Research indicates that the limited communication between English as a Second
Language (ESL) teachers and parents is a serious problem confronting educators.
However, no serious study has been done to date on ESL parent-teacher communication
that adequately recognizes the problematic nature of such communication and that
approaches the discourse data from a functional linguistic perspective.
This study investigates the communication processes between ESL teachers and
Chinese immigrant parents (chiefly from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China)
through a focal communication event, ESL Parents' Night, when they discuss their views
of an ESL program in particular and the education of immigrant adolescent students in
general. The study falls within the theoretical perspectives of learning organization,
negotiation of intercultural conflict in a multilingual situation, language socialization, and
sociocultural views of activity. Data were collected by multiple methods: 1) observations
of twelve ESL department planning meetings and three annual Parents' Nights, 2)
individual interviews of teachers and bilingual assistants who acted as intermediaries
between teachers and parents, and 3) a focus group discussion. Specifically, the
methodology combines qualitative research approaches and discourse analysis.
Results indicate that teachers viewed the ESL program positively whereas many
parents perceived it negatively. Teachers and parents were deeply divided both by what
and how they were discussing at Parents' Night. This 'double difference' creates a major
difficulty for intercultural negotiation of conflict, and preconditions aiding dialogue and
negotiation become vitally important. Noting variation in interaction in different parts of
Parents' Night, the study discusses various conditions that may have promoted or
hindered the intercultural negotiation of these conflicts. The researcher's analysis of the
difficulties of communication between Chinese parents and Canadian teachers at Parents'
Night demonstrates less a solution to intercultural conflict than a need for continuous
negotiation between the two cultural groups.
Implications of this research include the need to expand the boundaries of language
socialization theory to give a greater role to reflective processes, and learning organization
theory to include multilingual and multicultural issues. It also provides practical
suggestions for improving intercultural communication between parents and teachers in
the interest of adolescent ESL learners frequently caught between conflicting sets of
attitudes and expectations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/13071 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Guo, Yan |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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