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Confirming Your English Identity

Lisa Hagan takes the mystery out of biometric testing for international English language test takers

Recent television and radio coverage of situations in which international students without a basic grasp of English have been accepted by U.S. and other universities has highlighted the problem of fraud in international testing. Little systematic data exists on its pervasiveness, and this may even be a case of media hype, but assessment companies are taking fraud seriously and doing all they can to prevent students, professors, and administrators from suffering its consequences.

The pressure on some students to succeed at these exams is enormous, so it is hardly surprising that incidences of testing fraud vary from institution to institution. When asked how he dealt “with situations in which a student has achieved the required English test score but does not demonstrate adequate command of the language,” Gregg Perry, associate director at the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Illinois, replied, “We do not experience this. Any issues we have are usually from students who have not submitted an IELTS or TOEFL.”

Whereas Shawn L. Abbott, assistant vice president of admissions at New York University, paints a different picture, “I think our most pressing concern is with regard to testing fraud. Any enhancements to testing security would be most welcome by colleges and universities… but we do believe the three English language examinations (TOEFL, IELTS, and Pearson PTE) we have approved are the most appropriate examinations to ensure that a student who is admitted will come to NYU with a rapid idiomatic command of the English language.” The reality is that the issue of fraud in international English examinations cannot be ignored, so students preparing for such tests need to be prepared for the biometric testing which will soon accompany most of them.

Many students will naturally feel that these tests are an invasion of privacy and, in some cultures, they may even seem offensive, so student advisors must do all they can to reduce any tension they may cause. Advisors can start by explaining the negative consequences of testing fraud, such as the problems and costs associated with situations where students are out of their depth linguistically on a program in a foreign country. It is just as important to explain how the procedures actually work so students are not surprised by them.

ETS, the creator of the TOEFL test, is introducing a biometric voice identification to maintain fair and reliable testing. The newly announced security measure provides an additional proven technique to add to the program’s comprehensive security system in authenticating test takers globally. Similar to the highly advanced speaker identification platforms used by government and law enforcement agencies, the software uses statistical pattern matching techniques, advanced voice classification methods, and inputs from multiple systems to compare speech samples from test takers. Launched this year, the speaker identification system offers the ability to create voice prints for detailed analysis to validate test takers.

“The inclusion of biometric voice identification technology is yet another tool in the TOEFL test security portfolio to ensure test integrity worldwide,” explains David Hunt, vice president and chief operating officer of ETS’s Global Division. “Including a state-of-the art speaker identification component to the TOEFL’s security system further strengthens our ability to detect attempts to gain an unfair advantage, a common concern in academia today. ETS is committed to identifying and implementing those protocols deemed most effective by leaders in the security industry in safeguarding against fraudulent behavior.”

Pearson PTE Academic test centers around the world are equipped with advanced palm vein recognition technology. The device captures and recognizes the unique patterns in a candidate’s palm veins using non-intrusive, near-infrared scanning technology. New candidates are enrolled in the biometric system during their first test center admission. They are then automatically verified when taking and returning from breaks. They are verified again when taking a test at a future date in any biometrically equipped location worldwide.

Palm vein recognition is secure, privacy-friendly, fast, highly accurate, and virtually impossible to forge. Signatures, photos and palm vein biometrics are time-stamped and packaged together with the test results and test driver keystroke logs to provide a verifiable digital audit trail for each candidate through the entire testing process. All proctor actions, such as starting/stopping exams, are also logged. Digital images (photos and signatures) are also included in the result feeds.

Although the University of Cambridge’s IELTS has security systems in place to safeguard against identity fraud among candidates, it only employs fingerprint scans at some test centers in Australia. Handwriting samples may also be assessed. Whatever identity verification procedures are used, it is important to remind students that both the actual test and the biometric test are for their own benefit, and keep in mind that most colleges are flexible and can assist students in improving their English. As Shawn Abbott explains, “We have a conditional admission program in which students may be offered admission on a provisional basis. We then expect students to enroll in a summer program on campus where students live in our residence halls for six-eight weeks, signing a language pledge to speak only English, and study English in an intensive immersion program. Upon successful completion of the program, students then matriculate fully into the University.”

Lisa Hagan is a freelance writer who studied in Trieste, Italy.

Opinion–Can We Make Chinese Less Graphic?

While many schools are dropping foreign language classes, the number of schools offering Mandarin Chinese courses is rising. In 2001, about 300 schools in the U.S. taught Chinese. In 2011, a con-servative estimate reported the number at 1600, a 433% increase. Schools that cannot afford Mandarin classes may be eligible to receive sponsorship from the Confucius Classroom program. China’s place as a global superpower is not only a household conversation but an educational one, too.

I take Mandarin in school. I also tutor Mandarin to a really bright, curious fifth grader. It’s a pleasure to work with her — she’s got, as Mark Edmundson, a professor at the University of Virginia and a New York Times Op-ed contributor has astutely termed, “a hungry heart” for learning. She comes to me for character memorization and reten-tion. My last tutee came to me for the same reasons. I too struggle through these points of mastery. In an astonishingly logical language like Chinese, vocabulary memorization and retention, not grammar, are the keys to being able to express and converse.

They are what daunt people considering taking Mandarin. They are what make people raise their eyebrows when I say I take Mandarin. And they are what make otherwise “hungry hearts” all too often give up mastering Mandarin. Currently, at the high school and undergraduate level, Chinese instruction is often such that only very visual students can retain char-acters learned. Although adequate attention is usually given to culture (including conversation or oral practice), little attention is devoted to the way students study characters, and the relationship between characters and culture.

Is there a reason the two can’t be linked to make character learning sustainable for everyone? When I tutor or study, characters are stories. I’ll explain: the char-acter  (pinyin: mào) meaning “hat” has a complete picture. On the left part of the character, I see a person. He’s standing in front of his drawer, looking into a mirror (the two dashes are glints of sunlight reflecting off the mirror). He’s looking at himself and he realizes some-thing is missing – his hat. I’ll admit: it’s complicated, and a bit silly.

My point is that most stu-dents cannot retrieve a character’s meaning in an exclusively visual way — that is to say, characters cannot simply be recalled as if stu-dents are asked to draw a car or a dog. Understanding has to be linked to recall. Character memorization should not occur in isolation, within the confines of a student’s room. Chinese educators need to take the time to teach a character’s histo-ry and make students aware of the cultural or historical elements that make a character memorable.

In doing a little research, I find that the character for peace, for instance, is represented by a woman underneath a roof, because, in contrast, during war a woman is outside, tending to the field while men are away.

If we make character memorization more interactive and cultural, supported by teachers with accurate insight into a char-acter’s history, we create Chinese learners that retain more and are better able to make educated guesses on characters they don’t know. Characters won’t be seen as a cumbersome element of the language – rather, they will be seen as keys to unlocking culture and valuable insights, and tools for overcoming ethnic and cultural misun-derstandings. With the number of American schools offering Chinese hitting a critical mass, the time to tailor Chinese instruction to the needs of non-visual learners is precisely now.

Lilli Schussler is a high school senior in New York City and Mandarin student of five years.

Students Create Music Video “Dreamchild” in French, English and Mowhawk

A new video created by students at St. Willibrord School in Châteauguay, Que, near Kahnawake Mohawk territory has been making the rounds online, and has become the new anthem of the elementary school. The song focuses on messages of positivity, and was partially filmed near the Kahnawake Mohawk territory where a third of the student population lives.

The idea to make such an anthem came from music teacher Caroline Bouchard. She worked with executive producer David Hodges of N’we Jian to produce the music video. The students in “Dreamchild” are all in Grades 5 and 6, and have captured the attention of people across the world, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who wrote on Twitter “Now this is a beautiful way to celebrate diversity.”

Grants to Fully Fund Chinese and Arabic Teachers @ K-12 Schools

U.S. K-12 schools can host a fully-funded teacher from Egypt, Morocco, or China with the help of Teachers of Critical Languages Program (TCLP) grants. TCLP is fully-funded grant sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. Through TCLP, schools can start new critical language programs or expand existing programs by hosting teachers of Arabic or Chinese as a foreign language.

This grant is available to elementary, middle, and high schools (K-12). The exchange teachers teach English or Arabic/Chinese as a foreign language at their home institutions and are generally a mix of elementary and secondary teachers.  All host schools are asked to cover the cost of applying for teaching certification (if this is necessary to teach at the school) and to locate a temporary, two-week homestay for the exchange teacher when they first arrive. In addition to these costs, there are three funding levels available for the grant:

  • Fully-Funded: The host school pays no additional cost to participate in TCLP.
  • Partially-Funded Level I: The host school cost-shares housing for the exchange teacher (i.e. homestay, apartment, rented room). All other program costs are covered by the grant.
  • Partially-Funded Level II: The host school cost-shares housing and $32,000 to cover program costs.

Host schools may apply for a fully-funded grant up to two years. A chart with the full description of the funding levels and the grant’s provisions is available on the TCLP website.

To learn more about the program, you can attend a live webinar on January 4 at 4pm EST to learn about the fully-funded grant, the application process, and to hear from a U.S. school about the impact that a TCLP teacher had on its language program and community.

The webinar on January 4th will be an interactive roundtable with two alumni from the program who have hosted TCLP teachers at their schools and served as mentors for those teachers. Attendees will be able to ask the alumni guests questions about hosting teachers and about their experiences with the grant overall. This roundtable will last approximately 1 hour. There is also a 30-minute informational recording on the TCLP website that goes over the grant’s provisions, requirements and application process: http://tclprogram.org/host-school-application.

Interested parties can apply now to host an Arabic or Mandarin language teacher for the 2018-19 school year. The application deadline for TCLP host schools is Monday, January 22, 2018 at 11:59pm EST.

 

 

Language of Rohingya to Be Digitized

CREDIT: PAULA BRONSTEIN/GETTY IMAGES

The Rohingya—the persecuted ethnic minority currently facing a sweeping refugee crisis in Myanmar—will soon be able to communicate digitally in their own language. Described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, the Rohingya population is denied citizenship in Myanmar, and is currently in one of the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis provoked by what the UN describes as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

The language will reportedly be included in the Unicode Standard—the coding systems that digitizes written script into characters and numbers. While the group is arguably facing matters much larger than language digitization, experts say having a digital script of their own is symbolic for the recognition and survival of the Rohingya people. “If a people do not have a written language of their own, it is easier to say that as an ethnic group you don’t exist,” Mohammad Hanif, developer of the writing system for the Rohingya language in the 1980s told The Guardian.

Anshuman Pandey built upon Hanif’s development after learning of it in 2011, and wanted to give people a chance to use it on computers. “Hanifi Rohingya” may be encoded by the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit corporation that coordinates the development of the Unicode standard. A representative told AFP by email that Hanifi Rohingya was one of the scripts being considered in the next version, but a final decision would be made in February.

“This is a big moment for the Rohingya community,” says Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organization in the UK. “The government has denied our existence for many decades.” With the addition of the Rohingya script, “our identity and culture will be preserved for the future,” Khin explains.

“It is revolutionary,” said Rebecca Petras of Translators Without Borders—a non-profit that provides translation services for charities in crisis zones. “In order for the language to survive, a script is necessary. This would strengthen the language and go a long way to preserve it.”

Taking a Leaf from Biology to Preserve Languages

Biodiversity scientists use language tree to help guide preservation efforts

Scores of indigenous North American languages might not survive the 21st century, so scientists from Canada’s McGill University are proposing to borrow a leaf from conservation biology to preserve as much linguistic diversity as possible.

When setting conservation goals, ecologists use evolutionary trees—diagrams that show how biological species are related to one another—to identify species that have few close relatives; such species are said to be evolutionarily distinct. Similarly, recent advances in the construction of language trees make it possible to gauge how unique a language is.
“Large, well-sampled species trees have transformed our understanding of how life has evolved and helped shape biodiversity conservation priorities,” says Jonathan Davies, associate professor of biology at McGill and senior author of the new study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. “The construction of more comprehensive language trees provides an equivalent opportunity for language preservation, as well as benefiting linguists, anthropologists, and historians.”

“The rapid rate of language loss, coupled with limited resources for preservation, means that we must choose carefully where to focus our efforts,” adds Max Farrell, a PhD student in Davies’s lab and co-author of the new paper. “The more isolated a language in its family tree, the more unique information it contains and ultimately contributes to linguistic diversity.”

Tongues on the EDGE

As a case study, Farrell and co-author Nicolas Perrault, now a graduate student at the UK’s Oxford University, used this approach borrowed from conservation biology to generate rankings for 350 Austronesian languages, spoken on islands scattered across Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Data were drawn from a language tree of several hundred Austronesian languages published by University of Auckland researchers in 2009, and from Ethnologue, an online database of over 7,000 living languages. (All told, there are more than 1,200 Austronesian tongues today, making it one of the world’s largest language families.)

For each of the 350 languages in the new study, the researchers combined measures of evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) and global endangerment (GE) to produce an “EDGE” score, similar to a metric used in conservation biology.
The language with the highest score was Kavalan, an exceptionally distinct yet nearly extinct language indigenous to Taiwan, where Austronesian languages are believed to have originated some 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. The next-highest scores went to Tanibili, a nearly extinct language in the Solomon Islands, and the Waropen and Sengseng languages of New Guinea.
By building trees for other language groups and applying similar metrics, language specialists could target preservation efforts and help minimize the loss of linguistic diversity in the future, the researchers say.

In Canada alone, for example, there are more than 70 Indigenous languages—most of which are considered to be endangered.

“Languages are the spark of a people, the bearing of cultures, and with their extinction we lose unique insights into human history and the evolution of language itself,” says Perrault. “Their disappearance is a loss to humanity, scholarship, and science.”
Funding for the research was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Nicolas Perrault, Maxwell J. Farrell, and T. Jonathan Davies. “Tongues on the EDGE: Language Preservation Priorities Based on Threat and Lexical Distinctiveness.” Royal Society Open Science, Dec. 13, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171218.

Confucius Launches Chinese Online Test and Programs

The Confucius Institute and XuetangX have launched a platform for students around the world who want to learn Chinese and pass the HSK proficiency tests. The courses are available at www.chinesetest.cn. Beginners can register and access the course HSK Tsinghua Chinese: Start Talking with 1.3 Billion People.

The most attractive part of this course is the fact that it is closely connected with the HSK tests. There are exercises for the tests at the end of each unit. After completing the program, students who get more than 60% will receive an HSK (Level I and II) score report issued by Chinese Testing International (CTI).

HSK is China’s only standardized test of Chinese language proficiency for nonnative speakers. The new six-level HSK test was launched by Hanban in an effort to better serve Chinese language learners. It is the result of coordinated efforts by domestic and foreign experts from different disciplines including Chinese language teaching, linguistics, psychology, and educational measurement.

According to the president of XuetangX, Li Chao, “For months, our company and the Confucius Institute have been working together with the University of Tsinghua to enable the study of Mandarin in a simple and modern format. Research shows that students listen to lectures more attentively if they have been given a problem or task to solve before the lecture. In this regard, the structure that most MOOCs have—short video lectures alternating with assignments and quizzes—is perfect.”

XuetangX is a leading platform for lifelong learning, with more than nine million registered users.

Tamazight Protests Hit Algeria

Algeria national flag on flagpoleProtestors in northern Algeria are calling on the government to fund promotion and preservation of Tamazight, their indigenous language.

The protests come after the Algerian government rejected an amendment to next year’s budget that would have formalized the teaching of the Tamazight language in local schools.

Students and other activists have rallied against the decision, which they say highlights the country’s wider rejection of the language and identity of its Berber citizens, also known as the Amazigh.

Lemnouar Hamamouche, a sociology student at the Abderrahmane Mira University of Bejaia, in Algeria’s northern region of Kabylie, told the Al Jazeera news network, “A social upheaval is coming,” claiming that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s government has not allocated any funds to boost the language at the national level.

“The popular masses are starting to protest” because they “reject the fact that [the state] is marginalizing a mother tongue” like Tamazight, said Hamamouche, a member of the local coordination committee for students at Bejaia.

Dozens of protesters blocked a road in Bouïra Province, and protesters clashed with security forces at rallies.

Algeria’s Kabylie region is at the heart of the struggle for Amazigh rights.

Hsain Ilahiane is an anthropology professor at the University of Kentucky, originally from Morocco, and the author of the Historical Dictionary of the Berbers (Imazighen).

Without reliable figures, Ilahiane estimates that between 15 and 50 million people speak dialects of Tamazight across countries in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Mediterranean.

“When one speaks about Tamazight or language in North Africa, whether it’s in Algeria or Libya or Morocco, you’re really speaking about politics of identity,” he said.

He said the struggle to recognize the Tamazight language has “been a long time coming.”

According to Ilahiane, in the late 1950s, as Algeria was fighting for an end to French colonial rule, a split occurred between Algerians who wanted a pluralistic society that would incorporate all ethnic groups and Algerians who wanted to anchor the state in the Arab and Islamic world.

Similar situations developed in other North African countries too. In 2011, Morocco recognized Tamazight as an official language.

“Tamazight has been discriminated against since the independence days of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and so on,” Ilahiane said.

Tamazight Now ‘Official’

In earlier versions of the Algerian constitution, the first of which was passed in 1963 after Algeria gained independence from France, Arabic was named the country’s sole “national” and “official” language.

An amendment to the constitution made Tamazight a second “national” language in 2002, and the state pledged to “work to promote and develop [the language] in all its linguistic varieties.”

A revised constitution, which entered into force last year, went even further, naming Tamazight as the state’s second “official” language.

It also created the Algerian Academy for the Amazigh (Berber) Language, which is responsible for promoting Tamazight “in view of cementing, in the future, its official language status.”

A similar process occurred in Morocco, which recognized Tamazight as an official state language in 2011.

But according to Ilahiane, designating Tamazight an official language does not mean much if the state does not invest in its use in state institutions. ”We have Tamazight in the constitution, but the central question then becomes, what do you do with Tamazight once it’s officialized?

“How do you implement that? How do you generalize, instate, propagate the use of Tamazight in state official business, from education, health, in media, in [the] legal system?” he said.

“It’s great to say that it’s official. We are all happy, we clap… But you need a budget; you need funding.”

Protest in Paris

That is what the protesters are calling for. Their push for Tamazight language rights has spread to Algerian diaspora communities as well.

A group called Les Kabyles de Paris (The Kabyles of Paris) organized a protest in the French capital to show solidarity with protesters in the Algerian region of the same name.

Organizers hope the rally “will be a strong signal [of solidarity] to our brothers and sisters [in] Kabylie that continue to fight every day for our identity,” they wrote on the event’s Facebook page.

“Coming together for Tamazight is also to come together for democracy, liberty, equality, brotherhood, solidarity, [and] secularism.”

Spanish Media Lacking Diversity

rainbow flag lgbt wavingGLAAD, the pressure group for acceptance of the LGBTQ community, has released its second annual Spanish-language media report, Still Invisible/Todavía invisibles (https://www.glaad.org/stillinvisible-todaviainvisible). The bilingual report analyzes the LGBTQ characters in primetime scripted television airing in the U.S. between July 1, 2016, and June 30, 2017, and finds that only 3% (19) of the 698 characters seen in primetime (7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.) were LGBTQ. Of these characters, 30% died and six did not have motivations of their own and only served to further other characters’ storylines.

“As the Trump administration continues its attack on marginalized groups, it’s more important than ever that television share the stories of those groups onscreen,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD president and CEO. “Still Invisible shows a severe lack of LGBTQ representation in Spanish-language programming—something sorely needed in a time when the country’s Spanish-speaking and immigrant populations are more at risk than ever.”

Still Invisible also found a severe lack of diversity among the LGBTQ characters. Of the 19, 13 were gay men, three were lesbians, two were bisexual women, and one was a transgender woman. No series offered any trans or bisexual men.

To accompany the report, GLAAD also launched the #PantallaInclusiva/#InclusiveScreens campaign, which calls for more inclusive, nonstereotypical representation across multiple identities on all media, especially Spanish-language media. The campaign also includes artwork from ten Latinx LGBTQ artists to illustrate messages related to the report and other elements to spark a call for and conversation about the need for more inclusive representation.

“Like a lot of Latinx people, I love Spanish-language media. I love the voices, the points of view, the way it makes me feel connected to my native Uruguay,” noted GLAAD’s director of Spanish and Latinx media representation, Monica Trasandes. “But, like a lot of Latinx people, I’m tired of being invisible. I want to sit down like I did as a kid and watch TV with my family and not roll my eyes or walk away annoyed at seeing yet another stereotypical portrayal.”

Still Invisible comes on the heels of GLAAD’s English-language television report Where We Are on TV (https://www.glaad.org/whereweareontv17), which found that despite an increase in the number of LGBTQ characters, nuanced and complex stories were still lacking.

Paper Books are Better in Bed


Many of us choose to end the day curled up in bed with a good read, and as technology revolutionizes the publishing industry and convenient, sexy e-readers replace bulky, paper-cut-inducing books, more and more of us take a gadget as a bedfellow— but a new study suggests that paper books are better in bed. Light-emitting e-readers have detrimental effects on the circadian rhythm, or body clock. According to researchers, evening use of light-emitting e-readers suppresses the release of melatonin, harms sleep quality, and even affects next-morning alertness.

Assistant professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State, Anne-Marie Chang, explained, “Electronic devices emit light that is short-wavelength-enriched light, which has a higher concentration of blue light — with a peak around 450 nm — than natural light.”

The researchers, led by Chang, observed 12 adults over a two-week period and asked participants to read for four hours prior to bedtime and compared when they read from a tablet to when they read from a paper book, paying special attention to melatonin levels, sleep, and morning alertness. Researchers used hourly blood samples and a polysomnograph to measure sleep quality. After a night of e-reading, participants took an average of 10 minutes longer to fall asleep and had lower-quality sleep than when they read from books.

“Our most surprising finding was that individuals using the e-reader would be more tired and take longer to become alert the next morning,” remarked Chang. “This has real consequences for daytime functioning, and these effects might be worse in the real world as opposed to the controlled environment we used.”

According to the 2011 Sleep in America survey, 95% of people in the U.S. reported using some sort of light-emitting device, such as computers, tablets, and cell phones, within the hour before bedtime. In the same survey, 63% of Americans expresses dissatisfaction with their sleep during the week.

“We live in a sleep-restricted society, in general,” said Chang. “It is important to further study the effects of using light-emitting devices, especially before bed, as they may have longer term health consequences than we previously considered.”

 

 

 

 

 

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