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Chapter 14. Navigating ethical challenges in L2 writing in transnational higher education
Abstract
This volume contributes to ongoing discussions of ethics in Applied Linguistics scholarship by focusing in depth on several different sub-areas within the field. The book is comprised of four sections: methodological approaches to research; specific participant populations and contexts of research; (language) pedagogy and policy; and personal and interactive aspects of research and scholarship. Moving beyond discussions of how ethics is conceptualized or defined, the chapters in this volume explore ethics-in-practice by examining context-specific ethical challenges and offering guidance for current and future Applied Linguistics scholars. This volume responds to the need to provide context-specific research ethics training for graduate students and novice researchers interested in a variety of contexts and methodological approaches. After engaging with this volume, new and experienced applied linguists alike will gain familiarity with specific ethical challenges and practices within particular sub-disciplines relevant to their work and across the field more broadly.
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This mixed-methods study explores the language-related difficulties and ELT support offered in English-medium programmes at eight universities in China. Data included a student questionnaire (n = 394) measuring the difficulties of 45 academic tasks, organized around the four skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Results revealed students faced the largest difficulties with productive skills, especially writing. To explore structural language support for overcoming such challenges, fieldwork interviews with twenty-six senior faculty at eight universities in four cities in China were conducted. These revealed three main types of institutional support: concurrent language support from English language teachers offered alongside English medium programmes; preparatory programmes taken before students enrolled in English medium courses, which were prevalent in language-specialist universities; and self-access learning and writing centres, which were found at two transnational universities. When structural support was lacking, content teachers reported making grassroots efforts to help students understand content via use of the students’ multilingual repertoires in explanations, interactions, and materials.
This article reports on a study of policymaking at transnational and local universities in China concerning English Medium Instruction (EMI) provision, and the impact this has on stakeholder experiences. It explores policymaking at two transnational universities, which are compared and contrasted with data collected at six other Chinese universities that offer EMI programmes. Data were collected via individual and group interviews with 26 key policy stakeholders during fieldwork at the eight universities and centred on language-related policy diffusion surrounding admissions, language support, and language use. Findings revealed a reliance on foundation year studies at transnational universities versus the Gaokao (national college entrance examination) at other universities to ensure students had the requisite proficiency upon admissions. Findings also revealed transnational universities were more likely to offer language support to their students and have language policies governing language use. Overall, the findings reveal a range of affordances and caveats associated with each institution’s contextualized policy making, causing ease and conflict for EMI stakeholders.
This is the pre-draft of our editorial piece for our upcoming special issue in the RELC Journal. Please go to this web address: https://doi.org/10.1177/00336882211018540 , or to the RELC Journal website for the final published version.
This editorial piece is the introduction of our special issue on English as a medium of instruction (EMI) and transnational higher education (TNHE). In this piece, we argue for a centering of diversity, inclusion, equity and access in EMI-TMHE as part of a larger agenda to create a more socially just field of English language teaching.
China continues to experience rapid economic growth and the increasing demand for tertiary level education of Chinese citizens has created a significant market for Higher Education (HE) providers across the globe. Transnational Higher Education (TNHE), where the delivery of an overseas degree is partly conducted in the host country, continues to be a popular model of HE delivery in China. Although much research has been undertaken regarding student motivations to study abroad at a foreign university, little is understood about why Chinese students choose TNHE in China. Drawing on push–pull theory and using survey (328) and interview data (40) from students at two Anglo-Sino programmes, the study findings highlight that understanding Chinese students’ motivation requires a more contextualised and student-centric approach, to better appreciate student choices, including though a Confucian lens.
Language policies generally seek to establish, regulate, and conform linguistic practices – whether explicit or implicit – that occur within an ‘authorized’ domain. While there are multiple levels (societal, institutional, and interpersonal) at which such policies are enacted (Hornberger & Johnson, 2007), academic institutions are often significant policy arbiters as they serve as crucial switchboards (Blommaert, 2010; De Costa, 2010) that connect policies at the societal and interpersonal levels. In particular, English medium of instruction (EMI) policies that mandate English as the primary means of academic content delivery have played a pivotal role in enabling universities in countries such as Bangladesh (Rahman & Mehar Singh, 2019), China (e.g., Hu, 2009; Song, 2019; Zhang, 2018), Saudi Arabia (Barnawi, 2018; Phan & Barnawi, 2015), and Vietnam (Phan, 2018) to establish themselves on the world stage and engage with the global community. Even though several scholars (e.g., Coleman, 2006; Jenkins, 2019a; Knight, 2013, 2016; Macaro et al., 2018) have investigated EMI policies across different contexts, the following central question concerning these policies still persists: in what ways has the implementation of EMI policies transformed the higher education sector, and subsequently affected primary social actors, such as students, teachers, and administrators embedded within these shifting contexts? These concerns, we posit, are amplified by the transnational movements of people and institutions (Duff, 2015) and the ever-increasing speed and agility with which TESOL as a field has to respond to the shifting tides of globalization (Barnawi, 2020). Given this conspicuous gap in an ever-evolving English language policy landscape, we set out to critically review previous works that have examined the implementation of EMI policies within a transnational higher education (TNHE) context. TNHE is characterized by the transformation of higher education across the globe (Knight, 2013; Kosmützky & Putty, 2016) as Western-based universities export models – driven by a neoliberal agenda to maximize financial profit – through the establishment of overseas branch campuses. In reviewing works that examine TNHE, we aim to stimulate dialogue on this contemporary phenomenon.
This article explores the relationship between course performance, English language proficiency, motivation, and academic language skills in an English medium instruction (EMI) university context. It analyses test and questionnaire data from 146 students from an EMI business program at a Japanese university, and follow-up interviews with seven students. Proficiency test and subject exam scores revealed that knowledge of English language and academic English skill were statistically significant predictors of success in EMI, suggesting that lower proficiency students require more targeted language support in order to increase their likelihood of success. A motivation measure did not correlate with higher grades, contradicting research in language learning contexts. Interview data uncovered the multi-faceted nature of ‘success in EMI’ suggesting that students see success as a combination of final grades, lecture comprehension, English language proficiency gains, and long-term career advancement.
Incl. abstracts in English, German, French, Spanish and Russian; bibliographical references This article sets out to analyse critically the nature of globalisation and how it is affecting higher education. The author first reviews the nature of globalisation, and then examines its international impact on higher education development. He contends that globalisation is predominantly economic, and points out that global exchanges in the economic, cultural and educational domains continue to be unequal. At the same time, education is increasingly treated as a business. By exposing the negative side of globalisation and its effects on universities, the author aims to counter the uncritical acceptance of globalisation as a positive force for higher education and society as a whole.
Ranging from ascribed documented practices (i.e., macroethics) to contextually and sociohistorically located relations (i.e., microethics), ethics in Applied Linguistics research concerns the power dynamics that are inherent to all human relationships. This paper aims to identify, interrogate, and interrupt (Menezes de Souza, 2019a; 2019b) a colonial narrative that silently but efficiently advances the coloniality of knowledge in the field of Applied Linguistics, which leads us to problematize ethics in our field. The colonial narrative is (1) identified and interrogated in relation to the imposition of characteristics from the Medical and Biomedical research fields to the Human and Social Sciences, taking the Brazilian Ethics Review Board National System (viz. Plataforma Brasil) as an example; and (2) interrupted as stories that are told (Chimentão & Reis, 2019; Senefonte, 2018). Through the telling of two local stories (Krenak, 2020), concerning fluid and more symmetrical-oriented relations between researchers and participants, decolonial futures (Veronelli, 2016) are imagined, which, in Applied Linguistics research, are collaboratively constructed and derived from an ontological ethical imperative (Lévinas, 1972) that requires us to see the participants as individuals who are capable of genuinely participating in investigative studies, and thus doing more than just simply generating data.
Debates around the impact of English-medium instruction (EMI) as part of transnational higher education (TNHE) typically focus on macro-level impacts on host country languages, cultures, and economies. Adopting the methodology of institutional ethnographies, this reflective study narrates how I came to find problematic such totalizing narratives of TNHE. The object of my reflections is an undergraduate English elective course, Communicating in the Global Marketplace, first taught on the main campus in Pittsburgh, USA, of a TNHE institution, which I then participated in “(dis)locating” (Edwards and Usher, 1997) to a branch campus in Qatar. The study illustrates how emic perspectives on course design and delivery open up TNHE as a process of meaning-making. Analysis of course artefacts (course descriptions, reading lists, and assignments) from offerings on both campuses point to opportunities educators in the process of TNHE have to question language ideologies in EMI, consider “imagined communities” (Norton and Pavlenko, 2019) when marketing courses for prospective students, and frame both transnational “encounters” (Vora, 2014) and our understanding of what is “intercultural” in transnational EMI.
The establishment of an international branch campus can impact upon a diverse range of stakeholders in both home and host countries. Many of the arguments against international branch campuses are based on ethical issues, such as the lack of academic freedom and civil liberties in host countries. Ignoring ethical issues may deny institutions the achievement of legitimacy, which can result in financial losses and reputational damage. Thus, the purpose of this article is to identify the ethical issues that higher education managers should recognise and address when considering the establishment of an international branch campus. A framework based on analysing how home and host country stakeholders might be impacted by the establishment of an international branch campus – and how they might influence higher education institutions – is proposed. It was found that institutions which are flexible, quick to learn, and possess the dynamic capabilities necessary to drive organisational change might be the institutions that have the greatest chance of success in foreign markets. Given that at the start of 2015, at least 24 new international branch campuses were planned or in the process of being built, it is concluded that higher education institutions will have to continue treading the thin line between trying to fit in with their host cultures while simultaneously trying to achieve academic freedom and improve local social, political, and legal conditions.
This article addresses the theme of the 1995 TESOL Convention: Building Our Futures Together. It takes building to be an activity that, like effective communication, prefers common ground and solid foundations. The common ground proposed is a view of TESOL as an undertaking that provides, for its long-term practitioners, a professional vehicle for self-development. An interdependence of the personal and professional arises from the underlying values that inform our actions in the various cultures and subcultures in which we live. This is where foundations must be laid. We face paradoxes, or dilemmas, when clashes develop between different sets of values: for example, the professional values we espouse as people-who-teach, the political values that dominate the societies in which we work, and the cultural values that predominate in societies with which we interact. The article examines three such paradoxes from a perspective that emphasizes our daily need not only to act, but to act in ways consonant with the values we profess. Finally, in an avowedly personal statement, the article sketches a preferred vision of partnership in futures building for TESOL.
There is a need to distinguish two paradigms of 'culture' in applied linguistics. What has become the default notion of 'culture' refers to prescribed ethnic, national and international entities. This large culture paradigm is by its nature vulnerable to a culturist reduction of 'foreign' students, teachers and their educational contexts. In contrast, a small culture paradigm attaches 'culture' to small social groupings or activities wherever there is cohesive behaviour, and thus avoids culturist ethnic, national or international stereotyping. Ethnography uses small cultures as the location for research, as an interpretive device for understanding emergent behaviour, rather than seeking to explain prescribed ethnic, national or international difference. A small culture view of English language curriculum settings reveals mismatches between professional-academic and organizational cultures at the mezzo level of the institution; and (small) cultural imperialism is revealed as the invasion of the technologizing discourses connected with instrumental 'ELT'. Within the small culture mélange, culture learning will not necessarily relate to ethnic, national or international difference.
The prominent current tendency in applied linguistics to situate its theory and research has seen parallel shifts in the type of research methodologies being employed. Increasingly, decontextualized laboratory methodologies are giving way to more holistic approaches, and these, in turn, involve a significant shift in the researchers' roles, relationships, and ethical responsibilities. By providing examples of specific ethical dilemmas that arose in the process of a longitudinal classroom-based research project, I aim to illustrate that adherence to general “macroethical” principles established in professional codes of ethics may be inadequate for ensuring ethical research in the situated era, which warrants the expansion of the ethical lenses and consideration of alternative microethical models. I conclude with a call for developing a more contextualized code of practice that would integrate both perspectives and recognize the ability to reflect on the ethical consequences of research practice as a core competence of applied linguists.
This paper deals with an underdeveloped notion in the EAP sub-discipline of contrastive rhetoric: culture. It argues that a better conceptualization of contrastive rhetoric needs to include a better conceptualization of culture. After engaging with the complex question “What is culture?” the paper moves on to consider four sets of current issues regarding the concept of culture: (1) received culture versus postmodern culture versus cultural studies culture; (2) culture as product versus culture as process; (3) culture in the head versus culture in the world; and (4) big culture versus small culture. The paper then ends with a call for greater attention to the culture concept in contrastive rhetoric studies.
Postmodernism and literacies
- Gee
A study to determine Chinese college students’ English proficiency required for bilingual education
- Han