Assessing Academic Literacy in a Multilingual Society

Transition and Transformation

Albert Weideman, John Read, Theo du Plessis, Albert Weideman, Theo du Plessis

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781788926225
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Linguistique

South African universities face major challenges in meeting the needs of their students in the area of academic language and literacy. The dominant medium of instruction in the universities is English and, to a much lesser extent, Afrikaans, but only a minority of the national population are native speakers of these languages. Nine other languages can be media of instruction in schools, which makes the transition to tertiary education difficult enough in itself for students from these schools. The focus of this book is on procedures for assessing the academic language and literacy levels and needs of students, not in order to exclude students from higher education but rather to identify those who would benefit from further development of their ability in order to undertake their degree studies successfully. The volume also aims to bring the innovative solutions designed by South African educators to a wider international audience.

Part 1: Conceptual Foundations: Policy, Construct, Learning Potential

1 Institutional Language Policy and Academic Literacy in South African Higher Education – a Two-pronged or Forked-tongue Approach?¹,²

Theo du Plessis

Introduction

How do institutional and sectoral language policies interact with language interventions and practices in South African universities? Has enough been done to ensure an alignment between language policy and language development initiatives in higher education? Is the strong movement towards supporting the language development of students to ensure greater academic success adequately supported by sectoral and institutional policies? Do we have anything to learn from examples in other countries? The related question raised in this chapter is where South Africa stands with regard to academic literacy policy in relation to language-in-higher-education policy. South Africa has developed the Language Policy for Higher Education (LPHE), a policy that also contains directives regarding institutional languages and languages of instruction (MoE, 2002). However, regarding academic literacy it merely ‘encourages’ higher education institutions to give attention to language proficiency and to make provision for academic literacy, thus not reflecting the integrated approach found in what is called HELP (Higher Education Language Policy) in Europe. In fact, in her critique of the LPHE Van der Walt (2004: 150) finds that the policy framework falls short of integrating language policy and planning in the educational landscape. At institutional level Knott (2015: 159) identifies in the case of the reviewed language policy of Nelson Mandela University (the former

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) a notable misalignment between institutional language policy and ‘multilingual literacies’. As a result of these misgivings, it is not surprising that questions have surfaced about the state of language policy design in the South African higher education landscape.

The obvious first question is whether the 2017 draft LPHE by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET, 2017), offers a corrected design solution to the problem of misalignment. This entails looking at the evolution of the language policy framework in relation to the discourse about academic literacy in South Africa mainly in terms of the role of the LPHE and related policy documents in providing an appropriate framework for designing what Weideman (2017) terms a ‘responsible’ approach to language problems in applied linguistics. In echoing Weideman (2021), one is concerned about cases of misalignment since, at best, these can lead to ‘design inefficiencies and at worst to contradictory and conflicting arrangements’. Any misalignment within an institutional language policy between institutional language, language of teaching and learning, academic language and language proficiency would suggest that the language problems that are identified by the so-called Soudien report³ have not been addressed. This report incidentally concludes as follows about the language situation in higher education in South Africa:

(T)here are unacceptably large numbers of students who are not successful academically because of the ‘language problem’. They fail, not because of a lack of intelligence, but because they are unable to express their views in the dominant language of instruction. (Ministerial Committee, 2008: 101)

It recommended a two-pronged policy response to this dilemma, requiring universities to adopt a multilingual approach to (a) institutional communication in the Sintu languages [that is the Bantu languages of Southern Africa; sometimes, somewhat misleadingly, referred to as ‘African languages’], and (b) academic literacy through the development of the Sintu languages as academic languages (Ministerial Committee, 2008: 102). What essentially was called for was a redesign of existing institutional language policies that would help to overcome the detrimental outcomes of language policy misalignment alluded to by Weideman.

Language Policy and Planning and Academic Literacy

In order to take this discussion further, I refer first to opinions on the above originating in the Australian and European contexts. Fenton-Smith and Gurney (2016: 73) are of the opinion that a national language policy for higher education might help to resolve a similar policy dilemma within the Australian context. However, they claim that universities themselves also ought to become involved in ‘academic language policy and planning’, a domain of language-in-education policy and planning that deals with issues of ‘academic language and learning’. The authors foresee that academic language policy and planning is likely to gain prominence in higher education given the world-wide increase in the adoption of institutional language policies that make provision for English-medium instruction, mostly in contexts where English is not the dominant language (Fenton-Smith & Gurney, 2016: 84). If approached as an ‘institution-wide’ or ‘whole-institution’ initiative, such planning could help, inter alia, to realise an ‘institutional language enhancement plan’ (Fenton-Smith et al., 2017: 465). In contrast, considering the European context, the CEL/ELC Working Group has made it pertinently clear that it wishes to assist higher education institutions to develop their own language policies by means of a meta-policy. They nevertheless want each university involved in establishing institution-wide language policies, i.e. policies that deal with the languages of instruction, administration and communication, over and above dealing with the objectives of language programmes and language support services (Lauridsen, 2013: 3).

From a language policy perspective this comparison between the Australian and European language policy in higher education points to the need to recognise the cardinal difference between an institutional language policy and an academic language and learning policy in higher education. The CEL/ELC Working Group makes this distinction clear in their recommendations to higher education institutions by separating recommendations on institutional language(s) from those concerned with language proficiency and related issues (Lauridsen, 2013: 11), but nevertheless foreseeing one language policy combining both of these aspects. These recommendations are written in a context where European universities are moving ‘beyond monolingual ideologies’ (Mazak & Carroll, 2016), primarily because of the internationalisation of higher education (Lauridsen, 2013: 3). Although, as stated, these recommendations have been made within the internationalisation context, Australian colleagues do not in the first instance refer to an institutional language policy but are essentially alluding to the dilemma of English proficiency in particular (the Europeans take a more generic approach), as articulated in a recent publication on issues in the Australian higher education landscape written by the Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of Melbourne. An entire chapter of this publication is devoted to ‘English language standards and claims of soft marking’ (Arkoudis, 2013). Incidentally the author involved reiterates the need for Australian universities to adopt ‘an institutional-wide strategy’, but one which is aimed specifically at English language learning and development.

Essentially the difference between the European and Australian approaches to a language policy for higher education institutions lies in the degree of recognition of institutional multilingualism. European higher education already has a tradition of bi- and multilingual universities, whereas it is neither the case with nor the intention of Australian universities to move towards such a situation, despite the steady increase of ‘indigenous’ students since 2001 (see Universities Australia, 2015: 19). However, the value of the Australian case lies in the accentuation of what seems to be a very specific language policy and planning goal, i.e. literacy acquisition (Liddicoat, 2007a: 1), a matter that receives less attention in the case of European higher education. Although the Framework for Language Planning Goals (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2003: 202) does not specifically make provision for literacy acquisition as a goal, one may nevertheless relate it to language-in-education planning, otherwise also described as language acquisition planning (Cooper, 1989); a specific type of language planning alongside language status, corpus and prestige planning. Depending on the context, literacy acquisition could involve different literacy types, including what Fenton-Smith and Gurney (2016: 73) term ‘tertiary academic literacy’ [own emphasis].

In the European case, on the other hand, the goals seem to be different and more strongly related to language maintenance, language spread and interlingual communication (matters concerning language status planning), language internationalisation (in language corpus planning) and language intellectualisation (language prestige planning) regarding institutional languages. Nevertheless, the European case also includes goals that relate to language-in-education planning, albeit that these are notably different ones: Foreign Language and Second Language programmes are priorities in European education, as well as language maintenance.

The addition of literacy acquisition as a goal of language-in-education planning requires our further attention. According to Kaplan and Baldauf (2003: 202), language-in-education planning typically involves policy planning (regarding access, personnel, curriculum, methods and materials, resourcing, community and evaluation) and cultivation planning (regarding language acquisition and reacquisition, language maintenance, Second Language or Foreign Language dynamics and language shift). It therefore stands to reason that cultivation planning for tertiary academic literacy would have to rely on policy planning about literacy and typically therefore relates to other relevant policies such as access policy, curriculum policy, etc. In fact, Liddicoat (2007a: 1) even points to the interrelatedness of literacy planning and language corpus planning (for a language to require technologies for literacy), language status planning (for a language of literacy and of instruction) and language prestige planning (for promoting and intellectualising a language of literacy). This interrelatedness strengthens the case for an ‘institution-wide’ language and literacy policy that is clear about institutional language, taught language (i.e. Foreign Language, etc.), academic or literacy language; the latter being determined by the language policy-formulation process (Liddicoat, 2007b: 24). In the case of monolingual universities, some of these allocations could all refer to the same language but in the case of bi- or multilingual universities the matter is a bit more complex, hence the need for an overarching language and literacy policy. This requires what Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: 258) describe as a coherent ‘language, literacy and communication policy approach to tertiary literacy’.

In approaching tertiary academic literacy as a language planning goal, Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: 149) stress that policymakers need to understand what literacy is, understand its dynamics as well as how it changes over time while recognising the role of educational institutions in disseminating an appropriate literacy. Similarly, Liddicoat (2007b: 26) emphasises the changing conceptualisation of literacy and reiterates the need for the language policy and planning process to deal with the so-called contestations inherent to the literacy field. This requires language policy and planning aimed at literacy to move beyond a print-based conceptualisation that results in a focus on programmes in reading and writing (the so-called autonomous model of literacy) to a more social constructionist understanding of literacy as social practice, recognising the multiplicity of literacies involved.

However, according to Liddicoat much of language policy and planning initiatives have actually not moved beyond the former approach. This is confirmed by a recent national audit of academic literacy provision at 35 Australian higher education institutions which revealed that the enabling educators still largely hold on to what can be described as a ‘commonsensical (tacit) notion of what academic literacies means’ (Baker & Irwin, 2015). According to the authors of this audit report, academic literacies is understood as ‘a multi-faceted, complicated and expansive set of practices that students need for undergraduate study’. The majority of the participants in the audit stress writing, reading and critical thinking as the core elements of academic literacy, which, in the authors’ opinion is actually an umbrella term for a range of related aspects.

Liddicoat (2007b: 24) also emphasises the intricate relation between literacy and language selection, whether literacy is conceptualised independent from a particular language (in other words transferable from one language to another) or tied closely with the propagation of a specific language in society (for instance ‘English literacy’). The crucial difference between the two approaches is that in the case of the transferable type, literacy education can concentrate and build on home languages, even languages of minority and indigenous groups, whereas the second approach tends to lead to the equation of literacy with the propagated language, such as one would find in English speaking countries regarding English. In this sense one should recognise the significant difference between planning for literacy in a first or home language (whether official language or national language or special status language in the case of a minority language or marginalised language), planning for literacy in an additional language (in the case of minority or marginalised communities) or planning for literacy in multiple languages (Liddicoat, 2007a: 2), a situation that often occurs in developing countries. Consequently, Liddicoat (2007b: 18) draws a distinction between planning for national literacies, vernacular literacies, local literacies or biliteracies. One may assume that all of the above would also play a role in tertiary academic literacy policy and planning.

Liddicoat raises the issue of language proficiency in academic contexts in relation to the question concerning support for second-language learners, which, according to Cummins (2000: 57) is a ‘recurring issue for educational policy in many countries’. He contends that the manner in which language proficiency is conceptualised and how decision makers and teachers relate it to academic development are ‘central to many volatile policy issues in education’, where second-language users of English are concerned (Cummins, 2000: 58). In an attempt to clarify the critical relationship between language proficiency and academic achievement, he developed the BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills)/CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) dichotomy during the latter part of the 1970s, thereby distinguishing between conversational and academic aspects of language proficiency. The latter aspect relates primarily to academic literacy, while obviously not equating academic literacy to language proficiency. BICS is acquired early in the developmental process while CALP is developed mostly within the formal educational process. Cummins notably identifies the conflation of BICS and CALP as ‘a major factor’ in creating difficulties for students using more than one language in their education and at different stages and levels. He therefore defines academic language proficiency as ‘the extent to which an individual has access to and command of the oral and written academic registers of schooling’ (Cummins, 2000: 67). This can also be applied to higher education. Patterson and Weideman (2013) similarly but more broadly refer to the lingual aspects of academic discourse. In order to better understand the language demands underlying academic tasks, Cummins (2000: 68) further distinguishes between cognitively demanding and less demanding language tasks that are interre...