Open Collections

Hanks, Robert Kevin Austin

University of British Columbia

Many newcomers to Canada experience significant difficulties as they adjust to life in their new community, with few being more challenging than their journey to become English speakers. While Canada’s espousal of a welcoming, multicultural national identity, as well as its federally funded Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program, suggest cohesive social integration, the historical consequences of the discourse of neoliberal multiculturalism and language ideologies of monolingualism and standardization that inform the LINC program have only served to assimilate and marginalize newcomers. The disruptions that COVID-19 brought to LINC classes only further complicated and exacerbated many of the issues that newcomers were already facing. However, despite these challenges, the incorporation of digital technologies into the LINC class as a way to adjust to the reality of the pandemic has created a new space outside of the class, yet still within the LINC community, through which a transformative, translingual pedagogy has the potential to take root. With appropriate guidance, the adoption of a translingual pedagogy has the potential to both work against the problematic discourses perpetuating within Canada, as well as improve the students’ English language learning outcomes by providing increased opportunities for digital literacy socialization.

Text

2022-12-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/83425

Anthropology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/