Pamela Snow

Where we’ve been in the year so far – and a quick visit with Tibetan students

Follow the link for this fascinating post: Innovating English language curriculum through translanguaging in Tibet: fostering plurilingual identity for minority students

It’s been a busy 2023 here at AARE – we publish twice a week on a wide array of educational topics, from early childhood to higher education, from researchers at Australian universities. Today, we are reminding you of the fascinating posts we’ve published so far in 2023 with a bonus post about teaching English to Tibetan students.

Our most read post this year – by far – was a heartbreaking post by Robyn Brandenburg, Ellen Larsen, Richard Sallis and Alyson Simpson on their research. It explains why teacher retention is such a challenge. Please read Teachers now: Why I left and where I’ve gone if you missed it the first time around. It brings new insights into what is happening to the most important profession in our country.

“I was just so anxious, unwell, and unhappy. Every day I felt sick on my way to work. I could never get through my mountain of work, I could never get on top of classroom behaviour, and I could never get to a place where I was able to deal with the unreasonable demands of the school.”

Next up, Trauma in all our classrooms. Judith Howard explains how to respond to the children and young people who have been victims to complex trauma sitting in most school classrooms and early learning settings across our country. 

These young victims can struggle with feeling safe, with attaching and relating effectively to other people and with regulating their emotions.” 

Two pieces sparked a lively conversation and had a number of comments. The first was by Pasi Sahlberg and Sharon Goldfeld: If not now, then when is the right time to re-envisage what schools could be? and in a response by Nathaniel Swain, Pamela Snow, Tanya Serry, Tessa Weadman and Eamon Charles: What we want to say right now to Sahlberg and Goldfeld

Sahlberg and Goldfeld write: “In our Discussion Paper titled “Reinventing Australian schools for the better wellbeing, health, and learning of every child” (Sahlberg et al., 2023) we outline a new vision for uplifting student learning, wellbeing, and health in our schools. We argue that the core purpose of schooling needs to shift from primarily focusing on narrow academic intelligence to equal value learning, wellbeing and health outcomes for balanced whole-child development and growth.”

The reply, from Swain et al, says: “Importantly, [Sahlberg and Goldfeld] note that these [declining] trends, seen across literacy, numeracy, and science, have stubbornly persisted in the face of increased per capita education spending. What is surprising to us though, is that Professors Sahlberg and Goldfeld seek solutions to academic struggles not in improved classroom instruction, but in extra funding and focus on wellbeing, without considering the contribution to wellbeing made via academic success.” 

We have had many other fantastic contributions this year and you can read our entire back catalogue here.

And please read this fascinating post from Xingxing Yu, Nashid Nigar and Qi Qian on:

Innovating English language curriculum through translanguaging in Tibet: fostering plurilingual identity for minority students

Discriminatory education policies for Indigenous communities across the world is still a human rights issue despite the rights of Indigenous peoples (370 million) to education which is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples. The article 14 of the second Declaration proclaims,

Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.

Yet, the policies of education across the world (70 countries) are orchestrated on dominant language/s and minority language divide. When dominant languages are privileged over those of minorities, it triggers a flurry of disadvantages and segregation for the minorities, benefiting the privileged at the expense of subjugated. According to United Nations,

Barriers to education for Indigenous students include stigmatization of Indigenous identity and low self-esteem of Indigenous learners; discriminatory and racist attitudes in the school environment, including in textbooks and materials and among non-Indigenous students and teachers; language barriers between Indigenous learners and teachers; inadequate resources and low prioritization of education for Indigenous peoples, reflected in poorly trained teachers as well as lack of textbooks and resources.

To address the barrier, “inadequate resources and low prioritization of education for Indigenous peoples” , we, three non-Indigenous educators collaborated internationally and took initiative to experiment and propose some innovative ideas to include Tibetan language and culture in the English language curriculum for Tibetan students. This is relevant for any dominant language focused curriculum that does not include and/or ignore indigenous languages, cultures, and knowledge systems in the curriculum: textbooks, materials and pedagogy. 

In the summer of 2021, Qian, a master’s student at the University of Melbourne, decided to teach English in Ganzi county in the Sichuan Province for one month. Although not located in Tibet, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Region has a greater than 80% Tibetan population, according to The People’s Government of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, 2021. At the school where Qian worked, Tibetan students comprised the entire student body. This one-month course provides a clearer picture than the dispersed data in peer-reviewed articles.

Trilingual education

Qian: If the language of instruction is Tibetan, students seem more engaged in the classroom activity. Maybe, they can comprehend the teachers better through their native language.

Commonly, the term trilingual education is used to describe the learning of three languages by Tibetan students. First, minority students must learn their mother tongue as well as Mandarin Chinese as soon as they enter school; second, English as a compulsory subject must be learned as early as secondary school. Tibetan students, in this context, must learn two additional languages beside their native tongue, Tibetan.

Current research has uncovered two major negative effects of trilingual education on Tibetan students. First, Tibetan students are more likely to be labeled as “deficit” language learners owing to the paucity of educational resources (teachers, for example) in Tibetan areas, as well as their extra language learning responsibilities in comparison to their Han peers. Second, the Han-dominant ideology, embodied in both Mandarin-instructed English classrooms and English textbooks where Han-culture prevails, devalues Tibetan culture and language, as well as the ethnic identity of students.

In lieu of imaging a larger picture that is more idealistic and human rights oriented in terms of policy change, which appears impractical in China, we propose devising a more pragmatic approach. that, on the one hand, is permissible within the realm of current educational policy. It is, on the other hand, able to contribute to multilingual identity and an easier way for Tibetan students to learn English. It also paves the way how teachers’ agency can be applied in terms of teaching English from a multilingual perspective. 

A new approach to curriculum

As master’s students taught by Nashid Nigar at the University of Melbourne, Qian, and I (Xingxing) discussed how to implement translangaugeing theory into the English language (EL) curriculum for Qian’s Tibetan students. We believe this practice demonstrates that translangaugeing could be viewed as a pragmatic solution for minority language users.

What is translangauging?

Translanguaging is a term originally attributed to the Welsh educator Cen Williams.  The extended version of translanguaging, nevertheless, is aligned with the critical perspective of the named language. It is, according to O. Garcia and W. Li, socially constructed and represents a distinct concept of language itself. They assert that the transformative potential of translanguaging practices is derived from their capacity to transcend the socially constructed boundaries of named languages, notably the creative and critical feature. The worldview of Translanguaging involves the acknowledgement and development of their plurilingual identity through the uses of their full linguistic repertoire: languages, cultures, knowledge, values, and beliefs. 

Under this understanding, educators in Tibetan classrooms should make full use of their students’ linguistic resources not only to activate students’ language creation so that they can learn English effectively, but also to empower them to reconsider the hegemony of Han-dominated language and culture.

Predicated on translanguaging theory, we put together a curriculum with the topic “I am a tour guide” that encompasses four classes and an assessment task.

First, we adapted the existing official English textbook more relevant to Tibetan students’ daily lives without altering its instructional focus. For example, Han festivals and foods were replaced with their Tibetan equivalents, and narratives of urban culture were revised to reflect rurality and snow mountains. On the one hand, the adaptation of teaching materials substantially increased students’ interest, and encouraged students to enjoy language learning and participate more actively in learning tasks and activities, thereby facilitating students’ connection to English by the means of Tibetan. In these, both languages were used non-hierarchically by them. The adaptations of the activities in the textbook addressed Qian’s concern for his students and provided multilingual support for them.

Second, we innovated the original test-oriented assessment by requiring students to simulate a tour guide to introduce Tibetan culture using all of their linguistic resources. In addition, students are encouraged to create an account on Douyin (TikTok in China) and upload their video recordings. The plurilingual identities of multilingual speakers and multimodal video creations served as a powerful incentive to enjoy and learn English. Throughout the process, they experienced, by knowing, doing,” becoming”, that their plurilingual self was underscored and valued.

Notably, repeated practices in front of the camera enhanced the students’ self-esteem and self-confidence in English interaction. Their oral fluency vastly improved, corroborating M. Amiryousefi’s (2018) conclusion that self-assurance indicates a solid command of a foreign language.

The innovative translanguaging-informed teaching strategies and curriculum reform that Qian applied in the Tibetan region promotes Tibetan English language learners’ plurilingual identity. However, we believe it is highly unlikely to institutionalize an all-encompassing democratic and inclusive curriculum that respects Tibetan identity and language under China’s current political system. Despite the severe censorship and surveillance of the government though, we can still do more to assist minority speakers not only in overcoming language learning hurdles, but also affirming and promoting their cultural and linguistic identities. Teacher professional development and exercises of their agency, and ethical commitment to responsive pedagogy are crucial in this process. 

This curriculum reform approach can be adapted by stakeholders involved in any diverse context of teaching and learning in terms of literacy and language education.

From left to right: Xingxing Yu has a Master of TESOL from the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Experience in working in Chinese state-owned enterprises and her family history in remote areas of western China have prompted her to study educational inequities in China, including gender and ethnic disparities, as well as urban-rural imbalances melody0901@gmail.com. 

Nashid Nigar has taught Master of TESOL and Master of Education programs at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. She is at the final stage of completing her PhD at Monash Education. Adopting a transdisciplinary theoretical lens and hermeneutic phenomenological narrative enquiry, Nashid  has investigated immigrant teachers’ professional identity in Australia. Nashid.nigar@monash.edu Qi Qian completed his Master of Education at Melbourne Graduate School of Education. He has taught at Garze Ethnic Middle School in Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. He is now teaching English in another junior high school.

Header image of the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture by Colegota

What we want to say right now to Sahlberg and Goldfeld

Schools are places for all kinds of success, including academic achievement.

In their recent article, “If not now, then when is the right time to re-envisage what schools could be?” Professors Sahlberg and Goldfeld rightly shine a light on falling academic achievements among Australian students according to both national and international measures. 

Importantly, they note that these trends, seen across literacy, numeracy, and science, have stubbornly persisted in the face of increased per capita education spending. What is surprising to us though, is that Professors Sahlberg and Goldfeld seek solutions to academic struggles not in improved classroom instruction, but in extra funding and focus on wellbeing, without considering the contribution to wellbeing made via academic success. 

We agree with Sahlberg and Goldfeld’s assertion that many policy initiatives have overlooked the “interconnection between health, wellbeing, and learning”. There seems to be an assumption, however, that an uplift in educational outcomes and equity can be achieved without the discomfort and upheaval of focusing on low-impact instructional practices (reading being a key case in point). One cannot ignore that the relationship between wellbeing, engagement and academic success is complex. We hold that strategic investment and accountability for health in schools—without investment and accountability for improving instruction—will fail to shift the dial upwards on Australian students’ falling educational outcomes and growing inequities (see here). 

Perhaps what is missing from Sahlberg and Goldfeld’s position is the notion that responsive, effective and evidence-informed teaching plays a pivotal role in fostering students’ academic achievement, self-efficacy and thus wellbeing. Longstanding research into the health outcomes for individuals without key educational capacities reveals the protection that success in reading confers on wellbeing across the lifespan, not merely during the school years. There are also examples in our own backyard of schools in disadvantaged communities turning around wellbeing and behavioural challenges via the vehicle of improved instructional practices. Without policy support and investment in teacher professional learning however, such transformations are difficult to take to scale. These initiatives into professional practice also entail three to five years of solid investment of time and instructional coaching, which is far less attention-grabbing in brief news cycles and political campaigns, than bids for a wholesale priority shift from instruction to wellbeing.  

The vision presented in Sahlberg and Goldberg’s article highlights the importance of responsive and effective teaching to enhance children’s sense of success and confidence while meeting their wellbeing needs. We argue that, somewhat ironically, one of the best ways to meet children’s wellbeing needs is for schools to remain focussed on their primary purposes: ensuring all children learn to read, write, do maths, and gain the other capacities they need to succeed in life. Our nation’s performance in these key learning areas create a stark picture of haves and have nots with regards to this primary goals of education.

Promoting the health and wellbeing of students is undeniably important, but it is crucial that the core purposes of education are not diluted or compromised in these endeavours. We already have ambitious goals to deliver a world-class education to all students, with significant work still to do to realise these aspirations.  

Blurring the boundaries between the roles of educators and health professionals could potentially lead to attenuation of efforts to strengthen instructional capacity of our teaching workforce. Teachers are already under immense pressure with a wide range of pedagogical and administrative responsibilities. If the expectations placed on teachers expand to encompass mental health supports beyond their training and expertise, this creates a further risk of diverting their attention and resources away from effective teaching and learning.

We cannot see a case for a focus on health and wellbeing without considering the impact of the ways in which precious instructional time is used. Students have long been subjects of social and pedagogical experiments in education systems, typically without ethical or empirical oversight. Neither children nor their parents are given opportunities to give or withhold consent to many policy change experiments and taxpayers are asked to believe that as the problem grows, so too the financial investment for its downstream “fix” must grow.  

We do not agree that “bold new ways of thinking about children, their schooling and what it takes to secure healthier and happier futures for all of them” are needed. This is an invitation to a populist “re-imagining” rather than a commitment to translating into practice solid scientific evidence about human learning and self-regulation, and ways in which such knowledge can be utilised in all classrooms. Insights from such research have been missing from teacher pre-service education in Australia and may well be contributing to high rates of teacher burn-out and attrition from the profession.

It is a given that schools need to be places of physical, social, and mental health promotion. Against this backdrop, they then need to be meeting children’s human and legislative rights to an education. This means students emerging at least proficient in core areas of the curriculum, as a gateway to a lifetime of learning and social, cultural, economic, and civic engagement. 

Our biggest concern is the potential for well-meaning schools and systems to be wrapped up in ambitious health goals for their students, while tragically under-responding to the learning needs of the children in their care—given that success in learning can make its own independent contribution to wellbeing. 

From left to right: Nathaniel Swain is a senior lecturer in La Trobe University’s School of Education. He founded the national community of teachers and registered charity calledThink Forward Educators, and produces a regular blog for teachers known as the Cognitorium.  Follow him on LinkedIn or on Twitter@NathanielRSwain. Pamela Snow is professor of cognitive psychology in the School of Education at the Bendigo campus of La Trobe University, Australia and co-director of the SOLAR Lab (Science of Language and Reading). Her research has been funded by nationally competitive schemes and concerns the role of language and literacy skills as academic and mental health protective factors in childhood and adolescence. Tanya Serry is associate professor (Literacy and Reading) in the School of Education and co-director of the SOLAR Lab. She has taught in the Discipline of Speech Pathology. Her research interests centre on the policy and practices of evidence-based reading instruction and intervention practices for students across the educational lifespan. Tessa Weadman is a Lecturer in English, Literacy and Pedagogy in the School of Education at La Trobe University. She is a member of La Trobe University’s SOLAR Lab. Tessa’s research interests span across preschool and school-age language and literacy development. Eamon Charles is the academic intern in the La Trobe SOLAR Lab. He is an experienced school-based speech-language pathologist with special interest in the role of literacy as a protective factor in the context of childhood adversity.

Top of the pops: AARE’s Hottest Ten 2022

Thank you to all our contributors in 2022. We published over 100 blog posts this year from academics all over Australia, from research students to DECRA fellows, to deans and professors. Thank you all for being part of our community and many thanks to the AARE executive, especially newly-minted Professor Nicole Mockler.

Didn’t get to write this year? Want to contribute? Here are notes for contributors. Pitch to me at jenna@aare.edu.au.

The 2022 AARE EduResearch Matters blog of the year, announced at the AARE conference in Adelaide: “Why restoring trust in teaching now could fix the teacher shortage”. La Trobe’s Babak Dadvand wrote a compelling account of one way to address the teacher shortage.

It is genuinely hard to choose the best because every single blog reveals new ideas and new thinking about education but I’ll just list our ten most read for 2022 (and of course, some of our older posts have racked up thousands and thousands of views). So many others were excellent and please look at our comprehensive archive.

Here we go! 2022 top ten.

Babak Dadvand on the teacher shortage.

Inger Mewburn: Is this now the Federal government’s most bone-headed idea ever?

Debra Hayes: Here’s what a brave new minister for education could do right away to fix the horrific teacher shortage

Kate de Bruin, Pamela Snow, Linda Graham, Tanya Serry and Jacinta Conway: There are definitely better ways to teach reading

Marg Rogers: Time, money, exhaustion: why early childhood educators will join the Great Resignation

Rachel Wilson: What do you think we’ve got now? Dud teachers or a dud minister? Here are the facts

Simon Crook: More Amazing Secrets of Band Six (part two ongoing until they fix the wretched thing)

(And part one is now one of our most read posts of all-time)

Alison Bedford and Naomi Barnes: The education minister’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea*

Martina Tassone, Helen Cozmescu, Bree Hurn and Linda Gawne: No. There isn’t one perfect way to teach reading

Thank you to all of you for making this such a lovely community, looking forward to hearing from you and a special thank you to Maralyn Parker who has now been retired from the blog for two years but is still a fantastically supportive human when I need urgent help.

Jenna Price

There are definitely better ways to teach reading

Recent blog posts and articles in The Age have yet again stirred debates about the reading wars. We are writing this piece as a call for unity because we agree with the recent blog authors that there is no “perfect way” to teach reading. However, we know from both research and practice that are unequivocally better ways that are both more efficient and more effective for a diverse student cohort, including the most disadvantaged. 

Better ways to teach all students to read

Effective reading instruction involves using the most equitable and efficient teaching practices which result in the highest proportion of children in a class becoming literate. Such practices are informed by the most reliable evidence about the theoretical basis of a reading curriculum, its scope and sequence, and the pedagogies that are most effective. 

To teach reading equitably, teachers must be equipped to use practices that are designed to be beneficial for the most diverse student cohort, not just those in the middle of the curve or better. This is more socially just because it results in fewer children needing access to scarce intervention and support resources. 

To teach reading efficiently, teachers must be equipped to teach using methods known to have the greatest impact and provide the best support for all students to “crack the code” of the most complex writing system in the world, enabling them to move quickly beyond learning to read, into learning through reading. 

The reading wars stem from differences in beliefs as to how this is best achieved.

What are these differences?

Champions of implicit teaching argue that immersing a child in a print-rich environment in conjunction with using incidental instruction creates an environment in which children can learn to love reading. These champions emphasise that extracting meaning from text should always be the highest priority in any teaching moments. Some in this “camp” even argue that explicit and systematic instruction in reading subskills is harmful and can damage students’ potential love of reading while de-professionalising teachers. We have not yet found any empirical evidence to support these claims.

Champions of a structured approach, a group in which we count ourselves, promote the use of a carefully planned scope and sequence of reading instruction using practices supported by strong research evidence. They argue that reading is made of teachable subskills best taught explicitly with some skills being pivotal to the acquisition of subsequent skills and needing to be mastered first. The most common example is phonic decoding or “cracking the code” being a precursor to reading automatically and fluently to aid comprehension, along with developing strong vocabulary skills and background knowledge. This does not mean that decoding is all that is taught at first but is done in an integrated manner using a rich and varied range of books to build children’s background knowledge and vocabulary. These claims are supported by decades of international research and three national inquiries.

Which approach has the most evidence (with a capital “E”)?

There are different types of evidence and each approach above has an abundance of evidence to support it. However, the structured approach is backed by experimental and empirical research best suited to determining the effectiveness of a teaching practice in a classroom. Such research can also be further assessed through systematic reviews and meta-analyses, occupying the highest levels of evidence, meaning that confidence in the findings is higher.

Such research suggests systematic and explicit instruction in the reading subskills of phonemic awareness, decoding, and fluency are efficacious for teaching children to read more accurately and fluently in the early years. Research also indicates that students with learning difficulties and disabilities can master reading when they are provided early with systematic and explicit instruction, as opposed to incidental and implicit instruction, making this a more equitable approach to the teaching of reading. 

What does this evidence suggest?

It is important to support teachers by providing them with knowledge and skills through a framework that  supports teacher autonomy and decision-making to enable personalising of learning for students. However, the Four Resources model promoted in the recent blog is not the most helpful framework for reading instruction, nor does it have the most evidentiary support. 

The Four Resources Model rests on a conceptualisation of reading as a component of critical literacy, being a “mode of second guessing texts, discourses, and social formations”. The architects of the model argue that teaching reading relies on teachers selecting practices based on how they view students’ existing economic, social, cultural and linguistic assets for which the model maps a range of practices to use in response. We have not been able to locate any robust empirical research that affirms the Four Resources model as a theory of reading, or as a framework for teaching reading. 

The Cognitive Foundations Framework on the other hand, is an empirically-grounded and practical model for supporting teachers’ decision-making about instruction and support. It provides teachers with a clear map of students’ areas of strength and weakness in reading subskills. Such mapping provides teachers with a clear path to personalising teaching by identifying what individual students know and what they need to learn next to become skilled readers.

Figure 1: The Cognitive Foundations Network

Source: Graphic from Hoover and Tunmer (2019)

Our research and practice highlights the importance of preparing teachers to use approaches that are systematic and consistent across classes and schools. Teachers and leaders knowledgeable in these are the cornerstone of developing skilled readers and can ensure 95%-plus students achieve foundational skills. 

Many teachers we have worked with speak of their regret when they think of the students in their former classrooms who did not successfully learn to read: children who they now realise could have become successful readers. 

A call for unity 

Every year that we spend debating is another year that many children do not receive the instruction they need to learn to read. This locks them out from all that education has to offer, entrenching deficit perceptions and economic disadvantage. 

We need to focus on what we all share: a strong desire to create skilled readers and find ways to enhance the community standing of teaching by ensuring that knowledge that belongs to teachers is placed in their hands before they arrive in classrooms. 
Let’s give them the full set of professional knowledge and skills they need to truly personalise teaching and ensure every child learns to read and succeed at school.

From left to right (top row) Kate de Bruin, Pamela Snow, (bottom row) Linda Graham, Tanya Serry and Jacinta Conway

Kate de Bruin is a Senior Lecturer in Inclusion and Disability at Monash University. She has taught in secondary school and higher education for over two decades. As a high-school teacher she taught English for years 7-12, ran reading intervention, and provided cross-curriculum support to students with disabilities and learning difficulties. Pamela Snow is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology in the School of Education at the Bendigo campus of La Trobe University, Australia. In addition to experience in teacher education, she has taught a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate health professionals. Pamela is a registered psychologist, having qualified originally in speech-language pathology. Her research has been funded by nationally competitive schemes such as the ARC Discovery Program, ARC Linkage Program, and the Criminology Research Council, and concerns the role of language and literacy skills as academic and mental health protective factors in childhood and adolescence. Linda J. Graham is Director of The Centre for Inclusive Education (C4IE) in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Her research focuses on responses to students experiencing difficulties in school and with learning. Tanya Serry is an Associate Professor (Literacy and Reading) in the School of Education and co-director of the SOLAR Lab. Previously, she taught in the Discipline of Speech Pathology. Her research interests centre on the policy and practices of evidence-based reading instruction and intervention practices for students across the educational lifespan. Jacinta Conway is a highly experienced educator who has spent 19 working in classrooms and educational leadership, overseeing and implementing a range of interventions and support for learners, both in primary and secondary settings.  She currently works as a learning intervention specialist and consultant. Jacinta has a Bachelor of Education (Primary) and a Masters in Learning Intervention (Specific Learning Difficulties). She sits on the council for Learning Difficulties Australia.