The topic of policies and classrooms is considered from an Australian perspective. You will need to think of policy issues in your specific situation. For example, if you teach in Hong Kong then there are policies to do with co-teaching between local English teachers and native English teachers (NET). A recent graduate conducted a research project which examined those departmental policies in terms of how they were implemented in her situation. She compared students' beliefs about language learning and the respective roles of co-teachers, with the local teachers' judgements of their students' beliefs, and examined how the intersection of those beliefs and judgements influenced the outcomes of the policy in practice. Her study will make a difference to the implementation of the policy in her situation. However, for the purposes of this topic our focus is basically Australia, with some comparison to language policies in America and England. There are crucial issues in this focus which TESOL teachers should understand, the most important of which are the recognition of student needs and teachers' commitment to equitable policies. It is important for teachers to always look to, and seek to understand the contexts in which they are teaching, to know how governments and bureaucracies, the employing bodies, establish those contexts.

That is, language and cultural policies are an important part of a TESOL teacher's world. TESOL teachers might publish material on theoretical underpinnings of their classroom practices and package and publish their "best practice" guides for their colleagues with enthusiasm and intelligence, but their efforts will be undermined if public policies do not create systemic supports for their classroom efforts. It is important that TESOL teachers are aware of the public policies which influence the quality of their students' educational experiences and, as well, shape their own lives and careers. It is important that they take an abiding interest in public policies at least at state and national levels.

This means that you should understand the structures underpinning educational language services, and follow changes to policies through reading and involvement in your professional associations. This topic is, in many ways, a call for political awareness and commitment to the cause of ESL and multicultural provisions from within the classroom. In another subject, EML504 Language and language development, there is a section on the importance of the ESL teacher developing negotiating skills. It is probably true to say that minority students, such as NESB and indigenous groups, are the least politically significant, the most likely to be sacrificed to whatever rationalisms are about, whether within the school, or within the national agenda. They are thus most in need of teachers who are articulate, informed, spokespeople.

This topic is designed to give you some overview of the political situation of ESL and bilingual programs within Australia, with some reference to other nations which are on similar policy trajectories. One of the most common trends in Australia and in England, Canada and the United States is the introduction of standards-based literacy (and numeracy) assessment. In Australia, these are norm-referenced assessment, or "benchmarked", tests designed, supposedly, to measure the literacy (and numeracy) standards of nations. "Standards" so constructed, as in the Australia, do not take account of different literacies and language proficiencies; they do not take account of how long a student has been leaning the language. Then, as the focus is literacy, supposedly for all, public funding has been deployed in that interest, at the expense of ESL and bilingual and language maintenance programs. The selected readings (there is one in your Booklet, and several online articles) deal with these issues, and give a sense of the historical contexts of the changes. The writers selected are important contributors to ESL and multicultural needs, nationally and internationally. You should know of them and seek their publications and make connections with the associations which publish them. They are important voices in TESOL contexts.

In many ways publishing in TESOL contexts highlights the issues about discourses discussed in the sociocultural literature of the previous topic: it highlights the pluralism and contestation of discourses. Sometimes articles can sound erudite, unrelated to our everyday worlds, but the theories, debates and models are explanations of our everyday worlds. Fairclough's (1995) article is about the issues in this topic.

This topic also aims to show the intersection of Australian policies and funding for this 2000-2004 quadrennium, with systemic supports already developed and in place, or in process of development, such as the ESL Scales and the 2001 development of K-6 ESL Syllabus Frameworks (mentioned in the topic, Second Language Acquisition). Thus we shall look first at current national literacy benchmarking policies, then at the concept of "language proficiency" which is a useful framework for assessing language learner needs and making decisions which will address those needs. The topic concludes with the kinds of positive actions available to associations for making their informed, educational voices count in policy developments.

Current Policy Trends

To give you an overview of the current Australian contexts an extract from a Background Paper published by the Australian Council of TESOL Associations has been inserted:

ACTA (Australian Council of TESOL Associations) Background Paper No 2. (1999) Literacy ESL Broadbanding Benchmarking (February) http://www.acta.edu.au/backgrnd.htm [Accessed 3 June 2001]

ACTA President's foreword
The ESL profession is in a period of change as it attempts to come to terms with new government policies and initiatives. In particular, the Literacy Benchmarks, introduced to monitor and improve literacy standards in our schools, are being used to gauge the performance of ESL students as well. Because the Benchmarks currently do not take into consideration the special characteristics of second-language acquisition, the profession is concerned that ESL students will inevitably appear to be under-achieving.

Further, as part of the government's policy of broadbanding, there is a danger that special programs catering for the interests of ESL students will be merged into general purpose programs.

The changes themselves need to be seen within the wider political context - the context of economic rationalism, corporatisation, privatisation, managerialism and so on. These forces emphasise the need for accountability and efficiency, aims that are all positive in themselves, but questionable when they begin to impact detrimentally upon the quality of the service being offered.

The contributors to this volume consider these issues at length, in some cases making recommendations about how the new policies and standards might be modified to take into account the needs of ESL students. At the same time, the writers acknowledge that ESL teachers might have to review their own ways of approaching these matters without relinquishing their core values, if their concerns are not to fall on deaf ears.

ACTA presents this set of papers as one of a series of background papers commissioned to address current issues in TESOL. ACTA's aim in publishing the papers is to provide state and territory associations with material for discussion and debate and for informing others of TESOL issues.

ACTA thanks Joe Lo Bianco, Penny McKay and Dorothy Hoddinott for allowing the reprint of their papers and Penny McKay for further developing her initial paper for ACTA.

Chris Howell
November 1998

A summary of the papers follows:

The Literacy Benchmarks and ESL
......Penny McKay

McKay examines the impact that the federal government's Literacy Benchmarks will have on the ESL profession. She identifies the Benchmarks themselves as a manifestation of the government's desire to foster a managerial culture in our public institutions, whereby financial accountability is the overriding goal. McKay draws attention to the dangers that are inherent in the subsuming of ESL under the general heading of Literacy, and suggests possible ways of avoiding or minimising these dangers.

ESL Is it Migrant Literacy? Is it History?
... Joseph Lo Bianco

ACTA gratefully acknowledges Australian Language Matters for its kind permission to reprint Joseph Lo Biancos article ESL Is it Migrant Literacy? Is it History? Australian Language Matters, Volume 6, No 2.

Prof. Lo Bianco argues that the government policy of broadbanding specifically the focus on literacy as the main issue is effectively talking ESL into subordination. Lo Bianco makes several important points: for example, students whose mother-tongue is English will in effect have been learning the language for eight years by the time they reach year 3, whereas ESL students will probably only have been learning it for three years. Further, Lo Bianco argues, the errors an ESL student makes may be creative errors, which are a natural part of the learning process. The ESL program, Prof Lo Bianco concludes, is becoming lost in a haze of administration politics.

Literacy - meeting the needs of all learners
.....Dorothy Hoddinott

ACTA gratefully acknowledges the Australian College of Education for its kind permission to reprint Dorothy Hoddinott's paper, Meeting the literacy needs of non-English speaking background students, published in Unicorn, the Journal of the Australian College of Education, Volume 24 No.2, pp 91-96.

Like many of her colleagues, Hoddinott fears that broadbanding will lead to a loss of focus on ESL students and their particular needs. Under the government's broadbanding policy, ESL students are being subsumed into the general category of under-performing students, whereas they may not be under-performing at all. Hoddinott stresses the importance of recognising the differences between ESL students and ESB students, and argues that new benchmarks should be established that acknowledge and cater for these differences.

ESL and Bilingual Policies

To elaborate on the policy overview given above three articles (one summarised above) have been selected. Two are by Michael Michel, the third by Joe Lo Bianco. The first, by Michel, is brief, a newsletter, but clearly, and passionately, articulates the problems with current literacy policies; the other is from a longer journal article. The articles give an historical perspective on policy changes.

The article by Joe Lo Bianco has been selected because of the way he extends the critique of current policies to the issues of community languages and bilingualism. He compares supportive policies and attitudes towards what he calls "elitist" languages (although in other circumstances he would not criticise such services) with the downgrading of community language maintenance and bilingualism, including indigenous bilingual programs.

If you are an off-shore student you may not know the allusion in Lo Bianco's use of the term, One Literacy. The Federal Government's policy document to which he refers in actually titled Literacy for all: The challenge for Australian schools. Commonwealth literacy policies for Australian schools. (Australian Schooling Monograph Series no 1, 1998 DEETYA: Canberra). Lo Bianco is alluding to an ethnocentric political group called One Nation. One Nation's platform is tied to the idea that everyone should get the same treatment, we should all be the same, which means no-one should be singled out for special treatment: Indigenous people and immigrants, especially, should not expect any favours. Nor should they have help to maintain their special behaviours. The platform appeals to ignorance and selfishness. Unfortunately, politically, Australia has an assimilationist, and, sadly, racist, history (we had a White Australia policy for three-quarters of a century; asylum seekers are currently treated like criminals), so the attitudes have an alarming resonance. It is that assimilationist narrowness, mean exclusiveness, to which Lo Bianco is alluding in his repetition of "One Literacy". It is a bitter article, as the author traces the effects of such narrow policy visions to the cutting of funding for bilingual education in the Northern Territory, in case it lowers "literacy standards". He writes:

• Indigenous languages
• Multilingual and bilingual speakers

Next Reading:

To give you more information on the nature, and importance of bilingual provisions the next reading is another extract from Broadbent & Ballantyne et al (1999).

&   Please read:

M. Broadbent, C. Ballantyne et al (1999). Bilingualism, from School Based ESL Training Course, NSW Departmentof Education and Training

You have read a summary of this article from the ACTA Background Paper No 2 (Above). The summary, however, did not include any material on the contrasts and comparisons McKay (1999) makes between the Australian and the United States and English policies. My selection of McKay's article from that critical Prospect issue (14, 2, August, 1999) was made on the basis of those comparisons and contrasts. (It is fortunate for us that so much of the whole issue is now available on the internet.)

&   Please read:

• the contrasts and comparisons she makes between the Australian, United States and English policies on assessments and "standards"
• the importance of disaggregation of test result data
• the links between "consumer choice" and intensification of inequities
• McKay's conclusions
• There is a link to a summary of McKay's conclusions included in ACTA Background Paper 2, if you wish to compare your conclusions with it.

In her article McKay points to the expertise necessary for understanding the needs of ESL students. She writes of the possible "loss of expertise and understanding about ESL learners' educational needs" (McKay 1999: 61). That would leave a great number of students in a plight. Hoddinott (1999) gives facts and figures on how many students would thus not receive adequate education:

Student Needs: Language Proficiency

The programs to which Hoddinott refers (and under threat from current reallocations of Federal funding and policies) were designed "to develop the English language proficiency of students from non-English speaking backgrounds". Megan Broadbent, Cheryl Ballantyne et al (1999) write:

The purpose of the ESL program is to develop the English language proficiency of students from non-English speaking backgrounds so that they can learn effectively in school. English language proficiency is, therefore, the special focus of both ESL and mainstream programs.

In formal education systems judgements need to be made about students' language capabilities so that appropriate decisions can be made about their selection, placement, promotion and educational treatment. When teachers or administrators want to know whether a student will be able to function in another learning situation (either program, course, class or task), they need to make judgements about a student's language abilities on the basis of their language performance. These are referred to as assessment decision points.

The educational and administrative necessity of enrolling, placing and planning for students involves the notion of a particular kind of language ability which we call 'language proficiency'. This notion of language proficiency is required by educators who need to solve practical problems of student readiness, need and suitability for actual or possible educational programs.

Using the term English language proficiency in this way implies certain ideas about what language proficiency is. It suggests that language proficiency: ·

• involves the learners in drawing upon their language knowledge and skills
• is evident in particular language-using situations
• can be developed by instruction
• focuses on probable language performance for a range of anticipated learning activities
• is related to but not identical with student language performance.

This notion of language proficiency is a useful and important one for ESL teachers. It provides a focus for teachers' professional judgements about students and guides their intuition and decision making during the planning, implementation and evaluation of ESL programs. (Broadbent et al 1999 Language Proficiency and ESL Scales. NSW Department of Education & Training)

The ESL Scales

Integral with assessment and development of language proficiency was the development of the ESL Scales. Broadbent, Ballantyne et al (1999), explain the need of special scales for identifying ESL achievements. They write:

Hoddinott also makes reference to the importance of the scales, and to their incorporation in the NSW K-6 English Syllabus (NSW Board of Studies 1998). She writes:

For a comprehensive overview of the history and purposes of the ESL please follow the link:

M. Broadbent, C. Ballantyne et al (1999). Language Proficiency and ESL Scales, in School Based ESL Training Course, NSW Departmentof Education and Training

ACT ESL Curriculum Statement http://www.decs.act.gov.au/policies/pdf/esl.pdf [Accessed 3 June 2001].

Conclusion

I would like to bring the topic and the subject towards a close, with the concluding words addressed by Hanya Stefaniuk, Manager of Multicultural Programs Unit to ATESOL to the Annual General Meeting held at the Professional Teachers’ Council on 29 February, 2000:

It is important that TESOL teachers read, publish and contribute to the debates about their very important profession. Contestations are inevitable; we just do not give up, although we may need to become sharp negotiators. Stefaniuk points to positive supports for ESL in classrooms, which include:

• developing ESL Curriculum Framework K-6 and training program
• developing IEC Outcomes Framework and training program
• providing implementation support to HSC ESL course
• incorporating ESL reporting requirements in Annual School Reports
• develop ESL Program Handbook and Training program
• assist schools in applying KIDMAP software for ESL program data requirements (Stefaniuk 2000)

The ESL Curriculum Framework K-6 to which she refers were mentioned in the topic, Second Language Acquisition. They follow the learning-teaching model represented by Jack Richards (1999) which you read in that topic. They are extraordinarily carefully linked to curriculum outcomes and requirements. They will require some flexibility and expertise in their implementation. When guidelines are so structured it is easy to forget Richards' warning that students do not necessarily learn what teachers teach. Or, there are many hidden possibilities between input and output. But know, when you receive the published Frameworks, that you have been prepared for them; that you do know where they fit in the mass of theory and data in ESL; that you know how they might be incorporated within a sociocultural pedagogy, with a useful metalanguage, in which language is a resource, not just a target and that you know it is important to give space for some negotiations, adventurousness and risk taking in the move towards autonomy in language use.