viewpoints related to language issues that were expressed by committee and working group members who were involved in international meetings and education initiatives. In this chapter, I first explain how the Sharing our Planet (SoP) international school project was developed, the principal goals of the project, and how it functioned. I then summarise my role as a researcher in the four countries involved, review my data collection methods, and briefly discuss the policies and perspectives towards the English language in each of the countries involved. Finally, I discuss the challenges, successes, and lessons learned as seen from both my perspective as a researcher/participant-observer and from the
perspectives of adult participants in the project. Findings from both stages of the research are synthesised in Chapter 6.
My guiding research questions during this project were:
Which of the strategies identified by IPY EOC participants were most effective in promoting better international communication and collaboration among children? What are the impacts of English-language domination of scientific research on
science education and communication at both international and local levels?
Project Development and Goals
Between 2007 and 2010, I had periodic informal discussions, formal meetings (both face-to-face and virtual) and e-mail correspondence with both the Malaysian and Brazilian EOC committee members about how to encourage schools and students in their countries to have a greater involvement with IPY activities. Both EOC members felt that it was important for people in their countries to understand how the polar regions,
versa. During these conversations, they expressed an interest in developing some country- specific education initiatives to help address this.
After the official IPY program had ended, a small group of us decided to start a project involving collaboration among students in four countries, asking them to share information about their countries and their environmental issues with each other. The schools included a Grade 7 public school class in Malaysia, a private high school English class in Brazil, two multi-age primary classes in the Magallanes Region of southern Chile (one private school and one rural public school), and a Grade 7 science class in southern Greenland. The students compared environments ranging from 64° North latitude (Greenland) to 53° South (southern Chile). Among the students were five national languages: Greenlandic and Danish in Greenland, Portuguese in Brazil, Spanish in Chile, and Malay in Malaysia (Figure 4).
Project goals. Using an action research approach to the project development, we decided on three broad project goals:
We wanted to help the students develop a better understanding of their own local environments, as well as an ability to identify both local and global environmental issues. We also wanted them to work towards finding solutions to some of the local problems.
We wanted them to develop an awareness of their roles and responsibilities in a global society.
Finally, we hoped to help them develop the personal skills that are needed to succeed in today’s global society. These included interpersonal, intercultural and linguistic skills, as well as computer technology skills.
These goals correlated well with Boix Mansilla and Gardner’s (2007) ideas of the importance of developing a global consciousness, which they defined as having three major components:
… global sensitivity, or our awareness of local experience as a manifestation of broader developments in the planet; global understanding, or our capacity to think in flexible and informed ways about contemporary worldwide developments; and
global self, or a perception of ourselves as global actors, a sense of planetary belonging and membership in humanity that guides our actions and prompts our civic commitments. (p. 78, italics in original)
How it worked. The project spanned a time period from mid-August 2012 to early June 2013. During the course of the project, the teachers and I kept in regular contact through e-mails and periodic Skype calls.
To initiate the project, the classes introduced themselves to each other by creating and sharing short videos about their school and their town. Where this was not possible
due to technological limitations, they posted information and pictures on Edmodo, which is an education web-based platform that is similar to Facebook. After the students
watched the videos, the teachers asked them to develop a list of questions they would like to ask the students in the other countries. In addition, we asked them what they would like other students to know about their country and their lives, and to post that information on Edmodo.
To get the students started on environmental dialogues, we created a four-part series of focus questions for each group or class to discuss and then share with the
participants in the other countries (see Appendix 4). The first part, “Getting to know each other,” asked them about the weather and climate in their region, what natural resources they had, and what life was like where they live. In the second part, the students
investigated local environmental problems. Here we focused on pollution because this was a problem shared by all of them. In the third section, they investigated climate change and its possible effects on their region. The last part focused on sharing information about environmental projects they were developing.
We translated the focus questions into all of the native languages so that students could work through them in their own language before sharing their answers with
students in the other countries. Sharing was carried out through a combination of Edmodo posts, e-mails, and a few live web conferences where the students had an opportunity to talk with each other directly. Communications among the classes were primarily in English, although the teachers helped the students with translations when necessary and served as interpreters for those who needed it during live web conferences.
My Role as Researcher
Before starting this stage of the research, I had made two visits to Malaysia (one for two months, the other for three weeks), living with Malaysian families and
undertaking volunteer work with a Malaysian youth environmental organisation. This involved a combination of professional and social events, as well as numerous informal conversations with local people about Malaysian culture, society and education systems. I followed this with a 10-day visit to Brazil, where I stayed with a Brazilian teacher and her family, visited her school and attended social events with her friends and extended
family. The discussions I had earlier with IPY EOC people also helped me learn more about the local cultural and educational situations in the four countries that participated in the project, which is an important consideration when doing intercultural research (Irvine et al., 2007; Kapborg & Berter, 2002; Laverack & Brown, 2003; Schmieding &
Kokuyama, 1995).
Between February and December 2012, I served as a participant-observer for approximately two to three months at each of the selected case studies sites. I made follow-up visits of three to four weeks to each of the case study sites between March and June 2013. These visits provided a chance for evaluation of the project from the
perspective of the participants, and served as a form of triangulation to enhance the validity, or “credibility” in Lincoln and Guba’s (1981) terminology, of the study.
My participation varied in each of the countries according to the needs and interests of my hosts. In Malaysia, I worked together with a non-governmental youth environmental group in the greater Kuala Lumpur region and an environmental research institute at a Malaysian university, helping to develop environmental education materials for use in their school programs, conducting professional development workshops for volunteers from both the university and the environmental group, giving public talks about environmental issues, and assisting at two environmental camps (one a training for adult facilitators and one for middle-school students). This was a continuation of work that I had been doing for the past two years. The school that participated in SoP was
chosen because one of the teachers who attended the adult environmental camp was enthusiastic about having her class take part.
In Chile and Brazil, I was more of an observer than a participant. My participation in Brazil was limited to giving talks about Australia, Greenland and Malaysia to students for a Brazilian English teacher’s classes, and doing an invited presentation about science communication at a workshop for polar researchers from Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. In Chile, I facilitated a class for students who were studying to become English teachers at a local university, and did two presentations about Malaysia and Greenland to Grade 6 and 7 students at a small private school that participated in the project.
I made two visits to Greenland, the first one for three months and the second one for three weeks. During my first visit, I spent almost every school day as an observer in the Grade 6 and 7 science classrooms, and served as an informal science advisor to two teachers who were developing and testing an ecosystems unit of instruction for their students. I also facilitated some classroom science activities with the students, and gave a presentation about the project for the parents. Most of the student interactions with the schools in other countries took place while I was in Greenland, so the majority of my direct observations of how the students participated and reacted to the project are from that perspective. One of the Greenland teachers also served as the “host” for the web conferences with the other schools.
Figure 5. Sharing our Planet project development process
Data Collection
During my time in each country, in addition to helping with the overall SoP project coordination and working on the country-specific projects, I collected more data through observation, semi-structured interviews (conducted in either English or Spanish), and informal conversations with key project facilitators and participants. The interviews were done with adults (university student level or older). While it would have been ideal to include interviews with younger students, this was not practicable because of the complicated ethics approvals needed for working directly with children.
In general, the interview questions were similar to those asked of the IPY EOC respondents to investigate their opinions about the positive and negative aspects of using English as a lingua franca and to get their suggestions for ways to improve cross-
linguistic and intercultural communication. However, I also asked the questions, “In your opinion, how important is it for children in your country to learn to communicate in English?” and “Why do you believe this?” It must be remembered, of course, that most of the people interviewed (with the exception of two Spanish speakers) were at least
conversant in English, so their opinions may give English learning a higher degree of importance than many other people in the country would have.
In Malaysia, some data were also collected by means of a written survey of 52 teachers, university students and government employees who were attending an
environmental camp. In this case, they had the option of answering the questions in either Malay or English. Thirty of the respondents chose to answer in Malay, and their answers were translated to English by a fully bilingual staff member from the environmental group. This person had also translated the original survey from English into Malay after consultation with me and two other Malaysian staff members.
Twenty-three respondents of a similar survey at the South American polar
research workshop were given the option of answering in Portuguese, Spanish or English. For this survey, I prepared the English and Spanish versions, and it was translated into Portuguese by a Brazilian English teacher who was also involved in polar education. The Spanish version was also reviewed and approved by an Argentinean researcher before the survey was handed out to workshop participants. Ten people chose to answer in English, six in Portuguese and six in Spanish. One person used a combination of English and Spanish.
When talking with scientists and social science researchers, I also explored the issues of the impact of English dominance on academic research and publishing, because this was something that had emerged quite prominently during the initial IPY interviews. I believe the answers to these questions may have important implications for education, especially in the fields of science and environmental studies.
The Role of English in the Countries Involved
The four countries had different colonial histories, as well as different attitudes and educational policies towards the English language. As a result, the level of English fluency among the students varied greatly, and this had a direct impact on the functioning of the project. It was also an issue that came up frequently in interviews, conversations, and written surveys in all four countries, so I summarise the similarities and differences among the countries and discuss my respondents’ perspectives in this section.
Malaysia. Malaysia is a multicultural, multilingual country, with three main ethnic groups: Malay (about 50%), Chinese (approximately 24%), and Indian (7%). Various indigenous groups make up another 11% of the population. Each of these groups has its own vernacular language, although Malay is the country’s only official language (One Europe, 2013).
Malaysia’s long history of British colonialism has had a major impact on the nation’s language policies. During the colonial period, English was the language of government and business, and most schooling was also in the English medium, at least in the urban centres. At the time of independence, the 1957 Constitution of Malaysia
proclaimed that Malay would be the national language, even though less than 50% of the population spoke Malay at the time (Zarrinabadi, Ketabi, & Abdi, 2014). The
Constitution gave English co-equal status for the following 10 years, or until the National Language Act of 1967 was passed (Crystal, 2007).
Malay had replaced English in all English-medium primary schools by 1978 and in all secondary schools by the early 1980s. The language policy also required all
students to obtain a credit in Malay before they could receive the Malaysian Certificate of Education, which was required in order to receive a tertiary education or obtain a
government job, and there was a gradual change to the use of Malay in all university instruction as well (MacIntyre, Clément, Dörnyei, & Noels, 1998). In the Malaysian education system today, there are national Malay-medium schools, and national-type schools (sometimes called vernacular schools), which use Mandarin Chinese or Tamil as their medium of instruction (Ali, Hamid, & Moni, 2011).
English language proficiency steadily dropped in the national schools as a consequence of the switch to Malay instruction, resulting in a generational gap and a higher rate of unemployment among Malay-educated graduates (Ali et al., 2011;
MacIntyre et al., 1998). In an attempt to address this problem, the Malaysian government introduced a policy (PPSMI) in 2003 requiring the use of English as the medium of instruction in secondary school mathematics and science (Ridge, 2004). The PPSMI was reversed in 2012, with the Ministry of Education stating that there were practical
problems implementing the policy, as well as concerns about poor examination results, and increasing polarisation between the urban and rural populations (Ali et al., 2011). This is the status of English in Malaysia today.
This policy reversal has been extremely controversial, both in terms of its justification and its potential impact on students in the future. One of my Malaysian respondents made the following observation:
So much, I think personally, is politically motivated, rather than being, being, what shall I say? What’s the word? Uh, being practical about the whole thing. You know “If I’m a nationalist, it must be in Bahasa Malaysia. If it work for me, I’m your man,” you know? It’s not practical at all. I asked this before. All these politicians, you should ask them, “Excuse me, sir,” to Mr Minister, “Where are your children studying?” “Uh, UK. Uh, US.” I rest my case. I rest my case. “So let me get this, Mr. Minister. Your children will come back English-educated and will be the boss. And those locally Malay-educated will be the executives, lower down staff, the clerical. Am I right?” [laughs] Because they studied overseas. When they come home, they expect to have a job and wear a tie and a suit and stay in a room, an air-conditioned room. Whereas those people working outside, serving people, will be those people with local education. And you will say, “Oh, because your command of English is not that good.” And you will say they cannot interact, and you will say that their presentation skills is hopeless, so, you know, what double standards that is. (NNES respondent)
In discussing language policies in India, Ricento (2010) noted a similar phenomenon. In the perceptions of many parents, education in native languages (as opposed to English) was helping to increase the socioeconomic divide among the nation’s people because English fluency was associated with social status. Students in India who had received English-medium instruction were generally middle class and had better access to higher education and, therefore, more lucrative careers.
Other Malaysian respondents in my study expressed similar views, feeling that their children would be disadvantaged if they don’t learn to speak English fluently:
My children will always, after they are in Form 5, we call it high school, they will go for the diploma in a private institution where English is the medium. I do not
send them to any government college because the language being taught is in Bahasa. And I feel a lot of my fellow countrymen, children you know, are being neglected. Because to me, English is the medium of knowledge of the world. To me. To me. Some people may be nationalist, I am nationalist, but when it comes to knowledge it’s definitely, you know, English. So when they go from
government high school, they will go to private institutions and universities. When they graduate with a diploma, I’ll send them to Australia. Each and every one of them. (NNES respondent)
On the other side of the debate, some respondents felt that children were often confused by the use of English in science and mathematics, in large part because the teachers were not fluent enough to teach effectively in English. One person commented, “The teachers are not very fluent in English. So, even if the syllabus is in English, when the teachers teach the students they still teach in Malay, in Bahasa. So, the students are becoming confused.” (NNES respondent) Another agreed with that as she spoke about her own children’s experience: “I see that my children have difficulties in really understand