INTRODUCTION

Between 2013 and 2023, Asia has experienced a 59.6% rise in its number of
international schools and, as such, is the continent with the most international
schools. In fact, 57% of the world’s international schools are in Asia, compared with
18% which are in Europe (ISC Research, 2023). These schools are classified as
international schools in part due to their use of English as the or one of the primary
languages of instruction. The vast majority of these schools use European and North
American curriculums (ISC Research, 2023). These institutions often maintain
problematic and contextually inappropriate language policies which center English as
the language of knowledge, communication, and socio-cultural power.

Some institutions implement restrictive language policies in the name of academic

success. Many stakeholders believe that students with high proficiency in the English
language will be able to become more competitive university and career candidates
after their education (Cummins, 2000; Vavrus, 2002). As such, implementing
restrictive language policies heightens the prestige of the European language of
instruction while allowing for the diminishment of a student’s native language,
cultural identity, and community ties. Furthermore, this can lead to the demotivation
of less proficient students who are being assigned future value based on their
current foreign language ability and foreign language sophistication in a secondary
school environment (Cummins, 2000).

The mission of this chapter is to firstly explore the trends in language policies in
international schools including philosophy statements, approaches to English
language support, and approaches to home language support. The chapter will then
examine the negative impacts of linguistically restrictive policies. Finally, it will
suggest more inclusive language policy approaches and reform. The adoption of
promising approaches can enable international schools to establish language
policies that foster inclusivity, cultural sustainability, and multilingualism.

BACKGROUND

With the rise of international education in Asia, schools with Eurocentric models of
education have become the norm. These institutions perpetuate a linguistic
hierarchy, positioning English as the language of power that leads students to
perceive other languages, such as their home language, as less valuable. As such,
the propagation and increasing credibility associated with Eurocentric ideologies of
education as a trend in international educational contexts advances a type of
colonialism through education. Though likely unintentional, Veronelli asserts that this
action continues the racist colonialist hierarchy that elevates European languages as
superior and more valuable when compared to non-European languages (Rosa &
Flores, 2017). This is especially pertinent to this chapter for Asian-based institutions
but is not limited to Asian students. The dominant beliefs around English and English
medium instruction grant a high level of prestige to the English language and users
with a high level of proficiency. This phenomenon is expounded by Asian countries
due to their desire to strengthen their innovation and economic activity with the
markets in Europe and the Americas (Hu & Lei, 2013). Due to international schools
in Asia, which focus on English language teaching, being one of the fastest growing
markets in Education, research must be undertaken and investigated to challenge
this growth in the market in order to be sustainable and in the best interests of
students (HM Government, 2013). Other locales will also be explored as supporting
evidence for this paper as there is a lack of plentiful research for Asian high school
settings, even though China is the world's largest English language teaching market
(Kumaravadivelu, 2016). It is crucial to challenge this trend and undertake research
in Asian high school settings, considering international schools' significant growth
and influence in the region.

However, the majority of the research that has been done inside Asian contexts has
been completed on university students, and a majority of the research in
international schools has taken place in Europe or North America, which extends the
reach of globalized educational colonization through decontextualized research
application. This colonizing concept is central to restrictive language policies, which
dictate how English is taught to speakers of other languages (Jimenez-Silva et al.,
2016). This can also be defined as any institutional policies or even practices,
intentional or unintentional, which punish or penalize students for using their native
language or any language that is not the medium of instruction in the name of
academic success. This is seen through teaching Asian, or other minority students,
English, or any other European language as the language of instruction and
aspiration while simultaneously devaluing home languages compared to English.
This is fostered by also teaching students of the socio-cultural history of Europe and
the Americas as a means of support for their eventual transition into Western tertiary
education systems, as many stakeholders hold the view that students who have a
high proficiency in the English language will be able to become more competitive
university and career candidates after their education (Cummins, 2000; Vavrus,
2002). This becomes problematic when it leads to the demotivation of less proficient
students who are being assigned future value based on their current foreign
language ability and foreign language sophistication in a secondary school
environment (Cummins, 2000). The use of European research to restrict language
use in an Asian context reinforces Western cultural capital in education and
undermines the value of students' home languages, leading to demotivation and
unequal opportunities for language development.
This move towards students gathering Western cultural capital, knowledge,
relationships, or other intangible assets that allow for social or economic mobility in a
specific context, over their native cultural capital. For example, in China, gathering
Western cultural capital can also be at the detriment of curating guanxi, translated as
“relationships” or “connections” from Chinese, with their contemporaries at their local
institutions and strains students who return to their home countries for their careers
as limitations begin to arise in their employment search (Nachatar Singh, 2020, p.
154; Yeung & Tung, 1996). These connections are deemed important as many
employers in the public sector in China do not publish vacancies widely and so
graduates must rely on these connections (Nachatar Singh, 2020). Students who
have studied at Western universities have been unable to procure or source these
connections due to being away from China, which creates a gap in building the
guanxi vital for returning graduates in securing jobs (Nachatar Singh, 2020). The gap
in cultural capital and connections to peers is furthered when students with foreign
degrees return and compete for jobs with expatriates. These students’ Western
degrees are not treated with the same level of recognition by employers as the same
degrees received by native speakers of English (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). The
amount of exposure that students will receive on the topics surrounding cultural
capital will also depend on the schools and how much these topics move into the
home sphere, which can differ depending on families’ socioeconomic status. The
prevalence and importance of European history in the household context further
inflate the value of Eurocentric power and knowledge in the classroom.

As international schools increase in prevalence in Asia and other continents, the risk
of cultural imperialism rises. To expect students to dissociate from their native
language through restrictive language policies and cultural backgrounds shifts the
burden disproportionately onto students rather than institutions to ensure rigorous
and inclusive policies are in place (Museus & Maramba, 2010). Furthermore,
implementing restrictive language policies heightens the prestige of the European
language of instruction while allowing for the devaluing of a student’s native
language, cultural identity, and community ties. Thus, there is a significant need for
the international school sector to not only respect but promote the host culture and
the cultures of every student at the school (Crisfield, 2016). This is to aid institutions
and policymakers as they change policy and practice to become more nurturing
schools where students can develop holistically to become not only speakers of
English, but also to be rooted in their identities and their cultural backgrounds. As
such, this chapter will examine various commonly held beliefs and models for
instruction, some which embrace student identity and language and some which
oppress it.

Positioned as women of color, we, the authors of this chapter, bring diverse
experiences as educators and leaders in Asian international schools. These
experiences have entangled us in the constraining effects of restrictive policies and
practices, as well as their potential to inflict harm on the holistic and academic
development of students. Our aspiration, both profoundly personal and deeply
professional, is for schools to establish a consistent, evidence-based, and enduring
approach, fostering an environment where multilingual students can truly thrive.

MAIN FOCUS

This section will examine three common parts to a language policy:

a belief or philosophy statement regarding multilingualism,
a description of the model for supporting learners who are developing proficiency in
English and require additional support to fully access the curriculum,
A Description of the model for supporting the home language development of multilingual
learners.
Finally, the chapter will
explore various stakeholders’ needs and how they may impact the development of a
language policy.

Approaches to language policy in international schools vary significantly depending

on the school's context, the school's socio-political positioning, and the school's
country origins (i.e., British school of X or American school of Y). Language policies
in an international school where English is the medium of instruction have an
important role in establishing a welcoming environment where learners from all
linguistic backgrounds can thrive. On the other hand, language policies, sometimes
even unwritten, implicit language policies, also have the potential to create hostile,
oppressive environments that dissolve students’ identities and cultures.

Language Learning Philosophy

A language policy typically has a philosophy or statement of beliefs about language

and language learning. Because language is inextricably linked with culture and
identity, expecting students in a school to set aside their home language to learn
English is ethically unacceptable. Therefore, language policies should be formulated
to explicitly promote and support multilingualism. The aim of such a language
philosophy statement is to establish a firm foundation on which equitable
programmatic and pedagogical decisions can be made.

As language is deeply intertwined with identity and physical place, it is important for
schools to create a philosophy statement that is contextually specific, inclusive and
asset based. Taking an asset-based view of language means believing that a
student’s language(s) is a valuable aspect of their identity and is useful for learning.

In a study done by Bettney and Nordmeyer on international schools within a

consortium, one key shift in mindsets over the last several years was that
multilingualism is now seen as an asset to the school community (2021).
Additionally, it was found that an asset-based view of the diverse languages in the
school community was able to support a more modern view of language that
embraces both the global and the local (Bettney & Nordmeyer, 2021). Viewing
multilingualism as a valuable asset is an essential undertone of a language policy.

Even where multilingualism is promoted in schools, there may be an underlying

hierarchy of languages encouraged based on the history of the context. In a study
conducted at a Columbian international school, Spanish and English bilingualism
was found to be valued, whereas other Indigenous Colombian languages were seen
as less prestigious and, therefore, bilinguals of Indigenous languages were not
valued and even invisibilized (Bettney, 2022). In the authors’ context, in a British
international school located in China, Mandarin and English bilingualism was
privileged with little acknowledgment of students with proficiency in either local
languages/dialects such as Suzhounese—which, in its spoken form is mutually
unintelligible with Mandarin--or other Asian languages such as Korean or Cantonese.
Therefore, schools must carefully consider the various groups their local context as
they endeavor to design a philosophy statement which is contextually appropriate.

The expected means of communication is another subtle way that languages are
hierarchically positioned. Spiro and Crisfield (2019) write, “In a school where English
is the only language used by the teachers, and the only language visible around the
school, it is a reasonable assumption on the part of students that English is the only
language that is acceptable or allowed, whether or not this is actually the case” (p.
169). The ubiquitous use of English in an international school setting may
unintentionally reinforce the perception that it is the only valued language thereby
invisibilizing students’ linguistic assets.
One way to shift these perceptions and to promote multilingualism is to invite
translanguaging for pedagogical purposes. Translanguaging can be defined as “the
deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful
adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually
national and state) languages” (Otheguy et al., 2015, p.283). Although
translanguaging is sometimes seen as a practice of language use, it has also
evolved into a pedagogical philosophy concerning linguistic justice. Historically, the
Welsh researcher who coined the word ‘translanguaging’ in the 1990s noted that the
practice of isolating languages, English and Welsh, felt irrelevant, and rather the
process of blending two languages was a more successful educational approach
(García & Kleifgen, 2019). Furthermore, the practice of translanguaging furthered
social justice for Welsh children by supporting the development of a strong Welsh
identity as opposed to a British colonial one (García & Kleifgen, 2019). Since then,
translanguaging has also become part of the solution to challenge systemic, racially
biased colonial systems. For example, Flores (2019, pp. 25-26) promotes the idea of
translanguaging to move toward a model of ‘language architecture’, which
represents the idea that students are like architects, using all of their linguistic assets
to build an understanding of the world around them. Additionally, Flores cautions that
where lines are drawn, in terms of what type of language is considered acceptable
for use in the classroom, those lines must be policed; subsequently, teachers
become language police, holding students to arbitrary lines in language due to
perceived linguistic deficiencies (Flores, 2019). For example, students speaking a
blend of Chinese and English may be chided at school for speaking ‘Chinglish’, and
this can be seen as a problem to correct. Rather, based on Flores’ (2019) ideology,
‘Chinglish’ is one way, out of many, that students may choose to express their ideas.
In adhering to this ideology, a teacher’s role can be supportive, focusing on the
continued development of student language, as opposed to policing, focused on
restricting the way students may or may not use language in school.

An inclusive, asset-based philosophy statement can be a foundation for

programmatic decision making and a starting point for school leaders. Well defined
philosophy statements can also support middle leaders in developing inclusive
mindsets among their teams. However, ensuring that programs, pedagogy, and
mindsets match the school’s philosophy may take long term dedication and ample
professional learning.

Approaches to English Language Support Model

Along with a philosophy statement, language policies typically outline ways the
school provides support to students who are learning English. Many factors go into
determining the language model of a school, but one key factor in deciding whether
a school will build an English support (EAL/ESL) program versus a bilingual program
is the language diversity of the student body; typically, if the student body has a
diversity of languages, then an English as the medium of instruction model is chosen
over a bilingual model (Rennie, 1993). In international education, other socio-political
factors are at play, including the perceived prestige of an English-only model and the
goals and needs of families (ISC Research, 2023). For the purposes of this chapter,
the focus will be on schools for which English is the primary medium of instruction.

This section will explore common models and approaches for English support in a
school where English is the primary language used for instruction. There are two
broad categories for these models, the first is a segregated approach where students
acquiring English are separated from their peers in English language classes or
tracked classes. The other category, an integrated approach, focuses on supporting
students without removing them from their peers, and these include push-in
language specialist support, Content and Language Integrated Learning, and genre-
based pedagogy.

There is not a single best model for language support. Rather, the best model
depends on the characteristics of each school, including the student demographics,
student characteristics, and school resources (Rennie, 1993). A successful English
support model for a school may use a combination of these approaches tailored to
meet the specific needs of the students and families of the school.

Segregated approaches to English language support

In a segregated approach to supporting English learners, students who require

support are separated from their peers and provided with English language
instruction separate from the academic content of the mainstream class.

Separate English as a Second/Additional Language (ESL/EAL) class

A separate EAL (English as an Additional Language) class, sometimes known as a

“pull-out” model of support for students in primary grades, usually involves an
English language specialist working with a small group of students inside or outside
the classroom. The small group work focuses on language development, which is
sometimes disconnected from learning in the classroom. There are few studies that
examine the effectiveness of this model in an international setting. However, one
study conducted in the US found that elementary-aged students who were provided
with language support in pull-out classes made more academic gains than their
peers (Saunders et al., 2006). However, the authors of that study caution that before
the results can be generalized, the content of the classes must be carefully
examined. At the secondary level, students may have a separate class dedicated to
English language development, usually replacing an optional class, a mainstream
English class, or sometimes even replacing a home language class.

Tracked classes

Another segregated approach to English language support is tracking, also known as

streaming, ability grouping, or leveling, and it involves grouping students in particular
classes based on language proficiency level. Generally, the reason a school may
choose this approach is the idea that it will allow teachers to tailor instruction for the
proficiency level of the group. However, in a meta-analysis of current literature
(generally in Europe or the United States) on tracking, authors found no evidence
that tracking improves academic outcomes and found evidence that tracking does
increase inequality (Terrin & Triventi, 2022). Another study, which includes schools
from around the world (but not necessarily international schools), found that tracking
hurts student self-efficacy, meaning that student attitudes and confidence is lower
due to tracked classes (Shan, 2021). Additionally, the study found that the earlier the
tracking happens, the more detrimental the impact (Shan, 2021). It is important to
note that these studies do not include students tracked by language proficiency;
students in these studies were tracked by other factors such as reading skills, math
skills, or other academic measures. No studies were found on tracking based on
language proficiency; however, the fact that tracking caused a negative social-
emotional impact regardless of the factor that students were tracked by (math,
reading, etc.) presents a compelling case against tracking based on language ability
in a context wherein English is the medium of instruction. Anecdotally, the authors of
this chapter have observed that language proficiency-based tracking can also cause
significant distress among students and parents. This led to students and parents
regularly asking how to ‘get out’ of the class, demonstrating the parental and student
dissatisfaction of this model. Ultimately, studies generally point to tracking having
little to no academic benefit while risking the confidence, sense of belonging, and
wellbeing of students.

Considerations

The potential negative impacts, both academic and social-emotional, of a segregated

approach must be carefully considered before the implementation of any program
model. Factors to consider include clear guidelines for entry and exit into special
programs, duration, social-emotional impact, and student and parental consent.
Additionally, English language support should never replace home language
instructional time due to the established benefits of home language development
(Crisfield, 2016; Lee, 2002; Oketani, 1997).