The discourse of ESL policy: the impact of the 'literacy crisis'

© 2009 Mairead HannanThe silencing of English as a Second Language (ESL) has occurred concurrently with an alleged crisis in literacy standards that has concentrated funds into early years programs and foundational literacy. The ‘literacy crisis’ has focused teacher attention on standardized assessment and on meeting benchmarks, which shape classroom activities and distort learning activities. The ‘literacy crisis’ has also focused attention on literacy for mother tongue English speakers, at the expense of ESL students. Instead of bilingualism being seen as a resource that can be used to support English literacy development, it is presented as a deficit - a barrier to meeting outcomes in English literacy. This research focuses on how ESL has fared in this context. Drawing on methods from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the language of policy texts is examined to reveal the current status of ESL in Victorian schools where a self-managed school ‘system’ makes it difficult to as certain common practice in relation to ESL provision and programs. The thesis builds its theoretical conclusions using ideas from ‘grounded theory’ to connect the discourse of ESL policy to wider social issues as a way of understanding how policy has impacted on ESL in schools. Having examined policy texts and more positive forms of support for ESL in schools, some recommendations are made to right language wrongs and write language rights that support multilingual school students and encourage linguistic adaptability