Being ‘good’ teachers and learners:A conflict between policy discourses in Vanuatu

Fiona WillansDEPS

A problem-driven investigation

Population 240,000106 indigenous languages

Joint British-French colony 1906-1980

Official languages: English, French and Bislama (pidgin)

2 types of school:English- or French-medium

Only English and French allowed in school. Neither

is used outside school

Two competing discoursesA discourse of

learning as paramount

This is a school, so we must teach and learn.

A discourse of institutional appropriateness

This is a school, so we must be teachers and learners.

Topoi: a useful analytic tool

“Common-sense reasoning” (van Dijk 2000)“Plausible argumentation schemes” (Reisigl &

Wodak 2009)

• Topos of pedagogical priority• Topos of necessary means• Topos of doing what is right• Topos of unsystematicity

Language is just a tool ...

Director of Policy & Planning: The main issue here is that children must learn well. ... You know for me that’s the baseline. So basically the language only becomes a tool.

Anglophone teacher: The purpose for me is like I just think it’s for students to understand in order for us to have quality education. I don’t care which {laughs} which uh (.) language they learn in? All I care about is that the students learn enough for them to have a future.

Topos of pedagogical priority

Topos of necessary means

... But English/French is expected

Francophone teacher: Something important? You want the children to understand. ... So you try your best so that chil- so that it goes into their brains. So you keep looking for ways to make the names of things go into their brains. But if you say it in French? And then the children say (.) no that name? I don’t (.) when you say it in Bislama but when Bislama doesn’t work? Then you say it in language now.

Anglophone student: I think we should use three [languages]. That is English French and Bislama. Because (.) if they like the teachers go and speak English? And then like they don’t understand? Then they explain again in Bislama.

Bislama is used as a fallback strategy

Anglophone teacher: You can use Bislama if an explanation goes to an extent that the students can’t understand? Now you can come down to this now.

Francophone teacher: At Lycée you speak French it’s (1) it’s alright. But now I’ve come back to the island? I go ahead in French (.) you’ll see that (.) it doesn’t work? Now I’ll come back to Bislama now. I speak Bislama.

Anglophone teacher: I don’t use the English approach all the time sometimes I have to come down to their level (.) explain it slowly or put it in simple terms. Sometimes? I can go as far as explaining it in Bislama.

Any means necessary to ensure learning? Not really.

Language is just a tool for learning but English/French is the expected tool.

Bislama is used as a learning strategy only because students are not good enough.

Institutional appropriateness

1. School rules emphasise the use of English and/or French only

2. English and French are conceptualised in very different ways to Bislama

The importance of rulesAnglophone student: To my own opinion about these language rules it is good

and may be I think teachers and also staffs and every staffs living in this college should speak the two language to show that it is a school, where everyone learn and speak this language.

Anglophone student: May be it’s good for these rules because our parents sent us here to speak English.

Francophone student: It is good because we are in a Francophone school we must speak only in French.

Francophone student: In my opinion these rules are important because we are in a school we should not speak in language or in Bislama we should speak in French or in English.

Topos of doing what is right

Learning vs. Using the ‘right’ language

Anglophone teacher: So it doesn’t matter if I use any language in passing on the knowledge. But like (.) since the school rules are there saying (.) uh yes English is er the medium of passing instruction so (1) must use English all the time? But sometimes out of school when they come and ask me for help? At the house? I tend to use Bislama sometimes to (.) explain things easier to make it easier for them to grasp the idea.

Bislama is inappropriate

Anglophone student: In my opinion I think that maybe (.) we should use (.) just English? And French. (1) English and French. Because (1) today to- our subjects that we use in school? Together they use English and French. ...

... But if they add Bislama in again? That will just make it difficult now because (.) one wants to speak English? Or French? One wants to speak Bislama? So that the two languages er the three languages can’t go ahead at all.

Bislama as a living languageTeacher 1: We’re speaking Bislama now? It’s just a broken version. It’s not a good

one at all? Yesterday there was an expression for a particular thing today it’ll be different. Tomorrow we’ll speak a different language. Even though it’s still Bislama but then we use different words altogether rather than using the same words.

Teacher 2: And if you look at the vocabulary of Bislama? It (.) it doesn’t match English vocab and French vocab. Because they just get it from the blue and put it into the language.

Teacher 3: I agree. Our Bislama is not a good Bislama. It’s (.) it’s just a made up

language. You’ll hear this year people speak in one way? They use certain words. Next year you’ll hear the what the terms or whatever? They’re different now. They’re made up somewhere and people just use them. Meaning it’s no good. Topos of

unsystematicity

English and French as living languages

Teacher 1: I can say that I know French because I am in this environment of ours. But (.) I have a question. I have a question whether if I go to an environment where they speak French now? Will I keep up with them? Because actually French is a kind of language which is alive. They change the expressions like we said about Bislama today. ... But at the moment I speak it’s alright. Like we’re here if someone comes some time and he speaks? I’ll understand. I’ll answer him. But maybe somewhere outside? It’s already changed.

Teacher 1: Like (.) I don’t have a problem with it. Someone who knows better English like Fiona can correct me. Say whether my English is poor but (.) in saying are you confident? I can say yes.

Teacher 2: I can speak with one of my colleagues. Like I speak French. But if I spoke with (.) a real French man? My vocabulary would (.) that’s it now we wouldn’t have any new ones. If I could speak like a French man (.) I’d like that.

Conflicting discourses

Learning as paramount

Learning is the most important thing ...

We must teach and learn to the best of our ability ...

Institutional appropriateness

... provided it takes place in the ‘right’ language.

... while fulfilling our roles as teachers and learners.

Conflicting discourses: So what?

• Valuable linguistic resources are excluded (cf. Blackledge & Creese 2010; García 2009)

• Students keep quiet; classes are organised via ‘safe’ practices (e.g. Chick 1996)

• Creation of feelings of failure and inadequacy (e.g. Willans 2011)

• Maintenance of a dual (expensive, divisive, even less supportive) education system

References• Blackledge, A., & Creese, A. (2010). Multilingualism: A critical perspective. London:

Continuum.• Chick, K. (1996). Safe-talk: Collusion in apartheid education. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Society and

the language classroom (pp. 21-39). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.• García, O. (2009). Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Oxford: Wiley-

Blackwell.• Hornberger, N. and D. C. Johnson (2011). The ethnography of language policy. Ethnography

and Language Policy. T. McCarty. London, Routledge: 273-289.• Reisigl, M. and R. Wodak (2009). The discourse-historical approach (DHA). Methods of Critical

discourse Analysis. R. Wodak and M. Meyer. London, Sage: 87-121.• van Dijk, T. A. (2000). On the analysis of parliamentary debates on immigration. In Reisigl, M.

& Wodak, R. (eds.), The Semiotics of Racism: Approaches in Critical Discourse Analysis. Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

• Willans, F. (2011). Classroom code-switching in a Vanuatu secondary school: Conflict between policy and practice. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14(1), 23-38.