The history and current reality of Australia is multilingual, and in higher education settings this multilingualism is amplified. However, over the last decade, there has been a troubling positioning of the linguistic expertise of multilingual international and domestic students in English medium higher education institutions in Australia.
This has prompted our research team to conduct a longitudinal series of small-scale reflexive classroom-based studies into the relationship between students' multilingual capabilities, academic English, and students' agency and wellbeing. Early studies have demonstrated that translation and knowledge exchange are two key processes that increase students' academic proficiency in their home language and English. More than this, engaging these processes enhances students' positive identity as valuable carriers of knowledge who can enrich their own learning and that of their peers (Heugh, Li & Song, 2017).
Building on this, the current presentation will discuss the most recent project 'Using Human Language Technology (HLT) to enhance academic integrity, inclusivity, knowledge exchange, student diversity and retention'. The primary purpose of the project was to address some of the challenges and opportunities afforded by increasing student and teacher diversity at the predominantly English-medium university through newly enhanced HLTs such as online translation tools.
Key findings include the extent of HLT use, its different functions in supporting academic activities, and implications for academic integrity. The study showed that most students, whether monolingual and domestic, or multilingual and international, have already made use of HLT outside of their university or higher education study. Many students use human translation and translation technologies to understand complex academic reading in English, and to assist in producing written responses in academic English. The shape of their multilingual repertoires and academic language proficiencies may impact the skill with which they integrate HLTs appropriately into research, writing and editing practices.
Implications for higher education institutions will be discussed, including engaging students' multiple languages and knowledges in higher education, providing inclusive English language support, and guiding staff and students in the appropriate use of HLTs to maintain academic integrity. We emphasise the need to look beyond linguistic diversity and language repertoire, and understand the contributions of and implications for diverse ways of knowing (epistemology), being (including wellbeing) and believing (including worldviews), which are often obscured in conventional approaches to university teaching and learning.
Heugh, K. (2017). Translation and Multilingual Education. In R. K. Agnihotri, A. S. Gupta & A. L. Khanna (Eds.), Trends in language teaching (pp. 19-30). Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan.
Heugh, K., French, M., Arya, V., Pham, M., Tudini, V., Billinghurst, N., Tippett, N., Chang, L., Nichols, J. & Viljoen, J-M. (2022 ftc), Translation technology in EMI higher education: translanguaging, transknowledging, academic integrity and inclusion, AILA Review.
Heugh, K., Li, X., & Song, Y. (2017). Multilingualism and translanguaging in the teaching of and through English: rethinking linguistic boundaries in an Australian University. In B. Fenton-Smith, P. Humphries & I. Walkinshaw (Eds.), English medium instruction in higher education in Asia-Pacific: issues and challenges from policy to pedagogy (pp. 259-279). Dordrecht: Springer.
