Authors: Anneleis Humphries, Catherine Smith and Julie Choi
University of Melbourne, Australia
Edition: Volume 64, Number 3, Special Edition, November 2024
Introduction: Young people from refugee backgrounds in Australia face numerous barriers to successful tertiary education. One key challenge is developing critical literacy skills beyond basic language proficiency. Critical literacy empowers students to understand power relations, critique underlying assumptions and explore issues of belonging – factors crucial for personal and academic thriving. This practice story outlines one teacher’s attempt to empower her students with critical literacy while teaching English as an additional language in an academic English program. Students in this program are in a challenging position. They have passed through the free service to help eligible migrants and humanitarian entrants improve their English language skills and settle into Australia (Australian Migrant English Program [AMEP]). However, their English language skills are still below the level of English required in most workplaces and tertiary courses. In this story, students are engaged in the Preparation for Social Action [PSA] program which is supplementary to their core English language curriculum. PSA aligns with a Freirean education model and aims to empower students to contribute to social transformation (Freire, 2000). Through the experiences of teacher, Grace, and her students, it becomes clear that the current Australian system of supports for English language is failing these students of refugee background – literally and figuratively. The current system of supports is not equipped to bridge the gaps these students have in their education journey. The story of their experiences suggests that the pressure of family and community expectations for high achievement can undermine engagement in exercises in critical thinking and create a resistance to less familiar, less teacher- centred learning. The students give priority to academic outcomes in graded assessments over opportunities for practicing fluency and the pressures of “passing” supersede the imperatives of learning. At the end of the program, many of the students do not reach the requirements to pass the subject. Through the following story, insights into challenges and successes give examples of the promises this program fails to deliver. In discussion, we highlight the need for educational policymakers and institutions to ensure that literacy goes beyond basic reading and writing skills to achieve aspirations for education, as well as active social and political lives as informed, active citizens. We suggest that offering critical literacy, particularly for students with gaps in their education, promotes students’ critical engagement with their sociocultural environment and empowers them to contribute to individual and collective transformation.
Keywords: refugee-background learners, critical literacy
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 64:3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.