Abstract
The Canadian government implemented the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program to help immigrants integrate into Canada. However, research indicates that the LINC program fails to achieve its integrative goals. Using Fairclough’s analytical concepts of genre, discourse and style, this article closely examines a unit of LINC lesson plans to understand how they advance an understanding integration among classroom stakeholders (Canadian teachers and immigrant students). The analysis reveals that the LINC curriculum proliferates inequality between Canadians and newcomers by fostering an assimilative orientation that subjugates immigrants as problematic Others. Immigrants are expected to conform to dominant Canadian ways of being and ways using language. This article calls for a rethinking of integration by identifying possibilities for resistance that could shift immigrants’ positioning and reduce discrimination. This could occur through better recognizing bias and dominance, and through acknowledging and validating newcomers’ ways of speaking and interacting.
Highlights
The Canadian government implemented the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program to help immigrants integrate into Canada
Attempting to respond to these obstacles, the Canadian government implemented the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program. This government-funded English language program is offered free to adult immigrants and aims to help “newcomers integrate into Canada and their communities” both socially and professionally (ARCHIVED - backgrounder - language instruction for newcomers to Canada [LINC] program, 2013)
Much of the recent research concerned with equality for newcomers in Canada has focused on discourses within policy at federal and provincial levels (Joshee, 2009); citizenship guides for newcomers (Gulliver, 2018; Joyce, 2014; Pashby, et al, 2013); classroom materials and textbooks used in language classes for immigrant learners (Gulliver & Thurrell, 2016); and on the use of critical pedagogies in language classes for immigrants (Chun, 2016; Guo, 2009)
Summary
The ideals of Canadian multiculturalism are under unprecedented strain in the current era of right-wing xenophobic populism. Throughout the Social Interactions unit, the immigrant language learner is guided to take responsibility to avoid miscommunication with other Canadians This is established in the culture note at the start of the unit: “It is important to be aware that your way of communicating and your perceptions can differ from those of others. The imperative form, albeit characteristic of the lesson plan genre, functions to give instructions or make commands and orders Taken together, these features of the text imply the teacher is part of the Canadian in-group that possesses the “correct” way of using language and interacting in contrast to the inferior learner, who receives instruction to minimize their deficits. Such an acknowledgment should take the form of a preface that explicitly states bias and recognizes dominance; validation should occur by question posing, where learners are invited to share their experiences and perspectives on other ways of speaking and interacting
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