{"id":5716,"date":"2021-03-16T08:11:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T12:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/?p=5716"},"modified":"2021-03-25T10:55:42","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T14:55:42","slug":"which-english-do-you-speak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/2021\/03\/16\/which-english-do-you-speak\/","title":{"rendered":"Which English do you speak?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diversity was a central theme throughout the interviews and the answers from both alumni interviews I read coincide with one another in one crucial aspect \u2013 what is missing from their answers\u00a0. They were asked about opportunities they had to learn about cultures and values other than their own. One alum said: \u201cmost of the stuff was probably focused on the main couple of cultural, religious groups, which was mostly \u2013 we had a lot of Chinese students, so the Chinese New Year was a big thing that they talked about.\u201d The other said: \u201cthey had Chinese New Year festivals every year, they had other events that celebrated other cultures a lot\u2026 even at my campus we had a French day where people got crepes, like it was a celebration of the French language.\u00a0And then we also had Japanese day where people had bento boxes and sushi. A fair few kids from an Indian, Sri Lankan background, and then pretty much, just all the kind of standard, Aussie, white kids.” Their interviews both point out that was mostly at another campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While these seem like inclusionary statements, it is important to note that one of the alums clarified their school “had over 50 or 60 different cultures.\u201d Their responses don\u2019t come anywhere near this number, but both alumni state how important the diversity aspect is to their school. Only a handful of cultures were addressed out of the dozens that make up the student body, grouping international students together in a non-representative way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Farnham Writers\u2019 Center at Colby is an incredibly valuable resource, as it provides students with guidance in academic writing. For some international students, this could prove itself to be crucial as writing conventions may vary greatly from country to country, not to mention the necessity of adaptation to writing in a language different than what one might be used to. The Writers\u2019 Center attempted to go to further lengths to provide appropriate help to each student in the form of a few questions on class standing, major, and language proficiency. The language question was: \u201cAre you an international student or a non-native speaker?\u201d, with a click down yes or no answer option.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This implies an equivalent between being an international student and a non-native speaker, which would require a different level of support in writing. My roommate is from India \u2013 she has multiple native languages, including English and has done all of her schooling in English. For me, this would also be a tricky question as I had done years of academic writing in English. Including this question insinuates that all international students might need help regarding their proficiency which can lead to implicit misconceptions that could potentially hinder the efficiency of the tutoring session. It has since been changed to: \u201cFirst or home language,\u201d which includes a variety of language options, which will allow the tutors to be more informed about how to assist the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International students are not a homogenous mass, so diversity is not being appropriately addressed just by its mere existence within an institution. By approaching it as such would be to contradict the very concept of diversity within an institution. Further, it could hinder the student\u2019s progress in their education, as well as the institution\u2019s capability to assist them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Diversity was a central theme throughout the interviews and the answers from both alumni interviews I read coincide with one another in one crucial aspect \u2013 what is missing from their answers\u00a0. They were asked about opportunities they had to learn about cultures and values other than their own. One alum said: \u201cmost of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10223,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[190465],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5716"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5849,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716\/revisions\/5849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}