Teachers’ stances towards Chinese international students: An Australian case study

Linguistics and Education 17 (2006) 258–282

Teachers’ stances towards Chinese international students: An Australian case study Kristina Love ∗ , Sophie Arkoudis Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia

Abstract The international marketing of school education has gathered momentum in the Asia Pacific region, where an English medium education is prized by many parents. This paper investigates the responses of a group of teachers in Australia to the needs of international students in their school. The analysis of a 1 h professional discussion between four teachers in one school context shows a range of diverse opinions and attitudes. In particular, an APPRAISAL analysis [Martin, J. R. (1995). Reading positions/positioning readers: Judgement in English. Prospect, 10(2), 27–37] of this discussion points to the ways in which the teachers across the key discipline areas to which international students are attracted, position themselves in relation to their roles and responsibilities towards these international students. The analysis reveals that the subject specialist teachers, while concerned about the educational needs of these international students and aware they have particular linguistic and learning needs, do not accept responsibility for teaching language in their specialist subjects. Furthermore, across the phases of the discussion, there is little shift in the stances of some of the specialist teachers as they engage with each other and with the ESL teacher, suggesting the need for more productive conversational strategies. We conclude by identifying a number of factors that need to be accounted for in such professional discussions if ESL teachers are to effectively assist specialist teachers in supporting international students in meeting the language, as well as academic demands of their specialist areas. Crown Copyright © 2006 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Teacher professional discussions; International students; Appraisal analysis

1. Introduction A record number of 303,324 international students (defined as non-Australian nationals granted visa permits to study in Australia) enrolled in Australian educational institutions in 2003, an increase of 11% on the previous year (Australian Government International Education Network, ∗

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 83448372; fax: +61 3 83448612. E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Love).

0898-5898/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright © 2006 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2006.11.002

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2003). Much of this enrolment growth occurred in the schools sector (15.2%), where growing numbers of these full-fee paying international students are attempting exam-oriented Year 11 and 12 studies with the aim of tertiary study. Concern has been expressed in Australia and throughout the world that Government and private schools are marketing education for international students without being aware of their specific educational needs (Glew, 2001; Burgess, 2003). One assumption amongst many in Australia has been that international students have similar needs to the range of English as Second Language (ESL) students currently in Australian secondary schools and are being supported adequately in existing ESL programs. By far the majority of international students in Australian senior secondary schools are from Asia, the largest source country being Mainland China with 58% of the total international enrolments, followed by Hong Kong (10%) and South Korea (15%) (Australian Government International Education Network, 2003). These students from various parts of Asia represent an increasingly heterogeneous cohort. The stereotype of Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC: Watkins & Biggs, 1996) learners as diligent, respectful of authority and collectively oriented (Ballard & Clanchy, 1991; Jin & Cortazzi, 1993; Watkins & Biggs, 1996) is no longer seen as appropriate in an increasingly internationalised world (Stephens, 1997). Economic development is now a national goal in many Asian countries, resulting in an explosion of entrepreneurial activity, and the emergence of forms of individualism hitherto unseen in Asian learners and teaching programs (Littlewood, 1999). It is this very entrepreneurship which leads many Asian parents to send their teenage children to Australian senior secondary schools to further their career prospects. As these students undertake their senior school studies in Australia, they may not only be grappling with the increasingly specialised knowledge of their chosen discipline, as are local students, and with the linguistic demands of English as the medium of instruction, as are ESL students, but also with: unfamiliar background knowledge in various disciplines and in the wider cultural context in which these are interpreted; unfamiliar ways of interacting with teachers and other students; unfamiliar modes of learning; and unfamiliar modes of displaying their learning, particularly in examination situations. In the high stakes senior school exams they are undertaking in Australia (examinations which determine university entrance), international students may be dealing with a wider range of question types, demanding forms of knowledge display which they may have had very little, if any, practice in. Yet there has been surprisingly little research to date exploring the range of challenges facing Chinese international students and their teachers in the expanding markets of the school sector, either in Australia, or in other English speaking countries. Supported by specialised language programs, Chinese learners have been found to generally demonstrate a strategic adaptability in meeting the new educational requirements of Australian universities (Volet & Renshaw, 1996). However, no equivalent research has been conducted into how Chinese students and their teachers are meeting the demands of the senior school curriculum. This is a matter of some concern to us, since our preliminary research (Love & Arkoudis, 2004; Arkoudis & Love, 2004) suggests that Chinese international students in the secondary school may be experiencing greater challenges than their tertiary sector counterparts. This may be because the academic and English language proficiency criteria for selection into senior secondary programs is less stringent than those for university entrance and schools may simply not be able to provide the additional academic and language support required for increasing numbers of less proficient international students. Content area teachers at senior secondary level are often so immersed in the discourse of their discipline that they may not recognise the language demands of their subject, let alone language learning needs of, and opportunities for international students (Short & Echevarria, 1999). Yet the potential contribution of these subject teachers, who mediate disciplinary knowledge through

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spoken and written language, to the quality of international students’ learning experiences, is enormous. Concerns have thus been expressed about the attitudes of these teachers as they struggle to support international students in developing the academic and linguistic skills needed in specialist subject areas (Creese, 2005; Davison, 2001; Arkoudis, 2003). These attitudes will profoundly shape their preparedness to design appropriate programs and to engage in dialogue with those who can help them design such programs, namely the ESL teachers. For any fruitful dialogue to occur between the ESL and content area teachers, it is thus important to track teachers’ attitudes about their own capacity to, and feelings about teaching subject specific linguistic skills and their judgements of their international students’ capacity to learn these. It is also important to identify how each set of teachers engage with the discourses of the other, in order to provide models of productive professional interaction at a time of expanding markets and increased responsibilities. 2. The context of the professional discussion at Acumen College The current study attempts to develop preliminary understandings of the extent to which subject teachers perceive themselves to be responsible for supporting Chinese international students as they meet the challenges of the exam-oriented senior secondary school in Australia. We use professional discussions between subject teachers as the site for examining the positions that teachers adopt towards their students, situating these discussions in a single case study context. In order to better understand how teachers view their rights and responsibilities in teaching Chinese international students, we needed to enter their ‘professional knowledge landscape’ (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) where the private beliefs of individual teachers could be subjected to ‘epistemic authority’ in a trusting community of fellow teachers (Orton, 1996). In the context of our study, teachers’ private beliefs are made public in their professional discussions, through the expression of their attitudes and judgments as they justify their responsibilities towards Chinese international students, from the authority of their positions as subject specialists in the senior school curriculum. The professional discussion under scrutiny in this paper was set up by the researchers at a private school, ‘Acumen College’, as part of a larger study examining the language and academic support offered to Chinese international students in Australian secondary schools. International students have been attending Acumen College since 1940, mostly undertaking only the last 2 years of their senior schooling at Years 11 and 12. It has a reputation overseas as being the ‘Number 1 school’ in terms of its success in preparing Chinese international students to gain entry into the ‘Number 1 University’ in the state of Victoria, Australia. This success is most visibly manifest in the high Tertiary Entrance Scores (ENTER) scores gained by students completing their Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE). At the time of the research a third of the senior secondary cohort were international students, the overwhelming number being from China. An analysis of questionnaire and interview data from teachers and international students at the school indicates that for the previous 5 years, the international student cohort had not been the stereotypically homogenous group of hardworking and capable students excelling in Mathematics and Science subjects, but rather, to quote one of the teachers, “all over the shop” (Arkoudis & Love, 2004). Some international students were not academically capable, while others were left behind because they had problems adapting socially and emotionally to education in Australia. Furthermore, these students have only 18 months to 2 years to master the English language and content demands of their selected subjects in order to be successful in their exams and gain a tertiary position. There is thus an urgency to more systematically investigate how VCE subject teachers understand the nature of the linguistic and academic needs of this much more diverse cohort of international students and how they see their roles and responsibilities in relation to these students. Such

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research is particularly important in light of recent research using neo-Vygotskian notions of ‘scaffolding’ (Gibbons, 2002) which highlights the crucial role of all teachers in supporting second language learners as they take on culturally and disciplinary specific forms of language and thought. The professional discussion provided a site in which the social construction of the teachers’ private believing was made visible (Harr´e & van Langenhove, 1999) as teachers justified their views about their responsibilities towards Chinese international students from their authority as subject specialists within the school. It is through the professional discussions that these stances and positions can be challenged by other teachers. Scrutiny of the transcripts of such discussions reveals the extent to which various positions are shared by teachers and the points at which certain positions are challenged, by whom. The professional discussion examined for this paper occurred over a 1 h period during teachers’ planning time after school. Its explicit focus was the identification of language support across all modes (reading, writing, speaking and listening) provided by subject teachers to Chinese international students. Four VCE teachers were involved: Bob, the Economics and Commerce teacher; Ted, the Maths teacher; Mary, the Art teacher; Ellen, the ESL teacher (all names are pseudonyms, as are those of the students cited). 3. Professional discussion and appraisal Once the professional discussion had been transcribed, a set of methodological tools was required to track patterns of attitudinal choices that illuminated the stances of these teachers, the force of these stances and the teachers’ forms of engagement with each other as they support their positions within the professional discussion. We found the APPRAISAL system (the names of each system are traditionally capitalised within Systemic Functional Linguistics), proposed initially by Martin (1995) and developed subsequently by linguists working within a Systemic Functional Linguistics tradition (Eggins & Slade, 1997; Martin & Rose, 2003; White, 2003), to be a useful linguistic tool in this regard. As a typology of evaluation, Appraisal theory is concerned with the linguistic resources by which a texts/speakers come to express, negotiate and naturalise particular inter-subjective and ultimately ideological positions. Within this broad scope, the theory is concerned more particularly with the language of evaluation, attitude and emotion, and with a set of resources which explicitly position a text’s proposals and propositions interpersonally. That is, it is concerned with those meanings which vary the terms of the speaker’s engagement with their utterances, which vary what is at stake interpersonally both in individual utterances and as the text unfolds cumulatively (White, http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal. Accessed June, 2005). Three sub-systems within the larger system of APPRAISAL offer a more delicate means of tracking, simultaneously: the value positions or stances adopted by speakers/writers (the system of ATTITUDE); the force with which these value positions are adopted (the system of GRADUATION); and the means by which these stances are negotiated (ENGAGEMENT). Each will be briefly outlined below as they are used in the analysis of the teachers’ professional discussion (readers who are interested in finding out more about APPRAISAL are advised to visit Peter White’s web site at http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal). 3.1. Attitudinal positioning This system is concerned with meanings by which writers/speakers indicate either a positive or negative assessment of people, places, things, happenings and states of affairs. Three types

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of attitude have been identified: AFFECT, to do with expressing emotion; JUDGEMENT, to do with judging character; APPRECIATION, to do with valuing the worth of things. Positive and negative forms of each of these types of ATTITUDE are identified, as are expressions in which ATTITUDE is explicitly encoded (inscribed) and those in which it is implicitly encoded (evoked). The distinction between the three categories of ATTITUDE is essentially a semantic one, permitting some grammatical flexibility in identifying the elements which carry ATTITUDE, but requiring the analyst to pay close attention to contextual factors. Each category of ATTITUDE, as well as having positive/negative and inscribed/evoked dimensions, can be further sub-classified. Affect for example can be classified in terms of ‘un/happiness’, ‘in/security’ and ‘dis/satisfaction’. In Example 1 from our data, we can see (in the bolded terms) the ESL teacher explicitly encoding her evaluation of the international students’ affect in terms of satisfaction. Example 1. Ellen: ‘In Maths, they quite like to have a text book, as well as a bit of the teacher explaining when they check their answers.’ JUDGEMENT comes into play when human behaviour is judged, either in terms of social esteem (i.e. in terms of the normality, capacity or tenacity of those being judged) or in terms of social sanction (i.e. in terms of veracity or propriety). Again, the positive/negative and inscribed/evoked dimensions apply. In Example 2, from our data, we can see (in the bolded items) Ted, the Maths teacher, evoking (rather than directly inscribing) positive judgements of the Chinese students in terms of normality (‘tend to work together as groups . . . in Chinese’) and inscribing negative judgments of their capacity (‘tend not to have the same command of the language’, ‘can’t’). Example 2. Ted: I think that for a lot of the Chinese students, they tend to work together as groups in Maths and they sort of cross tutor each other—if you understand a mathematical concept, you explain it to your friends in Chinese . . . whereas in Economics they tend not to have the same command of the language so they can’t cross-tutor each other as easily. APPRECIATION, as the system whereby evaluations are made of products and processes, rather than human beings, is sub-divided into three major sub-categories: reaction, to do with the emotional impact of a product or process; composition, to do with the makeup of the product or process; valuation, to do with its status within its particular community. In Example 3, from our data, we can see (in the bolded items) Bob, the Economics/Business Studies teacher, directly inscribing negative appreciation of the language of his subject in terms of composition. Example 3. Bob: The language (of senior school Economics) is so sophisticated . . . I mean, in Mathematics, I don’t think . . . the understanding of the language is as intense. 3.2. Graduation As we have seen in the examples above, APPRAISAL can be expressed with more or less intensity as the teachers either amplify or mitigate their valuations, depending on their stances in the professional discussion. The system of GRADUATION thus closely accompanies the system of ATTITUDE, concerned as it is with grading evaluation. All the italicised items in Examples 1–3 act to graduate the force of the attitudes expressed. In Example 1 we see Ellen augmenting the force of her first proposition about the students through the use of ‘quite’, and mitigating the force of her second proposition (which implicates other teachers’ responsibilities) through her

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Fig. 1. Options available within the systems of ATTITUDE and GRADUATION as used in this study.

use of ‘a bit of’. We see in Example 2 how Ted raises the force of his negative judgement of the Chinese students’ capacities through amplifiers such as ‘a lot’ and softens the focus through expressions such as ‘sort of’ and ‘tend’. Likewise, in Example 3, we see Bob raising the force of his valuation of the language demands of his subject specialisation (so sophisticated). Fig. 1 presents a summary of the options available within the systems of ATTITUDE and GRADUATION as these will be drawn on in the analyses of this paper. 3.3. Dialogic positioning One final system accompanies that of ATTITUDE and GRADUATION in our examination of how the teachers use language to manage their interpersonal positions as they make their evaluations in the context of this professional discussion. The system of ENGAGEMENT comprises options for opening up or closing down further engagement with an argumentative position. In our study, an examination of how various teachers use ENGAGEMENT resources in the professional discussion helps identify teachers’ commitment to their own position in relation to other teachers’ voices. These dialogistic resources are concerned with managing or negotiating interpersonal relations between the teachers and are brought into play when teachers judge that some degree of difference or disagreement is likely, or at least possible, in the professional discussion. The two broad categories of ENGAGEMENT are CONTRACTED engagement, where teachers closes down any possibility of negotiating their stance (e.g. ‘I can’t do it’) and EXPANDED engagement, where teachers are open to considering other views (e.g. ‘they seem to enjoy that’). Speaking from one or other of these two broad positions, speakers can adopt a variety of more delicate negotiating stances. If they aim to contract subsequent engagement, they can draw on certain modality, projection or concession resources (see Martin & Rose, 2003, p. 54) to either

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Fig. 2. Options available within the system of ENGAGEMENT as used in this study.

disclaim (often by denying the veracity of a position) or to proclaim their own position. If they aim to expand subsequent engagement, they can draw on different modality, projection or concession resources to open up the probability that their own position is one of many. Fig. 2 represents the ENGAGEMENT system used in this study, based as it is on Martin and Rose (2003, p. 54) and White (2005). This figure complements Fig. 1. Thus, the system of APPRAISAL, with its sub-systems of ATTITUDE, GRADUATION and ENGAGEMENT allow us to analyse the stances that the teachers take in the professional discussion, the force of these stances, and the extent to which they are willing or able to negotiate these stances. First, all items carrying APPRAISAL items were coded for ATTITUDE, ENGAGEMENT and GRADUATION (see Appendix A for an example). Since the analytical methodology is primarily semantic, focusing on lexical choice rather than operating at the grammatical level, our extensive knowledge of the situational and cultural context was necessarily implicated in the coding. The transcript was then divided into its component phases in order to examine more closely how APPRAISAL choice was patterned across the whole discussion. 4. The phases of the professional discussion The 178 turns of the 1 h discussion between the four teachers fell into a number of clearly defined phases, determined by registerial shifts, most prominently field or topic shifts which are initiated by one of the four teachers, or by the interviewer. This phasal structure is outlined in Table 1, where the ‘Topic’ column identifies the field of the conversational moves that begin sequences of talk. These are numbered as turns in the exchange. The speech function of the turn which initiates each phase is labelled according to Eggins and Slade’s (1997) adaptation of Halliday’s (1994) speech function labels. The final column outlines the discursive purpose of the initiation in developing the subsequent exchange. Of the 10 phases identified, two (asterisked) were selected for discussion in this paper because they are indicative of key points in the discussion where positions were established and consolidated by the teachers. In these phases, the distinctive attitudes of the teachers (in terms of affect, judgement and appreciation) towards their professional roles, their international students and aspects of the specialised curriculum; the force of these attitudes; and the extent to which they are willing or able to negotiate their stances are of prime interest. Phase 2 (see Appendix A for the transcript) illustrates how the teachers present their initial positions about their rights and responsibilities in relation to the educational needs of international students. In this estab-

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Table 1 Phases in the professional discussion Phase 1 2*

Topic Initiation

Turns 1–12

Speech function

Discursive purpose

Statement: opinion Question: open: opinion

Interviewer explaining the focus of the discussion to the teachers Interviewer asking teachers to identify the support that Chinese students need with reading Ted stating that electronic dictionaries are not used in Mathematics Interviewer enquiring about the local cultural knowledge that international students are presumed to have by their teachers Interviewer asking teachers about issues concerning Chinese international students and writing in different subject areas Interviewer seeking confirmation that the subject teachers felt supported in their work with international students Ellen, the ESL teacher, challenging content teachers’ perceptions of such support Mary, the art teacher, explaining how she supports international students by modifying her teaching strategies Interviewer enquiring about the needs of international students with speaking and listening in class Interviewer enquiring about international students’ attitudes to studying in Australia

General reading demands in the key subject areas Electronic dictionaries

13–28

29–68

Statement: fact

4

Local cultural knowledge

69–77

Question: open: fact

5

Writing

78–101

Question: open: fact

6

Supporting teachers

102–111

Question: closed: opinion

Supporting international students Increased heterogeneity of international students Speaking and listening demands

112–129

Statement: opinion Statement: opinion

153–146

Question: open: opinion

International students experiences of studying in Australia

147–178

Question: open: opinion

3

7* 8

9

10

130–152

lishing phase of the discussion, the authoritative stances of Ted (the Maths teacher) and Bob (the Economics teacher) predominate, these positions remaining unchallenged at this early stage of the discussion. Phase 7 (see Appendix B) occurred towards the end of the discussion, as teachers consolidated their various positions, challenging each other in the process. While this paper focuses primarily on the professional discussion between the teachers, we also collected questionnaires from the Chinese international students and teachers, and conducted discussions with the Chinese international students and the ESL teachers at the school (see Love & Arkoudis, 2004 for further details). These other sources of data have informed our understanding of the educational context within which the teachers’ professional discussion takes place. 5. Phase 2: establishing positions The topic of Phase 2 concerns the support international students require with reading. An APPRAISAL analysis reveals the distinctive stances assumed by Bob, Ted and Ellen as they outline their positions regarding their responsibilities towards the international students in their classes. A brief extract of the coded transcript representing each teacher’s discursive position will first be provided (see the full transcription and analysis of each phase in Appendix A). A short table will subsequently summarise the ATTITUDE choices of each of these three teachers in this phase in terms of the sub-categories of AFFECT, JUDGEMENT and APPRECIATION, whether

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positive (+) or negative (−). The tables are followed by a brief discussion of how strongly these attitudes are expressed and of how each teacher negotiates their stances with the other teachers in this initial phase of the professional discussion. 5.1. Bob Bob has been teaching Economics and Business Management for many years at the school. Though deeply concerned about the academic and social needs of his international students, he adopts the strong and non-negotiable position that many of these students seeking to study in his subjects simply do not have the requisite language skills and should therefore be excluded from entry. The nature, force and negotiability of this attitude is evident in his lexical choices, a sample of which have been coded in the extract below. Well, essentially (Engagement: contract proclaim/Graduation high) as far as Business Management is concerned we more or less steer them away from that subject . . . we make a decision to keep them away from that area (Engagement: contract proclaim). The biggest problem (Graduation high/Judgement capacity −) that we have with the Chinese students (Engagement: contract proclaim/Graduation: high) are their basic (Judgement capacity −) language skills. You get some (Graduation: low) who are very good (Judgement capacity +) and others also are very weak (Judgement capacity −). A lot of them (Graduation: high), I think (Engagement: expand entertain), come to Australia with expectations that they’ll get on (evoked judgement capacity +) and do a Business qualification. Well, essentially (Engagement contract proclaim/Graduation: high) as far as Business Management is concerned we more or less steer them away from that subject . . . we make a decision to keep them away from that area (Engagement contract proclaim). The biggest problem (Graduation: high/Judgement capacity −) that we have with the Chinese students (Engagement contract proclaim/Graduation: high) are their basic (Judgement capacity −) language skills. You get some (Graduation low) who are very good (Judgement capacity +) and others also are very weak (Judgement capacity −). A lot of them (Graduation: high), I think (Engagement expand), come to Australia with expectations that they’ll get on (evoked judgement capacity +) and do a Business qualification. Table 2 summarises the attitudinal resources expressed lexically by Bob across the whole of Phase 2. The items that he appraised are in brackets. The appraisal analysis foregrounds Bob’s global negative JUDGEMENT of international students’ capacity in their VCE studies. He states that the students “are weak” and “many simply flounder” (see Turn 18 Appendix A) in understanding the concepts of Business Management, Legal Studies and Economics. He also negatively judges international students’ English language Table 2 Bob’s attitudinal resources Judgement

Affect

Frequency of attitudinal resources and the appraised items −Capacity, 4 (students) No lexically encoded affect +Capacity, 1 (students) +Capacity, 1 (of teachers to make decisions about the Chinese international students)

Appreciation +Composition, 1 (complexity of language needed in Business Management) −Composition, 1 (complexity of language needed for Maths) −Reaction, 1 (students’ ability to cross-tutor in Bus Man)

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skills in his subjects, with only one such student judged as having positive capacity (“very good”). He uses the resources of APPRECIATION to appraise the language of Business Management as “so sophisticated”, thereby further evoking the negative capacity of the international students to understand the subject. Bob’s attitudinal choices are expressed with augmented force, reflecting the strength of his negative judgement of the students’ capacity in his subject. By far the largest number of Bob’s APPRAISAL choices occur in contracted Engagement which furthermore indicates Bob’s assertive stance on the capacities of international students in this early phase of the discussion. He positions himself and other Commerce teachers as being able to make confident judgements about what the international students are capable of achieving in Business Management (e.g. “We know Economics to be . . .”). By using these linguistic choices, Bob in effect is closing down any possible negotiation of his stance about the capacity of international students to successfully study his subject. The APPRAISAL analysis thus foregrounds Bob’s negative judgement of the Chinese international students’ capacity to cope with the language demands of Economics and Business Management. He strongly asserts his position through his use of high GRADUATION and contracted ENGAGEMENT. He is not challenged by any of the other teachers at this stage, presumably able to justify his stance, in part, through the authority of his position as an Economics teacher. 5.2. Ted Ted has been teaching VCE Mathematics, another popular subject with Chinese international students, for nearly two decades at the school. Like Bob, he is deeply concerned about the academic and social needs of his international students, but, rather than essentialising the students’ English language capacities, he attempts to identify the varying language demands of his subject, Maths Methods. His choice of lexis is reflective of this general APPRAISAL stance, as illustrated in the ATTITUDE, GRADUATION and ENGAGEMENT codings in the short extract below. In Methods, approximately two-thirds of the course is Calculus and crunch and base work, which they handle okay (Judgement, capacity + Graduation: medium). But (Engagement: contract disclaim) the last Term is all Probability and certainly (Engagement contract proclaim), for example, we have just (Graduation: high) finished marking our last lot of SACS and a strong Asian boy . . . I’ve got a good class . . . a lot (Graduation: high) of them have really (Graduation: high) done poorly (Judgement capacity −) in . . . because they have misinterpreted (Judgement capacity −) a word or a phrase and got the question wrong. Whereas in something that is more clear cut (Appreciation reaction + Graduation: high) they don’t (Engagement: contract disclaim) have a hassle and . . . so that’s it, I mean, but I (Engagement: contract disclaim) you can see that’d have to be pretty clear cut (Appreciation reaction + Graduation: high) that the boys could (Engagement expand entertain) be doing well (Judgment capacity +) in these two . . . these areas but (Engagement contract disclaim) as soon as they hit Probability it’s a struggle (Appreciation impact −) because of the language, not because of the actual (Graduation high) context of it. Ted’s attitudinal resources for the whole of Phase 2 are summarised in Table 3. Ted’s attitudinal APPRAISAL differs slightly from Bob’s. While Ted negatively appraises the students’ capacity in some aspects of the Maths curriculum (e.g. mathematical probability), he JUDGES the students positively as being very capable in other aspects (“. . . two-thirds of the course is Calculus and crunch and base work, which they handle okay”). Such judgements of student capacity are expressed with medium, rather than strong force. His appraisal of difficult aspects of the Maths curriculum draws on APPRECIATION of the VCE course (as a set of tasks and processes), rather than on a judgement of the students’ abilities, (probability is “quite difficult”

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Table 3 Ted’s attitudinal resources Judgement

Affect

Frequency of attitudinal resources and the appraised items +Capacity, 2 (of students in Calculus) No lexically encoded affect −Capacity, 3 (of students in probability)

Appreciation +Reaction, 2 −Reaction, 2 (of students’ work) +Complexity 2 (language in Maths) +Valuation (social value of writing)

+Tenacity, 1 (of teachers)

and word problems are “subtle”). Despite identifying fewer ‘problems’ with Chinese international students, Ted like Bob, uses augmented force and asserts his view using contracted engagement (e.g. Turn 23 “I can’t see the point), thus closing down easy possibilities for further negotiation around his views at this early stage of the professional discussion. 5.3. Ellen Ellen has been teaching ESL at the school for 6 years, involved mainly in teaching international students. In this professional discussion, she focuses on the international students’ needs, feelings and experiences, rather than the teacher’s or the program’s and in the process, makes some negative evaluations of the teaching materials. Her choice of lexis is reflective of this general APPRAISAL stance, as illustrated in the ATTITUDE, GRADUATION and ENGAGEMENT codings in the short extract below. I know (Engagement contract proclaim) some (Graduation: low) Year 10 students who I’m working with said to me (Engagement contract proclaim) that Chinese students don’t like to learn from the teacher, they like to learn from the book (evoking judgement normality for the Chinese students). So if (Engagement contract disclaim) they have a subject where they need a lot of support (Judgement tenacity +) from the teacher in order to understand the text, they find it really difficult (Appreciation, reaction impact −, Graduation: high) because they can’t just (Engagement contract disclaim) go home and swat up from the book and I think (Engagement expand) in Maths they quite like (Affect: satisfaction, Graduation: medium) to have a text book as well as a bit (Graduation low) of the teacher explaining when they check their answers with the teacher, they like (Affect: satisfaction) to have that book they take home and do all the problems by themselves and work it out by themselves or in their little groups (evoking judgement normality +). And certainly (Graduation: high) in ESL (Engagement contract proclaim) we have one text that we do when we give them a booklet and they fill in the booklet and that is their Study Guide for studying that text and they really like (Affect: satisfaction Graduation medium) that because they can take that away and go over it themselves and do that little bit (Graduation low) of private study that they seem (Eng: expand entertain) to really enjoy (Appreciation reaction +, Graduation: high). Table 4 presents the APPRAISAL resources used by Ellen in this early stage of the professional discussion. Ellen has used very different appraisal patterns from the other two teachers, reflecting her focus on the international students’ perspective in this early stage of the professional discussion. She uses AFFECT to attempt to frame the issues as those related to the international students’

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Table 4 Ellen’s attitudinal resources Judgement

Affect

Frequency of attitudinal resources and the appraised items −Tenacity 1 (students) +Satisfaction 3 (students)

Appreciation −Reaction 1 (of students to studying) +Reaction 1 (of students to teacher support)

preferred learning styles (see Turn 25, e.g. “in Maths they quite like”). In evaluating the textbook, she also uses that form of APPRECIATION – reaction, that is closest to AFFECT (e.g. “They find it [the text] really difficult”). This negative evaluation of the teacher-set text is juxtaposed with her positive evaluation of a more appropriately structured booklet for use in a format that international students prefer (“really enjoy”, used with augmented force). Again, her APPRAISAL choices signify her focus on evaluating designed materials and teaching approaches, and their impact on students, rather than on judging the students’ capacity. These APPRAISAL choices reflect Ellen’s expertise in diagnosing Chinese international students’ needs, as related to their learning styles. In this capacity, Ellen asserts her opinion quite firmly, as evidenced in her engagement and graduation appraisal choices. She expresses her authority by proclaiming (“I know”) or disclaiming (“they can’t just”), typically using high graduation and thus contracting any further negotiation of her professional evaluations. As the ESL teacher, she has the authority and expertise to make these pronouncements about the needs of Chinese international students and is more aware of the students’ views on learning. Yet, even while she uses more instances of closed than open engagement in this expert role, her ratio of 2:1 is still less than Ted’s and Bob’s. This, coupled with her fewer number of total turns, suggests that, of the three teachers, she is less assertive in her stance. This brief APPRAISAL analysis has highlighted how three teachers used the opening of the professional discussion to establish their views about educating Chinese international students. Ted’s and Bob’s views dominate here, as they position the Chinese international students as less capable than local students in dealing with the ‘sophisticated’ concepts and the specialist language of their discipline areas. Ellen on the other hand uses mainly AFFECT to evoke how the international students feel about studying, and APPRECIATION to evoke their reaction to various materials and teaching strategies. In doing so, she positions herself as understanding the students’ needs and as having insights to offer the other specialist teachers. All three teachers use contracted Engagement as a means of establishing their various authorities at this early extract of their discussion. It should be noted that Mary, the Art teacher, while present during this interaction, does not contribute to this phase of the discussion. Through her silence, she is avoiding taking a position on the issue of the Chinese international students at this stage. As we examine the interaction in Phase 7, we will explore the extent to which these initial positions are maintained or contested within the course of their professional discussion. 6. Phase 7: consolidating positions In the subsequent discussion, a number of topics are initiated, either by teachers or the Interviewer, around various aspects of supporting international students (see Table 1). Throughout these phases, Bob’s and Ted’s evaluating and negotiating stances remain characteristically the same as in Phase 1. Towards the end of the 1 h discussion these stances have consolidated, until, by Phase 7 (see Appendix B) we can clearly identify each teacher’s position and the processes

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by which they engage with each other. Through this inter-subjective negotiation, the distinctive attitudes of the teachers (in terms of affect, judgement and appreciation) towards their students, the specialised curriculum and their own professional roles can be seen more vividly as ‘naturalised’ but ultimately ideological. We will thus examine how the teachers in this phase express and negotiate these attitudes, both in individual utterances and as the text of the professional discussion unfolds cumulatively. In Phase 7, Mary enters the discussion between Ellen, Ted and Bob as they negotiate opinions about the nature of the support they can offer international students (see Appendix B for the transcript of this stage of the discussion). This field is reflected in the attitudinal choices of each of the teachers, with every clause of the transcript of this phase carrying APPRAISAL of one sort or another. The teachers appraise themselves, their colleagues and their students, in terms of AFFECT, JUDGEMENT and APPRECIATION, as summarised in Table 5. This simple quantification of the distribution of the resources of ATTITUDE provides a useful starting point for further exploration of how selected APPRAISAL resources are actually used to negotiate teachers’ stances concerning Chinese international students, and their own needs and responsibilities in relation to these students. A logogenetic perspective (Halliday, 1993) however, offers a richer insight into how various interpersonal meanings are enacted as the four teachers negotiate various meanings through the unfolding text of this phase of the professional discussion. In the first move of this phase (see Turn 76 in Appendix B) Ellen, the ESL teacher, opens up for further negotiation, through her choice of ENGAGEMENT (Expansion) resources, a topic that had appeared to be resolved in the prior discussion, that concerning the extent of support that content area teachers experienced in meeting the needs of international students. This is the only instance where Ellen initiated the topic shift by challenging Ted’s and Bob’s self positioning. She does this in a highly diplomatic way, selecting modality resources (“I’m surprised”, “I wonder”), by which her proposition is represented as “based on an individual subjecthood and thereby as contingent, but one of a number of possible alternative positions” (White, 2003, p. 268). Her diplomacy is further evident in her selection of tokens (rather than inscriptions) of judgement of her fellow teachers (focusing on the normality of their requests for assistance from her). The only time Ellen uses Engagement resources to close down the interaction is when she professes her role and expertise as an ESL teacher (“Certainly I’ve got a role in helping students with their Table 5 Summary of attitudinal resources in Phase 7 Teacher

Frequency of attitudinal resources and the appraised items Affect

Judgement

Ellen

Teachers (2) Self (2)

Teachers (1) Students (1)

Bob

Students (5)

Self (9 capacity, 1 propriety) Students (14 capacity)

Ted Mary

Appreciation

‘Problem’ of international students (2) The senior school curriculum (2) Resources for ISs (2)

Self (3 capacity) Students (3 capacity, 3 normality) Students (1)

Self (6 capacity, mostly positive, 1 propriety) Students (5 capacity)

Senior exam (1 composition)

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mainstream subjects”). Her use of appraisal items thus reinforces her positioning as a support for the mainstream teacher. In the following responding turn (Turn 77), Bob, the Economics teacher, maintains the proclaiming stance of earlier phases through dialogic contraction (“I was just going to interpret this quite simply”). He disclaims against an imagined opposition, one who might want to present a more complex position on what he construes as the ‘problem’ with international students. He continues to make strong judgements of his (and by his use of inclusive imperative, other VCE teachers’) lack of capacity to assist international students (‘we just don’t have time to devote to one student in a class of 25’). He construes Chinese international students as a single, problematic cohort, judging them in terms of their capacity to ‘get A’s and B’s’ with insufficient English language skills which he presumes are taught independently of his discipline area. He also construes the VCE in terms of negative APPRECIATION, as an institution which makes little allowances for the needs of international students and which makes inevitable a ‘sink or swim’ approach. For Bob, at this stage of the discussion, both the ‘problem’ and the available solutions are institutional ones, simply conceived of, and beyond his control. In positioning himself this way, he refuses to open up a space for negotiating his relationship with the ESL specialist. Following the interviewer’s prompt for Bob to identify any further strategies he uses to support international students, his stance of dialogic contraction (Turn 79) hardens further, with him proclaiming, “there’s nothing that can be done with them. The good kids will survive. The weaker kids . . . are really struggling, academically they’re just not ready”. In terms of JUDGEMENT, international students are essentialised as two distinct groups (the ‘good kids’ and ‘the weaker kids’), having fixed differential capacities regarding language and academic knowledge. These JUDGEMENTS are strongly augmented through intensifiers such as ‘really’. When discussing local or “mainstream English speaking students” on the other hand, Bob assumes a more dialogically expanding stance, arguing the possibility that they ‘may still struggle’. Bob’s simplistic dichotomy of international students into the ‘good’ and ‘weaker’ students is subsequently problematised by Ellen, the ESL teacher (Turn 80), who once more opens up interpersonal stances by entertaining the possibility that the cohort of international students is more heterogeneous than Bob’s judgements suggest (“So perhaps there are also students with learning difficulties and other issues”). In his reply (Turn 81), Bob initially engages with Ellen’s position, modulating his stance as he entertains the possibility that the international student cohort is more varied, and thus the responsibilities of the teacher more complex (“I mean it makes it a bit difficult”). However, his stance after his subsequent ‘but basically’ continues to be generally one of dialogic contraction. Chinese students are judged in terms of having fixed and stable attributes, one group having high capacity in terms of academic ability, the other less so, but both judged (with amplified force) as lacking ability in terms of language. Bob and other VCE teachers in his discipline area are concomitantly judged in terms of negative capacity to assist these students. In making these judgements of both the students and teachers, Bob acts as a spokesperson for other VCE teachers in the Commerce area, and draws increasingly on ‘concurring’ resources such as the use of the inclusive first person plural, ‘we’, to establish a shared stance. This stance contracts even further towards the end of Turn 81 as he pronounces what is construed as a self-evident truth (“But I know that even the good ones I’ve got, the girls I’ve got, the best that they can hope for in Year 12 would probably . . . well a 35 out of 50, which is pretty good but, if they were English speaking kids they’d probably get in the high forties”). Such a stance points to a further essentialising of the language and academic abilities of international students and a further marginalisation of teachers’ responsibilities in the face of this. His ultimately fatalistic

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stance (“But that’s just the reality of learning in another language, in English”) replaces a sense of his own (and by implication other teachers’) agency in the academic progress of international students. Mary, the art teacher, in Turn 83, initially endorses Bob’s position by presenting her own agency in terms of negative capacity in relation to international students (‘you can only spread yourself around 20, 28 kids’). However, in responding to the interviewer’s invitation to expand, Mary subsequently (Turn 85) makes more positive judgements of her capacity to meet the needs of international students in her Art classes (“I mean, being a visual area, I use a lot of visual kinaesthetic, all the different . . . as much as possible”). Mary suggests here that it is the methodology, perhaps even epistemology of the discipline of Art that allows her to explore a variety of ways of meeting the language and academic needs of her international students, an issue which emerges further in the discussion. Bob does not appear to engage in any immediately obvious way with Mary’s position in his subsequent turn (Turn 86). His strong proclaiming stance regarding his lack of capacity to learn to support international students linguistically is not at all open to negotiation, in contrast to Mary’s more positive self-judgement. If the kind of judgement speakers take up is sensitive to their institutional position (Martin & Rose, 2003, p. 63), Bob (and by implication Ted) is reflecting a strong, non-negotiable, institutional role here as an experienced content area specialist, who neither has, nor wants to learn the capacity for supporting international students through language. Mary’s stance in her rejoinder (Turn 87) provides an important contrast to Bob and Ted’s institutional position. She uses engagement resources which explicitly counter Bob’s stance, arguing as she does that teachers do have capacity to modify their programs and that international students do have the capacity to succeed under the right circumstances. She uses Attitudinal resources focused on JUDGEMENTS of students’ capacity, where positive and negative capacities are located dynamically within individual students (such as Wei Ling), rather than, as in Bob’s discourse, more statically as attributes of two groups of students (the ‘good ones’ and the ‘not so good ones’). Significantly, she also uses the resources of PROPRIETY, suggesting that content area teachers have a moral responsibility to find appropriate ways to support international students. She mitigates her countering stance by graduating the force of her assertions and subsequently opens up a more dialogic stance than Bob’s. In her selection of phrases such as ‘I don’t think’, Mary makes explicit the possibility of a heteroglossic diversity in the discussion of how teachers can support the language, as well as learning needs of international students. Mary’s stance as a content area teacher is an empowering one, in terms of her judgment of her capacity to support her international students and their capacity to respond to appropriately teaching designed strategies. Yet the possibility she opens up for discussion of such strategies is subsequently closed down again by Ted in Turn 88, who puts a strong position regarding the progressively declining abilities of Chinese students in Maths over the last 6 years. Like Bob, Ted takes a dialogic stance that closes off, or increases the interpersonal risk (White, 2003, p. 269) of potential challenges to this position. Ted’s stance here reflects his institutional authority as an experienced Maths teacher who has taught at the school for many years. Unlike Mary, he is not open to learning about strategies to support Chinese international students (whom he ‘essentialises’ in his epithet ‘Asian students’) in his subject area, instead making global judgements about these students’ “fixed” capacities, rather than about his capacity to deal with a fluid situation as a teacher. Ted’s judgements are also intensified in his choice of graders such as ‘very’ which represent a strong disjunction between his view of homogeneously capable international students in the past and the more heterogeneous range of such students in the present.

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7. Summary By taking a snapshot of APPRAISAL choices at an opening phase and a more dynamic view in one of the concluding phases of this professional discussion, we have been able to identify, at a micro-analytic level, how a small group of senior secondary teachers establish and negotiate their stances regarding Chinese international students from their positions of authority as subject specialists. We have seen that two of the teachers, Bob and Ted, make no substantial shift in their stances across the period of the discussion. Their APPRAISAL choices at both the opening and concluding phases indicate: their judgement of the capacities of international students as relatively fixed, essentialising the linguistic and academic abilities of these students rather deterministically; their judgment of themselves as not having the capacity to assist these students in terms of language support, thereby accepting little responsibility for the educational outcomes of this group of students; and their evaluation of the pressures of the exam-driven VCE course as limiting the amount of time and effort they can dedicate to support these students. Such APPRAISALS are expressed with generally augmented force in both phases, each teacher adopting interpersonal stances which contract, rather than expand, the possibility of heteroglossic diversity in the discussion with the ESL and Art teacher. Neither Bob’s nor Ted’s position has shifted in the course of the professional discussion, during which they have simply consolidated their initial position that it is not their role to support Chinese international students with the language and academic difficulties many experience in their classes. Ellen and Mary, on the other hand: evaluate individual Chinese international students as having the capacity to differentially succeed under the right circumstances; and evaluate teachers as having the capacity, and indeed the moral responsibility, to take responsibility for assisting such students succeed with their VCE studies by finding ways of modifying their programs. The frequency of their choices of AFFECT indicate their ability to empathise with the students’ perspective, yet their invitations to empathise are not reflected in Bob’s or Ted’s APPRAISAL choices. Likewise, Ellen’s selection of APPRECIATION resources which evaluate teaching strategies and resources as more or less supportive of international students is not taken up for negotiation by Bob and Ted, whose own APPRECIATION resources focus on the VCE as a more ultimately constraining process. These patterns of APPRAISAL choices suggest that there may be ‘incommensurate epistemologies’ (Arkoudis, 2003) in operation in this professional discussion. Such irreconcilable positions may have evolved in this discussion in part because, in their argumentative stances, Ellen and Mary do not assert their opinions strongly. They select an ENGAGEMENT stance which expands the dialogue through frequent use of probability, modality and concession, and mitigated graduation to counter opposing views, thus appearing to defer to Bob and Ted. Through these choices, they are relatively ineffectual in shifting the stances initially adopted by Ted and Bob earlier in the discussion. 8. Conclusion We have argued elsewhere (Love & Arkoudis, 2004) that it is only when subject specialists’ recognize how the language and content of their subject area are related that international students will be genuinely supported in developing the academic literacy skills necessary for success in final school examinations. Such a position has evolved out of a growing body of research using systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1994) that has illuminated how disciplinary specific texts and forms of reasoning are constructed through key patternings of language choices.

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The disciplines of Science and those of Art for example ‘see the world’ differently, those differences being construed largely through language. Our own analysis of the linguistic and academic demands of Business Management examination papers (Love & Arkoudis, 2004) has demonstrated the intimacy of this relationship within the very curriculum discussed in this paper. Other linguistically oriented research in the area of mathematics (Veel, 1997), history (Coffin, 1997) and geography (van Leeuwen & Humphrey, 1996) further point to the profound ways in which the spoken and written discourses of each of these disciplines both shape and reflect the texts and forms of reasoning that are valued in each. Such research highlights the need to educate subject teachers in secondary schools to accept that language and content are inextricably linked. Yet our analysis of the professional discussion in which the ESL teacher attempts to do precisely this indicates the nature of some of the difficulties involved in such an enterprise. The APPRAISAL analysis has illuminated the obstacles presented by the stances of teachers such as Bob and Ted, who maintain strongly classified (Bernstein, 1996) epistemological positions which exclude the possibility of a focus on language as they work with the increasing numbers of international students that their school is attracting. It has also illuminated the limitations in the conversational strategies of the ESL specialist and teachers like Mary who are attempting to reconcile the language with the content demands of their specialist discipline. The single professional discussion reported in this paper, we believe, is representative in many ways of similar discussions held within other Australian schools which provide programs for international students. The irreconcilable positions of the two groups of teachers may be exacerbated by institutionalised factors which, we argue, need to be accounted for if such professional discussions are to be more fruitful than the one reported here. It could be argued that the stances adopted by the four teachers are the realisation of the gender expectations of our culture, namely that women are conversationally supportive while men are more conversationally performative (Eggins, 1994). The institutional context of the school appears to combine with such social roles and relationships in that ESL teachers, in Australia at least, tend to be female while teachers of the higher prestige subjects such as Maths and Economics tend to be male. Thus, Ellen’s and Mary’s less assertive self-positioning may also reflect in part the status of their respective subject disciplines, particularly in the results-driven private school context in Australia, where subject disciplines operate as distinct discourse communities within schools, with distinct ways of thinking and constructing their authority. For example, Mary’s openness to considering the role of language in individual learning may derive in part from her disciplinary orientation, where Art making and Art appreciation may open up pedagogical strategies, even in a high stakes exam-oriented program, that are less available in the more highly classified and framed (Bernstein, 1996) discourses of Commerce and Mathematics. These possibilities need to be accounted for very carefully by ESL teachers exploring what they might offer other content area teachers through professional discussions. For whatever reasons, Ellen appears not to have been afforded the authority as the ESL teacher, within the current institutional context, to do any more than offer teachers like Bob and Ted examples of what can be done to support the international students in their classes. She cannot assert her views regarding how these classes should be taught, and, it appears ultimately cannot shift Ted’s and Bob’s initial positions. It may indeed be the case that, as Bob says, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, and that the efforts of teachers like Ellen and Mary to engage subject specialists like him will continue to encounter the forms of conversational contraction that were evident in the APPRAISAL analysis above. However, it is important that conversational opportunities such as those of the professional discussion above remain open, to allow for a possible shift in epistemological position, one that

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recognises that language and content are inextricably linked. Furthermore, it is important that the ESL teachers involved in such conversations reflect carefully on the dynamics of such conversations, in order to select forms of negotiation which achieve genuine and productive shifts in attitude. It is, we believe, worth hoping that an appraisal analysis of a similar professional discussion in a future context will reveal very different patterns of ATTITUDE about specialist teachers’ responsibilities to international students and ENGAGEMENT between ESL and subject teachers. Appendix A Phase 2. Discussion between Ellen (ESL), Bob (Commerce) and Ted (Maths) as they state their opinions about the nature of the language demands of their discipline and the difficulties faced by international students. Mary, the Art teacher is present, but says nothing. 18. Bob: Well, essentially (Engagement contract proclaim/Graduation high focus) as far as Business Management is concerned we more or less steer them away from that subject . . . we make a decision to keep them away from that area (Engagement contract proclaim). The biggest problem (Graduation high force/Judgement capacity −) that we have with the Chinese students (Engagement contract proclaim/Graduation raised focus) are their basic (Judgement capacity −) language skills. You get some (Graduation low focus) who are very good (Judgement capacity +) and others also are very weak (Judgement capacity −). A lot of them (Graduation raised focus), I think (Engagement expand), come to Australia with expectations that they’ll get on (evoked judgement capacity +) and do a Business qualification. We know (Engagement contract proclaim/Graduation raised focus) that Economics tends (Engagement contract proclaim) to be the core of most Business courses so we tend to say (Engagement contract proclaim/Garduation raised focus) “If you are going to do Business Studies subject definitely Economics” for that reason. We (Engagement contract proclaim) also found that in the past (evoking the teachers capacity to make judgements) that many just floundered (Judgement capacity—with sharpened focus graduation) at the concepts involved in Business Management and the same with Legal Studies and Economics. So we thought (Engagement expand), well, if they are going to eventually (Graduation sharpened focus, evoking judgement normality −) end up in an Economics based course we might as well (Engagement expand) give them a bit of (Graduation low force) school Economics. It’s just (Graduation low grade) the language. It really (Graduation high force) is the language . . . I suppose (Engagement expand) its also a certain amount (graduation low focus) of cultural understanding of the nature of the Australian economy, a lot of things (Graduation: high focus), like the political system and so forth . . . The language is so sophisticated (Appreciation composition complexity +), I mean (Engagement contract proclaim) . . . in Mathematics I don’t (Engagement contract) it’s as . . . the language the understanding of language is as intense, (Appreciation: composition complexity −) I don’t think (Engagement expand). 19. Ted: Strangely enough, Bob’s almost (Graduation high focus) correct . . . but (Engagement contract disclaim) where it really (Graduation: high force) shows out is the . . . you probably (Engagement expand) won’t appreciate it (Judgement capacity −), you guys know anything about VCE Maths? (Engagement contract, closed question) In Methods, approximately two-thirds of the course is Calculus and crunch and base work, which they handle okay (Judgement, capacity +infused with graduation medium focus). But (Engagement contract disclaim) the last Term is all the Probability and certainly (Engagement contract proclaim), for example, we have just (Graduation sharpened focus) finished marking our last lot of SACS and a strong Asian boy which I’ve got a good class, a lot (Graduation high force) of them have really (Gradu-

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ation high force) done poorly (Judgement capacity −) in . . . because they have misinterpreted (Judgement capacity −) a word or a phrase and got the question wrong. Whereas in something that is more clear cut (Appreciation reaction impact +high graduation) they don’t (Engagement contract disclaim) have a hassle and . . . so that’s it, I mean, but I (Engagement contract disclaim) you can see that’d have to be pretty clear cut (Appreciation reaction impact +high graduation that the boys could (Engagement expand) be doing well (Judgment capacity +) in these two . . . these areas but (Engagement contract disclaim) as soon as they hit Probability it’s a struggle (Appreciation impact −) because of the language not because of the actual (Graduation high force) context of it. 20. Interviewer: So then, there are more actual word problems with Probability? 21. Ted: They are subtle (Appreciation: composition complexity +) word problems like ‘more than’, ‘no more than’. Whereas we’ll say ‘no more than two’ they will see it in the book where it’s numerically written or generally it’s the word ‘greater than’ or ‘less than’ but you substitute ‘more than’ for ‘greater than’ and there is confusion (evoking judgement capacity −). I had one student (Engagement contract proclaim), not in my class, who wrote half a page on this quite difficult (Appreciation: complexity +, graduation raise force) . . . little piece of Mathematics, completely irrelevant (Appreciation reaction impact −, graduation raised force) to the question. We were talking about a question within which do two values lie . . . and he wrote a little story and showed mathematically that no, it wasn’t a lie, it was the truth. And that one word . . . and that happened . . . we try and support (Judgement tenacity +) that . . . did we show you the language thing we made up? We try to make up . . . we’re not allowed to have dictionaries in our subjects. I mean (Engagement expand), I don’t know (Eng: contract, disclaim) about the other subjects . . . but (Engagement contract, disclaim) in Maths they are not allowed dictionaries. 22. Interviewer: Yea, right. 23. Ted: So in Methods they are not allowed to have dictionaries, be . . . electronic, paper or whatever, so, we’ve got the principle that when we are walking around class I don’t (Engagement contract proclaim) let my kids have . . . the other teachers are a bit (Graduation lower force) like . . . weaning them off (evoking judgement normality −) but (Engagement contract disclaim counter) I can’t see the point (Engagement contract proclaim) because at the end of the year they are not going to have a dictionary in any . . . and they are not allowed to have it in any formal (Appreciation, social value +) piece of assessment, so . . .. 24. Bob: Can I just (Graduation sharpened focus) throw in a general, maybe (Engagement expand) its a huge (Graduation raised force) generalisation here, is that one thing I think (Engagement expand) that is different to say between compound Economics and say Maths is that the nature of learning is different in the sense I think (Engagement expand) that for a lot (Graduation raised force) of overseas, the Chinese students, they tend to work together as groups (evoking judgement normality +) and I think (Engagement expand) that because they tend to rely upon each other, they sort of cross-tutor each other, if you understand a mathematical concept you explain it to your friends in Chinese (evoking judgement normality +) . . . whereas (Engagement contract disclaim) in Economics they tend not to have the same command of the language (Judgement capacity −, graduation soften focus), so they can’t (Engagement contract disclaim) cross-tutor each other as easily (Appreciation reaction impact −) . . .. 25. Ellen: I know (Engagement contract proclaim commit pronounce) some (graduation lower force) Year 10 students who I’m working with said to me (Engagement contract proclaim) that Chinese students don’t like to learn from the teacher, they like to learn from the book (evoking judgement normality for the Chinese students). So if (Engagement contract disclaim counter) they have a subject where they need a lot of support (Judgement tenacity +,

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with raised force) from the teacher in order to understand the text. They find it really difficult (Appreciation, reaction impact −, graduation raised force) because they can’t just (Engagement contract disclaim, graduation sharpened focus) go home and swat up from the book and I think (Engagement expand) in Maths they quite like (Affect: satisfaction medium, graduation raised force) to have a text book as well as a bit (Graduation low force) of the teacher explaining when they check their answers with the teacher, they like (Affect: satisfaction) to have that book they take home and do all the problems by themselves and work it out by themselves or in their little groups (evoking judgement normality +). And certainly (Graduation raised force) in ESL (Engagement contract proclaim) we have one text that we do when we give them a booklet and they fill in the booklet and that is their Study Guide for studying that text and they really like (Affect: satisfaction, graduation raised force) that because they can take that away and go over it themselves and do that little bit (Graduation lower force) of private study that they seem (Eng: expand entertain) to really enjoy (Appreciation reaction +, graduation raised force). Appendix B Phase 7. Discussion between Ellen (ESL), Bob (Commerce), Ted (Maths) and Mary (Art) as they negotiate opinions about the nature of the support they can offer international students. The immediately prior discussion has been about how teachers responded in a preliminary questionnaire (which was part of the same study) eliciting perceptions of how well teachers felt supported in helping international students. Appraised items are bolded and Turns are numbered within this phase. Speaker and turn

Utterance

APPRAISAL coding

76. Ellen

I’m surprised to find that people do feel very supported because . . . certainly I’ve got a role in Year 10 . . . and it’s not VCE but . . . helping Year 10 students with their mainstream subjects and I very rarely have a teacher ask me what should they do or how could they help a student with this language or how can we teach something. So, if they do feel supported I wonder where the support is coming from.

(Appreciation valuation −) (Graduation high value) (Engagement contract proclaim) (Engagement contract disclaim) (Appreciation valuation −/Graduation high force)

I was just going to . . . interpret this quite simply

(Graduation sharpen focus) (Appreciation composition+/Graduation low force) (Engagement proclaim)

77: Bob

I deal with overseas . . . Chinese students at three levels, at Year 10 in Year 10 Commerce, in Year 11 in the first year of their VCE, Year 12 their final year. In Year 10 when they come in, they tend to be mid-year intake or just coming in. At that level when they’re just) being integrated or get the feel of what the classroom is like . . . I don’t give them much support

(Engagement contract disclaim) (Engagement expand)

(Graduation sharpen focus)

(Engagement contract disclaim) (Judgement (invoked-propriety)/Graduation low force)

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Appendix B (Continued ) Speaker and turn

Utterance

APPRAISAL coding

other than just being in the environment In Year 11 those kids who pick up Economics of the language of it, the first thing I say to them and I have four in my class this year, is that ‘Forget about the marks for this year, just try to improve your language skills’ and a lot of them find . . . a lot of them . . . a lot of them get taken aback by that They’re not used to that concept

(Graduation sharpen focus) (Judgement capacity+) (Engagement contract, proclaim/Graduation focus sharpen)

They’re here to get A’s and B’s In Year 12 it’s basically sink or swim and let’s be really honest

we just don’t have the time to devote to one student in a class of 20–25 and the nature of the VCE subjects is such that you just sink or swim 78: Interviewer

79: Bob

And Rob, how do you . . . like in Year 11 when you say to your students ‘Right, we’re going to develop your English skill, language skills, do you do anything in the classroom to assist that or do you think that would happen because they are immersed in that English speaking environment and that would occur Well, a lot of the kids to a certain degree, there’s nothing that can be done with them

The good kids will survive

The weaker kids I mean . . . some of these kids coming out of the ELICOS stream are really struggling academically they’re just not ready

and where mainstream English speaking students they may still struggle

but there isn’t that language issue. 80: Ellen 81: Bob

So perhaps students with learning difficulties have other issues. Learning difficulties as much as being overseas students, I mean it makes it a bit difficult

(Affect satisfaction −/Graduation high force) (Judgement normality −/Engagement contract, proclaim) (invoked Judgement capacity +)/Engagement contract, proclaim) (Appreciation valuation-/Graduation high force) (Judgement social sanction propriety +/Engagement contract, proclaim)/Graduation high force) (Judgement (−capacity)/Engagement contract disclaim/Graduation sharpen focus) (Appreciation valuation −/Graduation sharpen focus)

(Graduation high focus) (Engagement contract, proclaim, pronounce/Graduation soften focus/evoked judgement of teachers’ capacity −) (Engagement contract, proclaim, pronounce/Judgement of international students tenacity+) (Judgement capacity −) (Engagement contract proclaim, pronounce)/Graduation high force) (Engagement contract, proclaim/graduation sharpen focus/Judgement of international students capacity −) (Engagement expand, entertain/Graduation soften focus/evoked judgement of local students capacity −) (Engagement contract disclaim) (Engagement expand) (Appreciation valuation −/Graduation low force)

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Appendix B (Continued ) Speaker and turn

Utterance

APPRAISAL coding

But basically what I do is I say early on, ‘Don’t worry about the mark’ That reduces the pressure But also when you are teaching they are not the weakest kids in the class all the time

(Engagement contract, proclaim) (Affect security+) (Affect security+) (Engagement contract disclaim) (Judgement capacity) (Graduation soften focus) (Engagement expand entertain/judgement capacity+) (Engagement contract disclaim) (Judgement capacity+/Graduation soften focus) (Engagement contract, proclaim) (Graduation soften focus) (Judgement capacity −) (Engagement contract proclaim) (Appreciation valuation+) (Judgement evoked capacity) (Engagement contract, proclaim) (Judgement capacity+/Graduation low force) (Judgement capacity+) (Engagement contract proclaim) (Judgement capacity+) (Judgement capacity) (Appreciation valuation+/Graduation medium force) (Engagement expand)

Some of the girls we’ve got this year, are probably some of the strongest students except for the language thing a bit of a language barrier We do tend to slow down and explain things a little bit slower at times when we do remember to do those things So . . . what we’re saying . . . this wonderful dictionary and all these other things like that I mean . . . most of the students . . . play it by ear, as you know and you hope that you bring them along and those that have got that little bit of extra ability do cope and do achieve But I know that even the good ones I’ve got, the girls I’ve got, the best that they can hope for in Year 12 would probably be, well a 35 out of 50, which is pretty good

but, if they were English speaking kids they’d probably get in the high forties. But that’s just the reality of learning in another language, in English. I really admire those kids 82: Interviewer

83: Mary

84: Interviewer

85: Mary

86: Bob

How do other . . . do other people agree with what Bob is saying? That’s the attitude you need to sort of take with your international students in your classroom? Yea, I mean, you do as much as you can for them but then you can only spread yourself around 20, 28 kids. You’ve got to be very particular And is there any way, this comes across as quite a naive question, there’d be any way we could change the way that you could teach the whole class, while still working to the curriculum, in a way that helped the international students? I know, I don’t really find it hard because I use as many different types of learning strategies as I can. I mean, being a visual area, I use a lot of visual kinaesthetic all the different . . . as much as possible I’ll say what you won’t say Ted It’s pretty hard to teach an old dog new tricks

I mean I’ve taught a certain way and that’s my approach and I mean, I am sympathetic to the kids

(Graduation sharpen focus) (Judgement tenacity+)/graduation high force)

(Engagement proclaim confirm (Judgement capacity−/Graduation low force))

(Judgement evoked capacity+/Engagement contract disclaim/Graduation medium force) (Engagement contract proclaim, commit endorse) (Judgement capacity−/Graduation sharpened focus) (Engagement contract proclaim), (Appreciation reaction+)

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Appendix B (Continued ) Speaker and turn

87: Mary

Utterance

APPRAISAL coding

and I try to help them where I can but basically you know, I’ve got two Year 12 classes with forty- something some students in, at the moment one of them, two, three four are Chinese students You can only work with what you are capable of achieving you know, I’m not going to try to re-learn how to teach

(Judgement evoked capacity −) (Engagement contract proclaim),

But sometimes you do have to actually modify the program

like I had Wei Ling.. . . and she ended up . . . you know she did complete a certain amount of the work She did some Folio work, some practical work, she would have struggled with the exam, she was really struggling interpreting the questions . . . because all the questions were written questions even though the questions might have been visual), the drawing, she still had to actually interpret the question and she struggled to get past that. But, you know, she was still able to . . . sort of follow step-by-step and do something, which . . . did give her a sense of achievement. But I don’t think that from the start of the year, that she would get through. (some indecipherable talk) 88: Ted

The quality of . . . the quality of students we’ve got is . . . very . . . has decreased considerably compared to when I first came here. The Asian students, if you did have Asian students in your class 6 years ago they were very clever, very, very strong Now academically they are all over the shop

You are just as likely to get a boy who is . . . not confident in Mathematics) and that wouldn’t have happened 6 years ago 89: Bob

But the Chinese people tend to be a bit more self selecting Aren’t they a better quality in terms of academic ability

90: Ted

Well, . . . no, that’s what I’m saying. Like in . . . compared to 6 years ago in general now there is a whole range of abilities

(Graduation low force) (Judgement evoked capacity−), (Judgement evoked capacity−) (Engagement expand entertain/Graduation low force)/judgement of self as teacher (evoked propriety+) (Judgement capacity+/Graduation low force). (Engagement expand, entertain) (Judgement capacity−/Graduation high force), (Engagement expand entertain (Judgement capacity−)

(Graduation soften focus) (Engagement expand entertain)

(Engagement contract proclaim pronounce/Graduation high force)/Judgement normality −) (Engagement contract proclaim/Graduation high force)/Judgement capacity+) (Engagement contract, proclaim/Graduation high force)/judgement capacity−) (Engagement expand entertain/Judgement capacity−/Graduation sharpen focus (Engagement contract disclaim) (Engagement expand entertain/Graduation low force)/Judgement capacity+) (Engagement expand entertain/Graduation low force)/Judgement capacity+)? (Engagement contract proclaim/Graduation high force)/Judgement capacity−)

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