Ashtari (2014) reported that intermediate and advanced students of English as a second language (ESL) at a California university felt that many native speakers of English do not even make an attempt to understand their English, even though the speaker feels that what is said is grammatically accurate. The students felt that when talking to a native speaker of English in the U.S., what they say is grammatically correct, but native speakers claim not to understand and ask them to repeat. This experience is discouraging: 80% stated that they would not try to start a conversation voluntarily with a native speaker for fear of not making themselves understood.
It could be the case that these reactions happen because the ESL students are, in fact, difficult to understand because of their accents. We suspect that this is not the case. In our experience, we have found that intermediate and advanced ESL students at the university level are rarely totally incomprehensible or even difficult to understand.
Why then did the ESL acquirers experience problems with the people they tried to interact with? Rubin (1992) provides an explanation. In his study, he played recordings of unaccented native-speaker English to subjects and showed them one of two pictures of adult males: one obviously Asian and one obviously Caucasian. The group that saw the picture of the Asian felt that the speaker had an accent. In other words, accent was perceived but did not exist: the native-speaker judges didn’t pay attention to the accent but made assumptions about it because of the appearance and race of the adult speakers in the pictures.
There is no doubt that ESL students, even those at a university, have accents in English. It is doubtful, however, that their accents are so heavy that native speakers have serious problems understanding in more than a few rare cases when mispronunciation of certain sounds may affect meaning, for instance ship versus sheep. We suspect that native speakers who behave as if they don’t understand what the speaker is saying are influenced by their presuppositions, not by what they actually hear. Some efforts to improve accents may be attempts to solve a problem that is in the mind of the listener, not the language produced by the speaker.
Research is consistent with our observations: Munro and Derwing (1995) reported that while the adult second language acquirers they studied had accents ranging from moderate to heavy, only 4% of the speakers were judged to be extremely difficult to understand (rating of 9 on a 1–9 scale) and 64% were easy to understand (rating of 1–3). They also concluded that “a strong foreign accent does not necessarily reduce the comprehensibility or intelligibility of L2 speech” (p. 74). Their subjects, however, were more advanced than typical ESL students: all had been graduate students for at least one year at a university in Canada and had scored 550 or above on the TOEFL.
Munro, M., and Derwing, T. (1995). “Foreign Accent, Comprehensibility, and Intelligibility in the Speech of Second Language Learners.” Language Learning 45(1), 73–97.
Rubin, D. (1992). “Nonlanguage Factors Affecting Undergraduates’ Judgments of Nonnative English-Speaking Teaching Assistants.” Research in Higher Education, 33(4), 511–31. www.jstor.org/stable/40196047
Stephen Krashen taught at University of Southern California. He is now professor emeritus.
Nooshan Ashtari currently teaches at the University of Southern California.
Administrator Samantha Power announced the United States, through USAID and the U.S. Department of State, will contribute an additional $37 million to Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the only global fund for education in emergencies. The announcement was made virtually during ECW’s High Level Steering Group meeting.
The $37 million contribution, the U.S. Government’s largest contribution to date, highlights the United States’ commitment to lead in education in crisis and conflict. The United States continues to assist partner countries in building education systems back better as countries respond and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of school closures, COVID-19 disrupted the education of as many as 1.6 billion learners in 190 countries. Thankfully, that number has declined dramatically, yet more than 31 million children remain out of school—and many may never return to a classroom.
The United States’ investment will support the global education fund in ensuring that the most marginalized children and youth in countries experiencing emergencies and protracted crises have access to lifesaving and life-sustaining education services. The funding will also support its critical work in improving humanitarian and development coherence in education and enabling a more collaborative and rapid response to the educational needs of children and youth affected by crises. The contribution includes $5 million dedicated to continued learning and resilient education systems for conflict-affected communities in northern Mali.
The pledge complements USAID’s bilateral programs in basic and higher education, adding to our long history of creating better access to quality education, particularly for children in crisis and conflict contexts –– one of the most powerful forces for driving economic development, prosperity, and security. For the latest updates on USAID’s development assistance in education, visit USAID.
In the last volume of “Rumi in the Language Classroom”, the story of “a man and his cow” in Rumi’s “Masnavi-e-Manavi” is discussed. This is the story of a rural man whose cow is eaten by a lion. The man goes to a barn at night without a light and touches different organs of the lion imagining that it is his cow. The lion thought if the man knew it was a lion, not a cow, he would be scared to death.
This story delineates the danger of over-reliance on one method in teaching. By having little knowledge, it can make you teach every class and every individual the same. You expect everyone to be the same and you are not aware of the threat you are exposed to. A teacher who only relies on one method is like the man who only expects one entity in the barn (his cow). He uses his tactile sense to refer to things and does not use other senses to have a better understanding of his surroundings. This reminds me of a teacher who does not use her “sense of plausibility” (Prabhu, 1987) and follows a teaching method rigidly.
This is what Kumaravadivelu (1994) poses as a problem in teaching methods and therefore, proposes a different teaching method in response. By using three principles of practicality, possibility, and particularity, he defined a new era in language teaching which attacked the arena of methods. He posits that for successful teaching to happen, the method should be adjusted to a particular context (particularity), teachers should be the best theoreticians since they are involved in teaching practice (practicality), and the lesson should be possible with a group of students with different cultures, needs, wants, rights, and the like (possibility).
This story implies that teachers should use different senses to feel the danger—the danger of being unwanted, burn-out, etc. To me, the cow is our self-awareness. When it is eaten by our ego of knowing everything, it can bring our career into danger. This is when we can be beaten by the wild nature of lion of our narcissism, lack of progress, and burn-out.
The only way to stop this process is through continuous professional development where we read, study and attend CPD events (Kamali, 2021).
The Biden administration is the first to officially recognize Indigenous Peoples Day on October 11, 2021. The holiday, which coincides with Columbus Day, is a holiday that celebrates Native American peoples and commemorates their histories and cultures. The holiday is also an opportunity to reveal historical truths about colonialism and the genocide and oppression that Native Americans faced. The White House also released an official statement on its website which addressed and honored the history and positive impact that Native Americans have had on the country, and officially declared the holiday in the U.S.
“For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures,” Biden wrote in the Indigenous Peoples’ Day proclamation. “Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples’ resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told AP that Biden “felt strongly” about recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day. Asked if Biden might seek to end marking Columbus Day as a federal holiday, she replied, “I don’t have any predictions at this point.”
“For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures,” Biden wrote in the Indigenous Peoples’ Day proclamation. “Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples’ resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society.”
The holiday is one that can be a time for reflection on history, celebration of tribal cultures, or research and education into Native American peoples.
The holiday was first proposed in 1977 at the United Nations conference by Indigenous peoples, and South Dakota was the first state to officially recognize the holiday beginning in 1989. “What these changes accomplish, piece by piece, is visibility for Native people in the United States,” Mandy Van Heuvelen, cultural interpreter coordinator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian told NPR. “Until Native people are or are fully seen in our society and in everyday life, we can’t accomplish those bigger changes. As long as Native people remain invisible, it’s much more easier for people to look past those real issues and those real concerns within those communities.”
The Department of Defense Education Activity (DodEA) has named the recipients of nearly $20 million allocated for the inaugural World Language Advancement and Readiness grant program. These awards will allow nine public school districts, spread across seven states, to establish, improve, or expand innovative world language programs. Languages represented by the awards include American Sign Language, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish.
This program, which requires as a condition of eligibility that applying school districts host Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Programs, was authorized in the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act and received its first appropriations in FY 2021. Representatives David Price (D-NC) and Don Young (R-AK), along with Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), championed this legislation and helped secure its passage and initial round of funding.
“As a co-founder of the America’s Languages Caucus, I am thrilled to see the first grant awards from the new World Language Advancement and Readiness Program at the Department of Defense,” said Congressman David Price (D-NC). “Language learning must be a cornerstone of our country’s education system in the 21st century, and I will continue to advocate for strong federal funding for this program going forward. Congratulations to the nine inaugural recipients!”
The Joint National Committee for Languages and the National Council for Languages and International Studies (JNCL-NCLIS) spearheaded successful efforts to authorize this program through the National Defense Authorization Act and fund its first round of grants through the FY21 Defense Appropriations Act. “We are grateful for the ongoing leadership of Representative Price, Representative Young, and Senator Booker,” said Amanda Seewald, president of JNCL-NCLIS. “This program defines a new and essential pathway for the growth of learning opportunities that empower students to become multilingual, globally prepared citizens. Our coalition members should take pride in their dedicated advocacy efforts over the past several years that helped bring this program to fruition.”
Each of the nine awardees received multiple years of funding to establish or augment existing innovative world language programs. North Hanover Township School District in New Jersey, serving the military-connected children of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurstwill (JB-MDL), will use the $1.7 million it received to expand Project Horizons Expanding through Language Learning Opportunities (H.E.L.L.O.) which emphasizes connections between language and culture, bringing culture to life through immersive summer experiences, extracurricular family events and partnerships with language clubs in the receiving high school and cultural organizations on JB-MDL. “With foreign language agility considered a national security need, we are proud to play a role in normalizing and celebrating the study of world language for young children, and developing positive attitudes AND aptitude necessary for our students to pursue more advanced language study in later grades. We know that the study of world languages and cultures gives all of our students access to diverse viewpoints and cultures, and a deeper understanding and appreciation of their own culture and others around the world,” said Helen Payne, superintendent of North Hanover Township School District. “
Media technology has been introduced into classrooms at least since the time of educational filmstrips. Later, private media companies began providing schools with “free” equipment that could broadcast their content, introducing commercials into one of the last advertising-free spaces. Today, students regularly use commercial learning software and learning management systems that generate a huge amount of student data as their progression through lessons is monitored. Few students, parents, teachers, or administrators are aware of what is being collected, how it is being used, or who has access to it. Technology is not neutral. Algorithms are inherently biased with the values of the programmers (O’Neil, 2016). We are not allowed to know how these algorithms determine outcomes, but they increasingly shape teachers’ careers and students’ educational prospects. With the rise of so-called teacher influencers cashing in on the Silicon Valley gravy train (Singer, 2017), it might be time to pause and take a more critical look at who benefits from decisions to adopt new technologies in schools.
Politics and Language Teaching I doubt that most second-language teachers think of their profession as political. For those who do, most would refrain from airing political views during lessons. While there was a time when TESOL and applied linguistics were framed as somehow pleasantly neutral and outside of the sphere of politics, that is no longer the case. In the 1990s, we discovered that language education does not inhabit some idealized Leave It to Beaver! space of wholesome “American values” (e.g., Pennycook, 1989).
Politics is ultimately about having the decision-making power to set the agenda. At the start of the TESOL profession, educators had the curricular and pedagogical agenda laid out for them through the behavioral method of the 1960s and then through the implementation of a variety of methods in the 1970s–1980s. Experimentation with different methods eventually led to more eclectic styles of teaching, wherein teachers gained some control by combining elements from different methods, as teaching decisions were made based on individual reasoning rather than ideological faith in a method. As teachers gained pedagogical decision-making power over methods (postmethod), more of them began to investigate how and why classroom practice was connected to student and teacher learning (see Freeman, 2016). Each of these moves in the field strengthened the agency of teachers to advocate on behalf of the profession and of their students. The expansion of decision-making power also increased teachers’ awareness of the political dimensions of TESOL.
In his book Values in English Language Teaching, Johnston (2003, p. 54) laid out five areas that showcase the political dimension of TESOL:
“the part played by language education in the processes of colonization and decolonization, the effect of the spread of English on indigenous languages, the political dimension of teaching immigrant and refugee learners in ESL contexts, the dominance of English in the media and in computer-based technologies, and the role of English in globalization.”
This article is a brief examination of the role of digital technologies in TESOL classrooms and how they are shaping our futures as citizens and educators. For many educators, technology may appear neutral and nonpolitical. Therefore, it remains invisible and unchallenged. In reality, technology is highly influential for language education and therefore demands our attention as an important political aspect of TESOL.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused teachers and students to suddenly engage online digitally. The shift toward online, on-demand, and hybrid learning is likely to only gain momentum. New educational technologies are typically described in neutral terms as tools, like chalk and chalkboards, that simply are in the service of improving teaching and learning. In fact, the creators of these technologies have their own agendas that often are greatly at odds with the values of most language teachers.
The evolution of the field of English language teaching described above freed teachers from solely focusing on two-dimensional, black-and-white decisions regarding the most efficient way of acquiring an additional language. From the 1990s, second-language teachers became concerned with professional identity, ideology, and questions of values, politics, and power. Out of this process, there emerged a politics of teaching that is different from the teaching of politics. Teacher agency is obviously central to the politics of language teaching.
At the turn of the century, Hargreaves (2003) wondered how teacher agency could become a force to promote the creation of the so-called knowledge society. Back then, the internet was viewed as a medium for promoting equity of information and knowledge.
While Hargreaves was acutely aware of the powerful economic forces controlling the new digital technologies, he did not fully understand that these forces were surreptitiously creating a new social order. Zuboff (2019) recounts Durkheim’s analysis of the effects in industrial society of the division of labor as “an ordering principle that enabled and sustained a healthy modern community” (p. 184). In postindustrial society, a new social order has evolved based on the concentration of resources accumulated through technological surveillance—the division of learning (Zuboff, 2019).
Division of Learning Fifty years ago, Marshall McLuhan recognized that “Today we live invested with an electronic information environment that is quite as imperceptible to us as water to a fish” (1969, p. 5). We are born into this world and live our lives in particular historical eras, largely unaware of the forces that shape the social order of our times. For people alive today, the new division of learning “reflects the primacy of learning, information, and knowledge in today’s quest for effective life” (Zuboff, 2019, pp. 184–185). Capitalism’s incessant drive for accumulation and the inevitable concentration of capital and power by industrialists in the 19th and early 20th century were eventually counterbalanced by union organizing and social justice movements. This action resulted in a social contract wherein productivity gains were shared, which resulted in the growth of a vibrant middle class. How the immense wealth today concentrated in the hands of executives and shareholders of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft will be effectively counteracted is unclear.
To understand the new social order, we have to go back to the turn of the century. The promise of the so-called knowledge economy of the 1990s appears to have been distorted somewhat by accident and evolved into something Zuboff (2019) calls “surveillance capitalism”. The turn happened during the burst of the dot-com bubble, when Google investors got tired of waiting for the company to turn a profit. At that critical moment, some of its engineers stumbled on the data “exhaust” that Google Search retained about users. As we now know, this exhaust turned into the gold dust that is used to anticipate human behavior and is sold to advertisers as predictive products. What was formerly ignored as waste was fed into computational systems and generated a fortune.
This new form of capitalist accumulation has become the model for businesses of all kinds, and “When it comes to essential questions, surveillance capital has gathered the power and the asserted authority to supply all the answers” (Zuboff, p. 186). All of the data that people give away for free to big tech companies is computed and turned into predictions of behavior (knowledge) for commercial ends. We are not the customers; our lives are merely raw material. Our activities, emotions, and health are just the means to create algorithms that feed the networks. In short, the intrinsic value of a human life is being reduced to the data it produces. All this took place while we were distracted by the surface-level glitter of new technologies.
Your Information: Who Controls It and Who Decides? Our data is constantly being gathered. At schools throughout the U.S., students begin their day with a check by metal detectors. In classrooms, individualization of instruction through technology enables closer surveillance of students. Google has a “free” suite of educational tools that are used in many school systems. While it appears that Google does not target advertisements at K–12 users of the service, the company still retains the personal data of children (Gillula and Cope, 2016). Typically, the privacy policy is so complex that parents and teachers might have to hire a contract attorney to figure out what data the company collects and what it does with that data. In addition, Silicon Valley has sold software to schools that tracks keystrokes, social media posts, facial expressions, and eye movement of children to monitor safety and learning. In contrast, elite schools in Silicon Valley are decidedly low tech, using “chalkboards and No. 2 pencils” (Akhtar and Ward, 2020).
Evaluation of student performance is increasingly being turned over to algorithms. While these online tools can save teachers valuable time as they help students review material and revise their writing by pointing out grammatical mistakes, for instance, the work still needs to be thoughtfully checked by a knowledgeable human. The truth of this was shown a number of times this past year. First, U.S. children figured out how to “play” Edgenuity’s algorithm by simply typing a string of probable keywords associated with a question. In fact, the company’s website states that “answers to certain questions receive 0% if they include no keywords, and 100% if they include at least one. Other questions earn a certain percentage based on the number of keywords included” (Chin, 2020). Second, in England, after regular examinations had to be cancelled, algorithms were used to standardize grades both for general secondary exams and the International Baccalaureate A-Level tests. Major protests by teachers, parents, and students over unexpectedly low grades forced the government to cancel these results (Dans, 2020).
Teachers are also being evaluated by algorithms. Value-added modelling (VAM) is supposed to calculate how much a teacher adds to her students’ academic growth. For ease of machine processing, these scores are calculated using student results on standardized tests. This formula puts teachers of English language learners at a distinct disadvantage. Teachers have been terminated based on these evaluations, but they are not allowed to know how the scores are calculated or whether they are accurate (O’Neil, 2016). This is because evaluation has been subcontracted to for-profit corporations that claim their algorithms are intellectual property. Teacher unions have successfully fought against this inhumane evaluation system, but a big worry is that increased surveillance will stop teachers from organizing, protesting, or striking for labor rights and social justice issues. It is not inconceivable that keyword searches by teachers in the U.S. for “health insurance” or “salary” might lead to retribution.
Conclusion There is a growing abyss between what we know, what algorithms allow us to know, and what is known about us by private companies and governments. How can the seemingly overwhelming imbalance of the new division of learning be countered? The companies claim that this mutation is somehow an “inevitable” transformation in the economic system, ignoring the fact that it is simply a set of choices made by people. The monopolies that have been created by this concentration of knowledge need to be broken up and the markets that trade in predictions of human behavior should be outlawed. Furthermore, there need to be new laws for and regulation of online business and social media. It must be made illegal to secretly capture the data of individual human experience and online behavior.
However, the astronomical sums made by the companies engaged in surveillance capitalism mean that they will stubbornly resist all criticism of their methods and any movement toward real reform and regulation. A case in point is that of a former insider, AI ethicist at Google Dr. Timnit Gehbru. In a paper she co-authored with a university expert and four other Google researchers, the risks of the current method for training AI language models were highlighted. These risks included the global impact of the company’s expanding carbon footprint and the inherent bias and homogenization of the model because data scraped from the internet is mostly generated by wealthy communities in rich countries (Hao, 2020). Google executives did not appreciate these observations and immediately terminated Dr. Gehbru when she demanded explanations for the negative reaction to her team’s research. Profit trumps ethics every time.
What kind of future do we want for our children: one where it’s possible to forgive and forget youthful indiscretions and bad decisions, learn, turn the page, and move on, or one where these things can never be forgotten and follow them throughout their lives? It might sound overly dramatic, but this is a real choice that needs to be made soon. Students depend on their teachers’ guidance, and good mentorship requires accurately interpreting the world. In order to advocate on behalf of their students and their profession in the contemporary world, language educators must be aware of how digital technologies are rapidly changing the politics of teaching.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Profile Books.
Tim Stewart is professor of TESOL at Kyoto University, where he mentors undergraduate and graduate students alike in academic writing. He has worked for and been fired and rehired by the TESOL International Association.
As part of my summer reading, I selected a memoir by Sonia Nieto—Brooklyn Dreams: My Life in Public Education (2015). I’ve had the opportunity to meet Dr. Nieto a few times in the past and we’ve exchanged emails from time to time. As a course instructor, I’ve used her book Affirming Diversity to teach undergraduate students and have heard her deliver keynotes at conferences. The book includes twelve chapters and is divided into three parts. Her conversational, reflective style led me to think critically about my own experiences as a Black educator. Reading her autobiography was enlightening, insightful, clarifying, and even humorous at times—so much so that I sent her an email to let her know how much I was enjoying the book. This edition of Pass the Mic is dedicated to Dr. Sonia Nieto for her dedication to public education, linguistic diversity, and multicultural education.
Growing Up Sonia Nieto is a Puerto Rican American and Brooklyn native. She’s multilingual, fluent in English, French, and Spanish, her first language. She described learning English in school as something she had to do de golpe, meaning “fast and furiously” (Nieto, p. 41). Her classmates were a diverse mixture of first- and second-generation European immigrants, African Americans, and a growing population of Puerto Ricans. Her teachers, all White, young, and inexperienced, encouraged English only in school: “Sonia, here we speak only English. It’s rude to speak Spanish” (p. 41). There were no bilingual or English as a second language (ESL) programs at that time. Although bilingualism was not encouraged in school, Sonia served as an unofficial interpreter for family, and school officials, when needed.
Negative comments and attitudes about school language, English, and her home language, Spanish, were considered normal. It took Sonia years to unlearn those myths. She also describes instances in school when her teachers had lower expectations for some students. The theme of being a navigator is consistent throughout the book. Sonia affirms, “How I learned to navigate these differences has been the subject of the rest of my life. How I learned to regain a sense of my own cultural identity and be confident and happy with myself is also part of my story” (Nieto, p. 75). Luckily for Sonia, she genuinely enjoyed learning and had a few teachers who recognized her dedication and commitment to school.
Becoming an Educator This section was a joy to read since Sonia talks about her multiple roles as an educator and working mother. Her first year of teaching was like most new teachers’ first years—classroom management or lack thereof, lesson plans that did not go as planned, and the numerous other responsibilities that teachers have. Her descriptions of situations while she was slowly building a rapport with her students were both heartfelt and comical at times. I found myself thinking back to my own experiences as a classroom teacher. Sonia simply states, “Like all teachers, I needed to find ways to help my students tap into their better selves. This was probably the most important lesson I learned that year, one that stayed with me throughout my teaching and teacher education career” (Nieto, p. 139).
Research and Writing This section describes how her book Affirming Diversity came into existence. This came at a time in her career when family obligations were a priority, so writing a textbook added to those demands. Through it all, she was able to write her groundbreaking book, the book that changed the trajectory of her career, the book that the field needed and still relies on today. What stood out to me were the words, phrases, and language she uses to describe the salient characteristics of multicultural education: antiracist, important for all students, and social justice (Nieto, p. 224). Affirming Diversity is a best seller, an award winner that has been translated into multiple languages. What resonates most is that this book, published over two decades ago, has provided a road map for educators with the goal of validating themselves and the experiences of their culturally and linguistically diverse students—something many of us still strive to do today.
My Favorite Parts of the Book I enjoyed reading about Sonia’s experiences in school, her career, and her family. Some of my favorite parts of the book include: Her experiences as the middle child How her identity and personality were shaped How she dealt with bullies in school How she built positive relationships with her students, especially challenging ones How she met, fell in love with, and married her husband, Angel, of over 40 years How she participated in protests (radical Sonia!) How she got to know Paulo Freire How she balanced motherhood, grandmotherhood, and her career How and why she wrote Affirming Diversity and the publications that followed
My take-aways from reading this book are grounded in the need for more patience and faith—not just in our students but in ourselves. Sonia describes how different opportunities presented themselves throughout her life that have contributed to her becoming the educator and advocate that she is. Although she aspired to become a teacher, she could not have imagined the impact of her work. Her words ring true, especially now, teaching during a pandemic: “Maintaining your hope in the face of incredibly difficult conditions is what makes teaching so hard” (Nieto, p. 150). Her career as an educator and advocate is an example of grace, patience, and authenticity in action.
References Nieto, S. (2015). Brooklyn Dreams: My Life in Public Education. Harvard Education Press.
Ayanna Cooper, EdD, is an advocate and writer and the owner of A. Cooper Consulting. She is author of And Justice for ELs: A Leader’s Guide to Creating and Sustaining Equitable Schools (Corwin). She is the editor of the Pass the Mic series.
According to the United Nations, the Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers “sets benchmarks regarding the rights and responsibilities of teachers, and standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, and teaching and learning conditions.”
UNESCO, ILO, UNICEF, and Education International issued a joint statement for World Teacher’s Day 2021:
“Nearly two years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many education systems are still facing significant disruptions. Students and teachers in close to 60 countries remain affected by full or partial school closures. But whether students are learning in person or remotely, teachers are at the heart of the process.
“The pandemic has shone a light on the irreplaceable value of the teaching profession in society but also on the difficult working conditions facing many teachers. Teachers have been on the frontlines to ensure learning continuity when schools were closed and to provide socio-emotional support to their students, especially the most vulnerable ones. They have had to rapidly adapt to remote learning and manage new digital tools, often without training. Today, they must assess and address learning losses among their students, cope with issues of health and safety in the classroom, and leverage remote, hybrid and in-person methods to minimize disruption.
“Today we celebrate the exceptional dedication and courage of all teachers, as well as their capacity to adapt and innovate under very challenging and uncertain conditions. They are at the heart of global education recovery efforts and are key in accelerating progress towards inclusive, equitable and quality education for every learner, in every circumstance.
“Now is the time to recognize the exceptional role teachers play and to empower them with the training, professional development, support and working conditions they need to deploy their talent. This is a time of challenge but also an opportunity for rapid transformation to address the unfulfilled needs which have been multiplied by the pandemic. Sub-Saharan Africa alone requires 15 million more teachers to reach the education goals by 2030. Surmounting these challenges requires bold commitment, investment and innovation on a scale like never before.
“A successful education recovery starts with ensuring teachers’ well-being, adequate remuneration and safety, including their prioritization for vaccination together with other key workers.
“A successful education recovery calls for investment in more teachers and in training and professional development opportunities, so that educators may enrich their practice and gain the skills to integrate and use educational technologies effectively to support learning and adapt to a diversity of learners’ needs.
“Education recovery will be successful if it is conducted hand in hand with teachers – giving them voice and space to participate in decision-making and respecting their pedagogical knowledge and expertise as we reimagine the way out of the crisis and build more resilient education systems.
“On World Teachers’ Day, we are not only celebrating every teacher. We are calling on countries to invest in them and prioritize them in global education recovery efforts so that every learner has access to a qualified and supported teacher. Let’s stand with our teachers!”
In celebration of World Teacher’s Day, UNESCO and its co-convening partners will host a series of online events from October 4-8, 2021. To view the full program, please visit https://events.unesco.org/event?id=2479558071.
Unclear, overly complex, or specialized language use can impede communication in a variety of societal contexts. It can limit accessibility to critically important government programs through cumbersome, confusing applications for public benefits. It can hinder the public’s comprehension of healthcare communications and legally binding agreements. Within public school systems, dense or difficult to parse language can prevent stakeholders, including parents and caregivers, from understanding services they are entitled to, regulations affecting them or their children, and other types of important information. In those contexts, unduly complex language can be intimidating and unwelcoming and thus can operate as a gatekeeping measure.
Dense, specialized, or complex language is often seen as an immutable discourse feature of a particular register or discipline. Believing this leads to user-deficient thinking—if a user cannot understand the communication, that indicates a deficiency in the user, not the communication. The burden is on the user to find a way to understanding, which sometimes requires hiring someone with specialized knowledge to interpret the communication and guide the user through the process. The assumption that certain registers of language are inherently confusing is easily exploited when language is used to intentionally obfuscate meaning. This is particularly true of language used in ballot measures and consumer disclosures regarding cancellation and renewal policies (see Hvasta, 2020; Traupman Berge, Rothman, and Rothermel, 2020).
Within the educational context there are policies and regulations that schools are required to communicate to stakeholders. Often, these informational disclosures contain specialized language and structures common in legal writing that can be difficult to understand without specialized knowledge. Considering the number of stakeholders within the school system who speak languages other than English, these communications can be even less comprehensible. While many schools translate these documents into multiple languages, they typically remain as complex and specialized. Communication can be clear and accessible regardless of the register or genre. It should be intelligible, relevant, and usable without requiring specialized knowledge or training. In this sense, plain language is a civil right.
What Is Plain Language? The term plain language refers to language that is clear and easy to understand. However, the concept “clear and easy to understand” is not easily operationalized and is often defined by the creator’s beliefs, including their assumptions about the target user. What constitutes “clear and easy to understand“ can only be defined by the user of that communication. It is informed by the user’s background and experience, which can make defining plain language as a concept and a term difficult. Plain language is shorthand for a host of concepts, including simplified language, power relationships revealed through language, how sociocultural ideology is realized in language, and factors in communication that are not fully realized through lexico-grammatical choices—design, layout, and ease of use, to name a few.
Though a decade has passed since the Plain Writing Act of 2010 required federal agencies to write clear government communication that the public can understand and use, advocacy for plain language in all sectors (and many countries) persists (e.g., the Center for Plain Language, Plain Language Association International). In the U.S., federal agencies adopted the federal plain language guidelines to create clear, accessible communication for the public. However, that practice in isolation does not adequately address social justice concerns implicated in public communications across all government and nongovernmental discourse. Communication that flows one way from the creators of the communication to the users of the communication is not sufficient (even if plain language guidelines are followed) because what constitutes plain language (clear and easy to understand) must be defined by the user.
One-way communication, moving from creators to document to users
While applying plain language guidelines can increase readability and comprehension, larger issues of systemic oppression can remain. Jones and Williams’s (2017) study of plain language in three disclosure statements in mortgage documents revealed that although plain language guidelines were followed, the documents’ accessibility to homebuyers varied because of the way information was foregrounded, backgrounded, or omitted—three concepts important to critical discourse analysis. The researchers echo Walton’s (2016) call to consider the user while applying plain language guidelines with a “critical focus on amplifying agency and reducing inequity” (p. 428).
In a study of antidiscrimination laws in post-apartheid South Africa, Cornelius (2010) assessed whether a booklet using plain language to create a simplified version of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act was accessible to “non-mother tongue speakers with no formal training in, and limited knowledge of, the law” (p. 171). In her findings, Cornelius noted that for the people the law was designed to protect, the booklet was no more comprehensible nor accessible than the original act.
This method of intralingual translation (Bhatia, 1983) created a problematic relationship between the text (in this case the law) and the user. The original text of the law remained, while the additional booklet version was created to accommodate the “deficient” user who could not access the law as written (though the law was written for their protection).
By assuming that dense, specialized language used in public-facing communication is acceptable, we adopt a user-deficient perspective. This puts the onus on the user to change, rather than the language of the communication, and takes power and agency out of the hands of the user. We can shift that power to the user by changing this assumption—if the user cannot understand or effectively use the communication, then the communication must change. Shifting this perspective creates a collaboration between the creator and the user and involves the user in an iterative process of creation, giving value to the user’s experience and voice.
Considering this shift within the context of the educational system shows the power of enacting a change in perspective. Many schools actively work to reach their stakeholders and make them feel welcomed and valued, particularly parents and caregivers. But when parents and caregivers feel alienated by communication they receive, this works against inclusion efforts. If schools reach out to a representative group of stakeholders to evaluate the clarity and comprehensibility of communication and include them in the process, they shift the power balance, and that helps create equity and a deeper sense of inclusion.
Clear Communication: A Dynamic Approach Because critical discourse analysis is interested in getting beneath the surface features of discourse to uncover how discursive practices construct and maintain social inequities and power differentials, it has a lot to offer in the analysis of clear communication. The applied linguistics framework (Gibbons, 2001) of reflection, action, and evaluation can be combined with principles of critical discourse analysis to address unclear and complex communication in a way that centers on the needs and experiences of the user to improve access and equity. Reflection requires a critical inquiry into the document and the users, seeking out user experience and identifying language that reinforces oppressive ideology. The next stage, action, involves changing the document based on the reflection. In the action stage, we can apply plain language guidelines in alignment with feedback and data collected from the users. Action works in conjunction with evaluation as an iterative process moving between user feedback and revision. At each stage, the clarity and effectiveness of the communication must be evaluated by a representative group of users. Small-scale testing is not only appropriate and effective but also inexpensive and relatively simple (Stephens, 2010). At the reflection stage, focus group discussions and interviews with five or more users are great ways to gather background information on users’ experiences and how they will use the final communication.
At the action stage, cloze testing and paraphrase testing with draft material are effective ways of determining how well users can understand the communication. Once a final draft is ready, giving users a specific task to accomplish by using information in the communication can demonstrate whether the communication is clear and easy to use.
Iterative process of dynamic interaction between creators, users, and document
This dynamic, iterative process has proven successful in government communication to citizens in the municipality of The Hague, Netherlands, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The city established a test panel of citizens representing the diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the population and collaborated with them on every communication concept. The content creators then used the feedback from this panel to revise documents and infographics to be certain crucial information was communicated clearly. The approach has been so successful that The Hague has developed a tool on their website to elicit feedback from all users and plans to keep these practices in place post-pandemic (van Noort, 2021).
Though at first glance this process may seem onerous and time-consuming, it is a small effort to put in for increased equity and access to information. Within a school system, the benefits of reaching stakeholders and valuing their voices and input can have a ripple effect into many areas of school culture. This is not just a shift in language use; it is a shift in perspective. Changing communication can start small. Choose one informational document intended for parents and caregivers. Meet with a small but representative group and ask them about their backgrounds and their needs, and find out how well they can understand and use the information given to them. Then use their feedback to revise the document. Follow a plain language checklist, such as the one provided at www.plainlanguage.gov/resources/checklists/checklist. Check in with a user group again. Remove every fifth word from the document and see if the group can supply the missing words correctly. With a complete draft, meet with one or two users and ask them to complete a task using information in the document. This process will become easier and more efficient each time. Consider implementing a method for stakeholders to provide feedback on the comprehensibility and usability of communication they receive. This could be a brief survey or a simple questionnaire always available on the school website.
As research and prior efforts have shown, ameliorating social justice issues perpetuated by unclear communication is an iterative process, and the problems cannot be remedied with a one-size-fits-all approach. The more writers and creators of communication collaborate with users of communication, the more the balance of power shifts toward equity and inclusion.
References Bhatia, V. K. (1983). “Simplification v. Easification—The case of legal texts.” Applied Linguistics 4(1), 42–54.
Cornelius, E. (2010). “Plain Language as Alternative Textualisation.” South African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 28(2), 171–183.
Gibbons, J. (2001). “Revising the Language of New South Wales Police Procedures: Applied linguistics in action.” Applied Linguistics, 22(4), 439–469.
Jones, N. and Williams, M. (2017). “The Social Justice Impact of Plain Language: A critical approach to plain-language analysis.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 60(4), 412–429.
Stephens, C. (2010). Plain Language in Plain English. Plain Language Wizardry.
van Noort, L. (2021). “Testing Communication during a Crisis.” Plain Language Association International E-Journal, 2(2), 4–7.
Walton, R. (2016). “Supporting Human Dignity and Human Rights: A call to adopt the first principle of human-centered design.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 46(4), 402–426.
Katherine Moran, PhD, is the director of Adult Language and Communication as well as a professional development specialist at the Center for Applied Linguistics. Currently, Kate is developing a plain language initiative at CAL to promote accessibility and inclusivity through clear communication by providing trainings and plain language services.
With about 7,200 students speaking 20 different languages, our district needs technology tools that support its diverse student population and families. Up until last year, we used standard postal mail for most of our parent communications, with some announcements distributed via social media (e.g., Twitter and Facebook) and email.
With stamps costing 55 cents each multiplied by 7,200 students, sending those communications several times a year added up quickly. We also needed a system that could help us break through language barriers and accurately translate the messages that were being sent home. Finally, we wanted to make sure all communications were secure and that our platform would integrate with PowerSchool, our student information system (SIS).
We found what we were looking for: a unified communications resource that offers a safe and secure platform to manage all school–home communication. We put it in place just prior to the pandemic and immediately began seeing the benefits of our decision. Here are three of them:
1) No more language barriers When your student body speaks 20 different languages, some families may encounter challenges in trying to interpret your messages. To help, we needed a communication platform that would accurately translate the messages we were distributing and then ensure that those messages were getting home and that parents understood the information we were sharing. With the knowledge that students with involved, informed parents tend to achieve higher levels of success in school, this wasn’t a gap we were willing to leave open. Fortunately, our platform catered to the diverse number of languages we have in our district, with its translation services a huge draw for us.
2) Secure document delivery All eyes are on security and safety right now, and delivering documents electronically presents a unique set of challenges that we’ve been able to overcome using our communication platform. We send out three to five mailings per year that include student invoices, state test results, and other important documents. The only platform that allows variable-length documents in the master file, ParentSquare’s secure document delivery lets districts define their own templates and includes text, app, and email notifications that reach families in their preferred modality and language. The secure platform also generates a separate PDF file of documents for parents who did not receive them and lets us print and mail these “missed” documents, thus ensuring 100% deliverability and equity.
3) Not just “blasting” out information Having one platform that accommodates all of the district’s parent communication needs has been a godsend. Our parent surveys, permission slips, and secure documents are all shared on the platform, which also allows parents to sign up for appointment times and opens up two-way communications with those individuals.
We’re no longer just blasting out information. This is especially helpful for parents who have multiple children attending school in the district, which previously used applications like Remind 101 and SignUpGenius for appointments. Now it’s all in one place.
Today, all our parent communications take place on our communication platform. We can send out text messages, create social media posts, or use other forms of communication to reach parents. It’s definitely a long-term solution for us and one that we’ll continue to hone and learn to use more effectively for the 2021–22 school year.
Melissa Deavers-Lowie is the director of communications and community engagement and David Lesich is the director of data services at Portage Township Schools in Indiana.
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