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    "Reskilling" through self-representation: Digital story-telling as an alternative English Experience for Chinese International Students in Australia

    Access Status
    Fulltext not available
    Authors
    Zhang, He
    Gong, Qian
    Date
    2020
    Type
    Book Chapter
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citation
    Zahng, H. and Gong, Q. 2020. 'Reskilling' through self-representation: Digital story-telling as an alternative English Experience for Chinese International Students in Australia, in Dovchin, S. (ed), Digital Communication, Linguistic Diversity and Education, chapter 4. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.
    Source Title
    Digital communication, linguistic diversity and education
    Additional URLs
    https://www.peterlang.com/
    ISBN
    9781789974546
    Faculty
    Faculty of Humanities
    School
    School of Education
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/80601
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    In January 2019, a Duke University administrator’s email titled “To Speak English or To Not Speak English …” warned Chinese international students in a biostatistics master’s program not to use their mother tongue in common areas. The email stirred wide concern across social media in the United States (US) and China (“Outcry after Duke’s Warning”, 2019). In it, the graduate studies director said that speaking Chinese during breaks was a sign of not practicing English, which Chinese students are supposed to do while studying in the US. The director stated that doing so might damage their work opportunities in the faculty and said they should keep these unintended consequences in mind when they choose to speak in Chinese in the building. Rather than seeing Chinese students’ bilingual and intercultural abilities as an intellectual advantage, the director believed English to be the only language useful for study in the US, and any lack of it as equal to academic incompetence. The incident sounds the alarm that a discourse of power is influential for our perception of language, which may result in deeper language inequalities and educational inequalities between the West and the rest of the world. Even Duke University, which is renowned worldwide and is diverse in ethnic representation (65% of students in the program mentioned were from China, as The Guardian’s report said), cannot be an exception.

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