Translanguaging pathways to higher education: a transition program for highly educated refugees

1 Introduction: refugee students in Dutch higher education

Mobility of people has re-shaped educational settings worldwide; nowadays 79.5 million people are officially considered to be refugees and a large majority of this group (52%) is under the age of 18, meaning that they might potentially enter educational settings in a new country (UNHCR 2018). Currently, one sixth of all refugee migrants worldwide are originally from Syria (13.2 million: UNHCR 2018). In the Netherlands, one third of the Syrian refugees have attended higher education in their home country (Dagevos et al. 2018). However, refugees in the Netherlands are relatively often dependent on social welfare, and especially Syrians appear to have a relatively low income (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek 2018). As such, these often highly educated refugees are not provided with appropriate opportunities to develop their full potential in the new home country. Attending higher education to receive a Dutch diploma could support these refugees in exploring their potential in the new host country. In 2018, 905 refugees started their studies in the Netherlands (UAF 2018), which is about 3% of all refugees entering the country that year. One can imagine that these refugees experience several obstacles when studying in a new country (Klatter-Folmer and Weltens 2017; Prins and Van der Linden 1999). Therefore, many Dutch higher education institutions offer special ‘transition programs’ to support refugee students in preparing for their future studies. At the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, in the Netherlands, a transition program started in the schoolyear of 2018–2019.

This transition class is the focus of the current article, zooming in on the role of translanguaging (Duarte 2020; García 2009) during selected classes of this program. García and Kano (2014, p. 261) refer to translanguaging in education as “a process by which students and teachers engage in complex discursive practices that include all the language practices of students in a class in order to develop new language practices and sustain old ones, communicate and appropriate knowledge, and give voice to new sociopolitical realities by interrogating linguistic inequality”. In this article we focus on instances of pedagogical translanguaging referring to explicit, planned-in and systematic strategies employed by teachers to use several languages during instruction in a transition program for highly skilled refugees in the Netherlands (Cenoz 2017; Duarte 2020).

Even though it has already been found that the use and incorporation of additional languages in the classroom does not have a negative effect on learning the majority language (Cummins 2008), teachers and lecturers mostly use monolingual teaching approaches (Duarte and Kirsch 2020), meaning that they often do not use other languages themselves nor allow students to use their multilingual repertoires, especially when it comes to immigrant or minority languages (Flores and Baetens-Beardsmore 2015). However, the inclusion of students’ home languages, could foster the learning of the majority language as students can more easily draw on existing knowledge and make comparisons between these languages (Candelier and Molinié 2012). As found by Duarte (2020) and by Duarte and Günther-van der Meij (2020), teachers in different mainstream multilingual educational settings can use translanguaging (García 2009; García and Wei 2015) to achieve different aims, from acknowledging home languages of their students to enhancing content as well as language knowledge. Using classroom video-observation, the study will investigate how teachers and students in a transition program for highly educated refugees explore their multilingual repertoires in class by drawing on a translanguaging approach. The following research questions will be addressed:

2 The role of higher education for highly educated refugees

Research focusing on refugees in higher education is still quite scarce, possibly due to a number of reasons, such as a) the fact that refugee background students might be identified with other disadvantaged students, such as minority groups, or b) the fact that their background is relatively invisible once naturalisation is completed, c) or to the fact that some students might not self-label themselves as refugees since this might be associated with a social stigma (Naidoo et al. 2015; Stevenson and Baker 2018).

For refugees, education has been termed “a hope for a better future”, “a way to give back” (Crea and McFarland 2015) and a “conduit back to normalcy” (Streitwieser and Unangst 2018). In fact, some refugees even consider studying as their most important responsibility in a new country (Shakya et al. 2010). Higher education is thus often perceived as a solution against poverty and discrimination (Stevenson and Willott 2007). Moreover, having access to higher education facilitates transitions (Wright and Plasterer 2010). Those who access higher education state having benefited from it in various ways, such as a sense of accomplishment and self-awareness, improved technical and languages skills, gained knowledge, set a role model for other young refugees and helped communities (Crea 2016). However, only 1% of refugees attend higher education (UNHCR 2017), compared with 37% of youth around the world.

Entering higher education for refugees goes hand in hand with many obstacles. Financial issues (Shakya et al. 2010), language barriers (Crea 2016; Shakya et al. 2010), interrupted education experiences (Stevenson and Willott 2007), balance between studying and working (Shakya et al. 2010), bureaucratic paperwork (Streitwieser and Unangst 2018) and recognition of prior educational degrees (Shakya et al. 2010) may be barriers in accessing higher education.

In the EU, the unemployment rate of refugees was 19% compared to 10% of autochthonous inhabitants (Dumont et al. 2016). The employment rate of low-skilled refugees was about 55% while that of high-skilled refugees was about 65% (Dumont et al. 2016). About 60% of employed highly educated refugees are overqualified for their jobs in the EU, possibly since their education system differs from that of their host country (Dahlstedt 2011; Dumont et al. 2016; Piracha et al. 2012). In sum, attending higher education does not only imply having a higher chance to be employed but also facilitates transition (Wright and Plasterer 2010), improves language and technical skills, raises the sense of accomplishment, and buffers negative influences associated with being a refugee (Crea 2016).

In the case of the Netherlands, the proportion of highly educated refugees differs depending on their country of origin: 5% of Somalians, 26% of Afghans, 28% of Iraqis, and 41% of Iranians are highly educated (Dourleijn and Dagevos 2011) and 20% of Syrians (Vluchtelingen 2019). However, attending higher education in the home country does not necessarily promise a successful future for highly educated refugees in the Netherlands. Having no official certification to prove previous education or working experiences (Hannah 1999), insufficient financial support, and very often undervalued qualifications from the home country (Mattheijer 2000) are some barriers. Along with a Dutch nationality, having a Dutch qualification increases the chances to be hired.

Few countries in the EU have explicit policies covering refugees in higher education (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2019) and countries differ greatly in their approaches. In the Netherlands, a wide range of universities have established a “transition year” program for refugee background students. These programs usually aim at helping qualified refugee background students with Dutch, English and other skills useful for the integration into mainstream higher education. Language is thus a key factor in both the integration process and social and economic position of any migrant (Van Tubergen 2010). This effect is even stronger with refugees. If refugees have comparable language skills to native speakers, their employment rate will rise by 10%. However, compared to other immigrant groups, refugees often have lower proficiency in the local language (Chiswick and Miller 2001). As a result, following classes and understanding content without appropriate language proficiency may be difficult (Shakya et al. 2010).

In sum, the reviewed literature shows that a) there is a large group of refugees that could profit from attending higher education in the Netherlands but that, b) entering higher education is difficult for refugees and that, c) having good knowledge of the national language and English plays a central part in access to both higher education and the labour market. The focus of the current study is on a recent transition program at the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences for highly educated refugees. The program offers Dutch, English, Cultural Diversity and Multilingualism, Mathematics and Coaching as main subjects. In addition, it explicitly aims at using students’ multilingual repertoires in the learning process, instead of focusing solely on learning the national language.^[1]

3 Translanguaging in a holistic perspective

In the current study translanguaging was included in a wider holistic approach towards multilingualism in education (Duarte and Günther-van der Meij 2018). Research on multilingual approaches has recently called for the development of such holistic or inclusive models that “recognize that language learning and teaching is more than the sum of the elements of that equation seen as isolated units – language, learning and teaching – and should therefore be seen from a more holistic and ecological perspective” (Melo-Pfeifer 2018, p. 193). The holistic model for multilingualism in education (Duarte and Günther-van der Meij 2018) combines five approaches towards multilingual education and puts them along a continuum that oscillates between the acknowledgement of different languages and their actual use in instruction. The first three approaches (language awareness, language comparison and receptive multilingualism/intercomprehension) focus on fostering positive attitudes towards languages whilst the other two approaches (Content and Language Integrated Learning [CLIL] and immersion) focus on knowledge and skills in the language(s). To negotiate meanings and facilitate learning, translanguaging is integrated in each of the five approaches and is mostly manifested in interaction.

On the basis of the holistic model for multilingualism in education, Duarte (2020 – Table 1) described official translanguaging spaces in which various interaction practices serve different but interrelated functions depending on a) whether the aim of the teachers is to acknowledge or actively use the different languages; b) whether the teachers are proficient in the languages involved in the translanguaging moment, and c) what types of languages are involved. Instances of pedagogical translanguaging (see Table 1) with a symbolic function are aimed at recognising and valorising migrant languages within mainstream education and require no proficiency in those languages from the teacher. A scaffolding function is achieved when temporary but systematic bridges towards other languages are incorporated in everyday teaching attributing equal value to all languages. Teachers require no knowledge of migrant languages to do this, as long as students are perceived as the experts for their own family languages. Similar aims can be reached by scaffolding the acknowledgement of various instruction languages present within the teaching model. Finally, official translanguaging can fulfill an epistemological function when the different languages are actively used to enhance both content and language knowledge. This is appropriate for exploring migrant, minority, and foreign languages in their full potential as learning instruments. However, a teacher proficient in those languages is needed to interact with the students.

Using this translanguaging framework, this study explores the use of official translanguaging during instruction in a transition program for highly educated refugees in the Netherlands and map additional ways with which teachers engage with their students’ multilingual repertoires.

4 Video-recordings of the transition class

A qualitative explorative study (Stebbins 2001) was conducted to address the research questions, combining deductive and inductive approaches. A total of 21.5 h of classes of the transition program were video recorded. The interaction was transcribed and analysed using the Atlas.ti software. Selected translanguaging excerpts – focusing on describing turn taking and turn allocation – and applying the translanguaging functions from Duarte (2020) and García and Wei (2015) were coded.

Video-analysis has been found valuable to study complex processes of classroom interaction as well as to integrate qualitative and quantitative information (Hiebert et al. 2003). Video-data (see Table 2) was recorded with a one-camera design. 13 students and four teachers were recorded. In each class, all but two of the students came from Syria and self-reportedly spoke Arabic as mother tongue (other named languages were Farsi and Armenian). Prior to recording, consent was obtained from both teachers and students. Videos were first processed and transcribed. Further analytical work was done based on anonymised transcripts.

Events in which teachers either used another language themselves or encouraged the students’ use of other languages, or their knowledge thereof were coded as units of analysis and translated into English. These transcriptions were inserted in Atlas.ti and coded. The coding scheme was developed by combining inductive and deductive approaches, to interpret the raw data, building theory and data-driven codes (Braun and Clarke 2006; Fereday and Muir-Cochrane 2006). Language use was divided into the code families ‘languages used by the teacher’, ‘functions of language use’, ‘invitation by the teacher to use other languages’ and ‘topics of conversation’ (Friese 2014). Although translanguaging can be seen 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. 281), coding of languages was done in this article using so-called named languages. This was done consciously and was based on the self-reported language data of students and teachers in the collected surveys prior to the videography with the aim of making students’ complex linguistic repertoires visible in the data using their own self-identification. We are, however, aware that the labels we attribute to languages are social and political constructs also (or in particular) in the educational arena.

5 Results

6 Translanguaging both ways? A discussion of findings

In this study, video-observations of a transition program for highly educated refugees in the Netherlands were used to address two research aims: map the purposes teachers fulfil when engaging in official translanguaging during instruction in a transition program for highly educated refugees and highlight the additional ways teachers develop to engage with their students’ multilingual repertoires.

As seen by the data, only a small percentage of coded sequences entailed translanguaging events. Regarding the first aim, teachers thus largely adhered to the main instruction language, Dutch. Occasionally, they used isolated words in other languages, mostly to facilitate the comprehension of Dutch words or expressions by the students. English was used for this purpose as it was a shared language, but the teachers also tried to stimulate the comparison of Dutch with English and students’ home language at times. In relation to Duarte’s taxonomy (2020), pedagogical translanguaging mostly fulfilled a scaffolding function in which either English or other languages were temporarily used to scaffold acquisition of target language features or to support subject/concept comprehension. Such events can also be found in the context of bilingual education and have been termed “scaffolded translanguaging” (Jones and Lewis 2014) or “pedagogical translanguaging” (Cenoz 2017). What thus becomes obvious from our data is the unidirectionality of the translanguaging events – the clear and sole aim is to facilitate students’ acquisition of the Dutch language (and culture) or to reflect on features of what was perceived by the teachers to be typical from the ‘Dutch culture’. As such, the examples show how the program’s operationalisation of a translanguaging pedagogy fails to develop bidirectional dynamic spaces in which teaching and learning occur in multiple directions and implicit language hierarchies lose their salience, thus not really capitalising on students’ previous and rich experiences with mobility and language learning (with some exceptions, as seen in excerpt 3).

In line with a sociocultural perspective (e.g., Mercer and Littleton 2007) that claims that knowledge is socially produced and acquired in interaction and co-construction, translanguaging did enhance temporary knowledge acquisition but rarely enabled students to engage in the joint co-constructing of meaning using their full linguistic repertoires and mobile experiences. Pedagogical translanguaging as denoted in teacher-centred interaction did not trigger the transformative potential reported by García and Wei (2015) by means of which social justice clearly becomes the aim as sociocritical literacies are activated. As such, in the observed classes, pedagogical translanguaging did not become a process by which teachers and students alike “engage in complex discursive practices that include all the language practices of the students in a class in order to develop new language practices and sustain old ones, communicate and appropriate knowledge, and give voice to new sociopolitical realities by interrogating linguistic inequality” (García and Wei 2015, p. 121). Students’ experiences prior to their mobility and during their mobile experiences were rarely called upon. For the transition program, and based on these results, a discussion on how to include students’ translanguaging practices and how to develop teachers’ abilities to engage in pedagogical translanguaging would need addressing so as to improve bidirectionality of translanguaging practices. While teachers had previously agreed on ways to include students’ linguistic and cultural diversity in general, most of them were not aware of the concept of translanguaging before starting classes.

Regarding our second aim, teachers supported the students in using (or acquiring knowledge) of other languages mainly in two ways. The first, but least frequent way was by encouraging students to use their home languages to complete course tasks, which could lead to the acquisition of new knowledge by using home languages to access and compare information that would be linked to classroom tasks (epistemological function, Duarte 2020). However, this was not always successful due to students’ insufficient Dutch proficiency, which occasionally prevented them from making a connection to their home languages and using this knowledge across languages (Candelier and Molinié 2012). The second way students’ multilingualism was included in the program became visible in the choice of topics addressed during classes. Even though the conversations relating to students’ linguistic awareness mostly focussed on Dutch, the teachers occasionally stimulated students to use and expand their knowledge of other languages and to reflect on their multilingual identity and environment. In addition, teachers facilitated conversations to compare languages or dialects and had students reflect on differences and similarities between them.

Although interactionally seen, only a small percentage of the data entailed the actual usage of different languages, the choice of topics allowed for bridges between languages to be built, ranging from awareness of the importance of multilingualism in general, language learning as skill and practice, language comparison, etymology, language history and policy. The symbolic function of translanguaging (Duarte 2020), implying the acknowledgement of multilingualism as a condition and outcome of learning processes, although not per se demonstrated in the interaction became evident in the topics teachers chose to achieve the final aim of Dutch language acquisition. In this symbolic space, students experiences with mobility were acknowledged and used as a resource for the acquisition of the needed knowledge in their new host country (mostly Dutch language and features of Dutch society). These findings are systematised in Figure 1 below. The largest circle symbolises the use of students’ multilingualism and mobile experiences from a symbolic perspective, thus not manifested in the actual presence of different languages in interaction, but rather in the choice of topics or tasks to be addressed in class (or outside). The size of the circle mirrors its representativity in our data. The other two smaller circles represent the actual presence and use of students’ languages or other additional languages, such as English, in interaction. The smallest light grey circle on the right-hand side symbolises the use of students’ home languages in official classroom interaction and, as seen in the data, occurring mainly at the lexical level and very sporadically (hence the smaller size). The middle-sized circle represents occurrences of official translanguaging in which additional languages are used to acquire knowledge of features of the Dutch language or society, which happened more often than the encouragement of the use of students’ home languages for the sake of expanding their knowledge and drawing on their mobile experiences. Between the symbolic and the epistemological spaces, we found overlap in the form of a space open towards capitalising on students’ mobility experiences and world knowledge, which was not visible in interactional terms.

Figure 1:

Multiple translanguaging functions in shared monolingually oriented spaces.

Due to the inherent monolingual nature of transition programs such as the one explored in this article, the operationalisation of a translanguaging pedagogy faces different challenges less salient in other settings. Similar to previous studies, both teachers and students in this program, as discussed at the beginning of the school year, seem to share the implicit conviction that raising Dutch skills was the main way to guarantee successful integration in Dutch society (Crea and McFarland 2015). However, that multiple languages can be used to achieve this aim, as seen in previous research (Cummins 2008), did not become evident at the interactional level. This points towards the need for professional development of teachers in the programme in terms of exploring multiple ways to operationalise translanguaging that go beyond the semantic level and the unidirectionality of language learning. In addition, also students must be made more aware of the functions their multilingual repertoires and mobile experiences may have in co-constructing meaning in dynamic ways.

Despite the small scale of this research, the categories used for analysis can be further developed in projects focussing on classroom interaction in multilingual settings. This study also provides valuable examples showing it is not necessary for teachers to be proficient in the languages they wish to include in the classroom (Duarte 2020). Although the examples presented here show that teaching (and learning) Dutch was perceived as the main objective by both teachers and students, multilingualism was mainly embraced in the form of the classroom topics explored. This was not only done by using other languages to enhance comprehension of Dutch words, but also by using the students’ knowledge of other languages and comparing them so students could make new connections between languages. In the case of refugee students, drawing on their specific mobility experiences and world knowledge prior to relocation could be added to the use of home languages in translanguaging practices to bridge language and cultural barriers in accessing higher education in the new home countries.