Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills or Cognitive Academic

As mentioned previously, the dominance of cognitive views that have shaped past studies on L2 reading makes it more challenging to define the construct of L2 proficiency among L2 readers (e.g. Koda, 2005; Grabe and Stoller, 2011; Lin and Yu, 2013). Whenever the aspect of proficiency is discussed, based on cognitive and linguistic views, it most often overlooks the influence of social and cultural factors. For example, L2 readers might be in a situation where they could speak and listen very well in L2, which means that they are likely to have achieved the required L2 oral fluency.

I would argue that a principal issue here is the need to draw a line between these aspects of proficiency in terms of (1) interpersonal communicative skills and (2) cognitive academic language. The underlying arguments regarding the level of proficiency discussed in this thesis are based on Cummins’ (2008) Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Linguistic Proficiency (CALP). These aspects point to the distinction between everyday and academic reading language. Cummins (2008) suggests that the ‘BICS and CALP distinctions highlight a similar reality and formalise the difference between conversational fluency and academic language proficiency as conceptually distinct components of the construct of ‘language proficiency’ (p. 2). This is illustrated in Figure 2.5.

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Figure 2.5: Cummins’ (1982) iceberg metaphor to illustrate the BICS and CALP continuum

Cummins theorises language to be of two dimensions: (1) academic and (2) social. The BICS model involves face-to-face conversational fluency, including mastery of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar language that learners have typically acquired from everyday activities before more complex and conceptual language proficiency is developed (Cummins, 2000). CALP, on the other hand, is often associated with schooling, and involves the abstract language abilities required for academic work that necessitate a more complex and conceptual linguistic ability, which includes analysis, synthesis and evaluation (ibid).

Cummins (2008) adds that CALP is ‘developed through social interaction from birth but became differentiated from BICS after the early stages of schooling to reflect primarily the language that children acquire in school and which they need to use effectively if they were to progress successfully through the grades’ (p. 3). Thus, the notion of CALP is specific to academic language proficiency, and ‘represents an individual’s access to and command of the specialised vocabulary and functions of language that are characteristic of the social institution of schooling’ (Cummins, 2008, p.75). This distinction of another type of proficiency as argued here is important in tertiary

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academic settings especially when (1) there is a large mass of international students’ enrolment in pre-dominantly English-speaking country, and (2) English is used as the medium of instruction in predominantly non-English speaking countries. Despite the criticism of BICS/CALPS, another important issue to be discussed here is whether excellent L2 proficiency may be equated with effective reading.

2.6.1.1 Examples from the Literature on the Impact of Language Proficiency on Academic Reading

Past research on study abroad has been carried out to investigate the academic, social, practical and personal aspects of international students in their new settings. However, only a small number of these studies focused on reading competency. This section will review past studies on academic reading conducted with international students pursuing tertiary studies outside their home countries.

From the perspective of L2 reading, Grabe (2009, p.170) opines that L2 readers might ‘encounter new learning expectations’ that would influence academic reading development in various learning contexts. This implies that learners are varied, considering their diverse learning contexts. For example, ‘a group of readers encountering the same text at the same point in time (e.g. in a class or a book group) will not have identical experiences with reading the text or the same reactions to or interpretations of it’ (Hedgcock and Ferris, 2009, p.50). Even the same reader interacting with the same text at different points in her life will experience it differently because the reader has changed over time’ (ibid).

In Campbell and Li’s (2007) study, Asian students in New Zealand found ‘many of the assigned academic readings…very difficult to read’ (p.8). This made ‘reviewing the concepts, ideas, and theories of these readings critically more difficult due to their lack of academic language convention’ (ibid). The inference that could be made here is that Asian

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students have different understandings of academic literacy due to their previous literacy and educational knowledge.

A further study was conducted on the language-related problems that Chinese students encountered during their first terms at a university in Hong Kong. The findings indicate that they faced ‘considerable difficulties in adapting to the demands of university- level reading’ (Evans and Morrison, 2011, p.392) with the participants’ ‘lack of a rich technical vocabulary preventing them from quickly and fully comprehending unfamiliar disciplinary genres’ (ibid). These predicaments in academic reading as experienced by the Chinese students in Hong Kong were related to their lack of discipline-specific knowledge.

Similarly, a study on Chinese L2 readers studying in Malaysia revealed that academic reading activities were described as difficult and challenging (Ibrahim and Nambiar, 2011). These had thus often led to the exercising of various reading strategies to cope with the new reading demands in the host institutions. These Chinese undergraduates were only fairly proficient in English, and came from a Grammar Translation Method background. Their prior L2 instructions had a marked bearing on their ability to adapt to the academic reading demands ‘which necessitated critical thinking and independent thought’ (Ibrahim and Nambiar, 2011, p.3228).

Nambiar, Ibrahim and Meerah (2012) explored 2 Korean undergraduates’ process of academic socialisation and the difficulties encountered in their host country, Malaysia. The subsequent findings put forward the fact that these students experienced various problems in both academic reading and writing such as (1) new vocabulary and (2) difficult texts with long and complicated sentences. Their inability to recognise different academic norms and conventions compounded their problems, ‘prevented them

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from accommodating and adapting to new literary practices’, and ‘deprived them of the opportunity to maximise their study abroad stint’ (Nambiar et al, 2012, p.115).

What these studies appear to share is a focus on the aspect of academic reading, which has been identified as a major barrier in higher learning contexts. In higher learning institutions, reading is undoubtedly ‘crucial in the process of disciplinary socialisation as it is the principal means by which an undergraduate acquires the academic knowledge that is subsequently consolidated and represented in written assignments’ (Evans and Morrison, 2011, p.392). These studies re-affirm the importance of academic reading. However, they lack a detailed description on the participants’ language proficiency.

The difficulty remains, then, that a lack of an established body of knowledge on the fine distinction between BICS and CALP merely reinforces assumptions as to ‘the nature of language proficiency and the development of L2 proficiency which have prejudiced the academic development of bilingual students’ (Cummins, 2008, p.79). Advanced L2 learners have often been marginalised in past research on L2 reading following the a priori assumption that they could manage and read academic texts types. I would, however, argue that in order to better understand academic reading development, studies on L2 reading would need to describe the types of proficiency that are required of L2 readers.

In line with Cummins' (2008) assertion, this study will argue that advanced L2 proficiency has not necessarily contributed to better comprehension considering the distinction between BICS and CALP. In view of this, there should be another important aspect in L2 reading research to address L2 learners with advanced proficiency. Jepson, Turner and Calway (2002) agree that fulfilling the entrance requirements of English language standards does not ensure that L2 readers would be well prepared to make adjustments to succeed in their new educational contexts.

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2.6.2. Studies Examining the Influence of Cultural Background on ESL/EFL