishes It describes the penetration of English in various domains as a way of understanding the place of English in the local linguistic ecology. The chapter overviews English in Bangladesh followed by an examination of its functions in key d...

http://international-assessments.org/high-stakes-tests-as-gatekeepers-interrogating-test-architecture-in-bangladesh/

This article reports on a study that was carried out to explore the factors that contribute to a negative washback effect on English language teaching (ELT) in secondary schools in Bangladesh. Twelve secondary school teachers were interviewed to understand their perspectives on which factors influenced their pedagogical choices. The interview data...

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has long been considered a global policy in language education. It has been borrowed and adopted by different polities across the world. However, it is still not clear why the CEFR, intended for European usage, has become a ubiquitous tool for overhauling the quality of teaching and le...

Although use of high-stakes tests is common across developing societies, very little is known about how these tests are designed, what principles and criteria guide test construction, and what factors influence this process. The present study investigates the development of the English Paper-1 test for the Higher Secondary Certificate examination i...

Although language test-takers have been the focus of much theoretical and empirical work in recent years, this work has been mainly concerned with their attitudes to test preparation and test-taking strategies, giving insufficient attention to their views on broader socio-political and ethical issues. This article examines test-takers’ perceptions...

Located in the economics of language, the present study seeks to contribute towards understanding the Vietnamese job market’s demand for competency in using English. The globalization of English and the global flow of capital are factors that are changing the linguistic landscape of the world of work. However, there has been limited research on the...

Debates over medium of instruction, as ideological skirmishes, showcase discursive identity construction, reproduction, and contestation by different social groups. Drawing on such debates in letters to the editor and internet‐based newsgroup posts written by Bangladeshi English‐medium (EM) and Bangla‐medium (BM) educated writers, this article exam...

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has emerged as a global policy in language education which has been “borrowed” by nations across the world. This paper presents a critical analysis of Malaysia’s borrowing of the CEFR as part of English language curriculum reform with particular reference to policy motivation and imple...

This paper critiques recent practices in schooling, particularly efforts to enhance student learning outcomes for more performative purposes. Such practices have become increasingly prevalent as part of a broader trend towards results-oriented accountability practices, with concomitant pressures upon teachers and students to achieve particular outc...

With the diversification of contexts in which LPP processes take place, from traditional national to supra-national and sub-national settings, the authors of this chapter—which draws on three recently completed doctoral studies on agency and language-in-education policy conducted in three universities in Vietnam—note a growing analytical emphasis o...

This article examines evidence of teachers’ work and learning in one school setting in the northern regions of Queensland, Australia, revealing how globalized performative practices that circulate around the collection and use of data in schooling settings are both confirmed and contested. Drawing upon the literature on the nature of accountability...

The study reported in this article investigated the processes and the effects of collaborative writing on 64 students’ writing skills in two Arabic as a second language (ASL) teachers’ classrooms. The authors employed a mixed methods approach that integrated a qualitative case study and a quasi-experimental design. The data collected included class...

Language tests are increasingly being used as gatekeeping tools in a globalised world. This article examines the processes of linguistic gatekeeping by the use of language tests in the context of migration. We draw on half a dozen cases of test-takers of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test who applied for entry into Austr...

Test-takers' voices in relation to high-stakes language tests have received growing attention in recent years. While the perspectives of this stakeholder group can be utilised to improve test quality, test-taking experience, and test impact, we argue that this goal needs to be achieved by considering a fundamental shift in our conceptualisation of...

This article examines a group of Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language attitudes towards formal and informal language policies of the domains of school, church and ethnic community and towards their individual bilingualism. Multiple semi-structured interviews with eight college-age minority students are used as the main source of the data....

This article examines the impact of subtractive schooling, including language use in education, on the identity of a group of ethnic minority students in Central Highlands of Vietnam. Drawing on semistructured interview data, a deeper look is taken into the ways in which these students identify themselves with their languages, cultures, and social...

Although research on private tutoring has gained visibility in recent years, private tutoring in English (PT-E) has not received notable attention. This paper examines students’ perceptions of PT-E in Bangladesh in terms of its necessity and helpfulness, peer pressure in PT-E participation and ethicality of PT-E practice and government intervention...

Drawing on concepts such as convergence, divergence and maintenance associated with Communication Accommodation Theory, this article examines a group of Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language choice in relation to their identity and social distance between them and their interlocutors. Our analysis suggests that the strategies of accommodati...

This article explores language experiences of three Bangladeshi migrant workers with low English proficiency in Australia through narrative inquiry. The narrative of each participant presents insights into the ways in which these migrants navigated through their work and social life, and developed social and communicative strategies to survive in t...