Valuing English: An Ethnography of a Federal Language Training Program for Adult Immigrants

by Laura Cleghorn

| Table of Contents/Chapter 1 |  Chapter 2  |  Chapter 3  |  Chapter 4  |  Conclusion  |

My dad didn’t take ESL classes, he always worked, and got by.

I think it’s more difficult now. There are more conditions put on

newcomers, more expectations.

Interview with Lucy, ESL literacy instructor.

Lucy notes that, in comparison to her father’s generation, there are greater "conditions" and "expectations" placed on immigrants and refugees today. She says that her father worked and "got by" without the benefit of English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Lucy’s comment raises questions about the investment of the state and other players in the provision of English as a second language training for adult immigrants. It is the nature of these investments--how the federal government has funded and formed ESL programs for adult immigrants--and the conditions and expectations that go along with it, that are the focus of this chapter. The chapter will consider the history of language training for adult immigrants, and the way it has been organized federally and provincially to arrive at the implementation of LINC. I will then consider how LINC was received by community groups and scholars involved in the field of ESL for adult immigrants.

Advocacy groups for immigrants, ESL scholars, and teachers all have various interests in ESL, and among them are many ideas about the place and purpose of English language learning and its relationship to the settlement and integration of adult immigrants. Some of these positions will be examined with respect to the present structure of federal language training policy to explore the conflicts and contestations that are taking place in the field of ESL for adult immigrants. Finally, I am interested in how the federal organization of ESL for adult immigrants reveals dominant ideologies about learning the English language and immigrant integration.

This chapter will outline the discourses about language and immigration that make up the field of ESL for adult immigrants. The ESL programming that is provided by the federal government is shaped by nationalist objectives. The program is a form of language policy where the goal is the linguistic integration of non-official language speaker. The history of how these language policies have changed over time will be explored to see that who language training is for, and for what purposes, has changed over time and now shapes the current program in interesting ways. The mandates of the federal programs have, over time, shifted from a focus on training for citizenship and employment purposes to a more generalized function of language training for the purposes of settlement and integration. This chapter considers the larger social processes and ideologies that inform the LINC program, and sets the stage for the next chapter, which will look at how the discourses that make the LINC program manifest themselves in a local setting.

The Canadian government has been interested in providing basic training in English for immigrants for the past fifty years. Federally-funded English language training was introduced in 1947, at the same time as the Citizenship Act. In the decade after the Second World War, Canada accepted large numbers of immigrants and refugees. At that time, language training was established as part of a basic course in citizenship for new immigrants arriving in Canada. Ciccarelli (1997) argues that the introduction of both an immigrant language training programs and the Citizenship Act at the same moment points to the nation’s interest in creating national unity in the post-war era, in an effort to encourage assimilation and keep Canada white, Anglo-Saxon, and English-speaking.

In spite of the 1867 British North America Act that recognized the English and the French as Canada’s "two founding peoples," Canada’s postwar immigration policy worked to bolster the anglophone population of the country. Although 20 percent of the immigrants arriving to Canada to the 1950s settled in Quebec, very few of them were francophones, and in general, newcomers identified with and assimilated to anglophone culture rather than that of francophone Quebec (Wayland, 1997, p. 43). With the advent of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec in the 1960s and 1970s, the province implemented a series of social, political, and institutional reforms. In the late 1960s, for example, the province began to negotiate with the federal government to control the selection and integration of immigrants. In this way, the Quebec government began to utilize immigration as a means of increasing its francophone population. Prior to Quebec’s control over immigration beginning in the 1960s, however, language training for adult immigrants was English only. Federal English as a Second Language classes were intended for basic level preparation for citizenship; the curriculum focussed on Canadian "habits and attitudes," giving the program a strong Anglo-Canadian assimilationist thrust (Ciccarelli, 1997, p. 22).

Since the focus of the first federal language training programs for immigrants was on citizenship, it was the Department of Citizenship and Immigration that was responsible for funding the classes. Under the federal government, the financial responsibility for language training has expanded from one department to two over the past 50 years, and the administration of ESL training has linked up to different areas in the process. In 1965, the Department of Manpower and Immigration assumed the costs of language training only for those in the labour force; immigrants who were not destined for the labour force were ineligible. Given the booming economy and the high levels of immigration at this time, the federal government wanted a say in training immigrants for the labour force. The Department of the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Citizenship Branch, was responsible for the smaller portion of the language classes under the Citizenship Act for persons not destined for the labour force.

By the mid-1980s, the provision of language training in two streams had continued with the majority of funding still going toward the classes linked to the labour market. In 1985, under the auspices of the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission, the Canadian Jobs Strategy Program was introduced. It received 90% of federal funding for labour market training, but it also introduced the Settlement Language Program, for general orientation, with 10% of its funding. In 1990 the Secretary of State’s agreement with the provinces to provide language training for citizenship preparation was cancelled, leaving the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission the only provider of federal language training classes for either general orientation or labour market language training. From this point, language training was no longer linked up with citizenship preparation.

The federal programs for ESL over the past 50 years show that the state is concerned with at least two reasons for promoting ESL for immigrants. First, the greater distribution of funds to language training for labour market purposes since the mid-1960s indicates that the state at that time was most interested in preparing immigrants for work. The common sense term, language training, as it is referred to most frequently, points to an important distinction. The term "training" distinguishes these ESL programs from "education" for a few reasons. Until the implementation of the LINC program, the majority of language training programs had been administered by the federal departments responsible for labour and immigration. It is only by linking ESL for adult immigrants with the labour market, through the provision of "training," that the federal government can maneuver around the fact that constitutionally education is under the jurisdiction of the provinces (Burnaby, 1998, p. 249). If learning English is understood as "training," the acquisition of English is understood as a skill that is presumably required in order to work. The distinction of ESL as "training" rather than as "education" has further ideological implications as well, because this way ESL falls under social welfare provision for refugees and immigrants, rather than part of the broader "education" system for Canada’s citizens.

Historically, the government’s secondary interest in providing ESL programs has been language training in preparation for citizenship. Language training in this case is taught as "orientation" to Canada, where the immigrant is taught what he or she needs to know about Canada in order to pass a citizenship test. The test requires that the immigrant relay his or her knowledge about Canada in an oral or written test, as well as demonstrate some proficiency in one of the country’s official languages. Once again, the federal government can maintain that this is "training" because learning English as a second language is instrumental to preparing for citizenship. While demonstration of linguistic proficiency in one of the official languages is still a requirement of citizenship, the federal government has since abandoned the provision of language training for that particular end, as mentioned above. The need for language training for general orientation and the labour market won out over the rather hopeful proposition that linguistic competence in English and declaring one’s allegiance to the nation could be accomplished in one easy step. In both of these rationales for the provision of language training, whether ESL programs are funded by the government for purposes of citizenship or labour market training, the acquisition of the English language is seen as a tool that is necessary to attain the goal at hand, be it a job or citizenship.

In both cases outlined above, English language training is viewed as a resource that provides access to either the symbolic value of citizenship or the material value of labour. Language training programs associated with citizenship preparation were eventually abandoned, which signals an interesting shift in how language is figured as a resource. A 1996 federal document about provincial and federal consultations on settlement and integration services discussed whether citizenship should be a "shared principle" of newcomer integration. The majority of participants in the consultation did not feel that becoming a Canadian citizen was a priority in the settlement and integration process (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 1996c). The symbolic value of becoming a citizen has become less of a priority for immigrant integration, and the funding for language training specifically for the purposes of a citizenship test was found to be better spent on programs with a focus on the labour force or general orientation. General orientation does prepare for citizenship as well, in that it is believed that increased English language skills will result in social, civic, and economic participation in Canadian society. But the general orientation programs focus on citizenship in a much less instrumental way that the previous citizenship preparation program, where the goal of the program is the citizenship test itself.

While citizenship preparation was the impetus for language training in 1947, the change reflects how a federal objective inspired by nationalism is not nearly as highly valued by the immigrants and refugees themselves, nor by those working in the settlement and integration sector. The federal decision to drop language training for purposes of citizenship has, most likely, economic interests as well. In the 1990s, the federal government was designing the next language training programs for adult immigrants focusing on training for the labour market and general orientation in an effort to centralize where the money for training was going. The various rationales for language training programs suggested here will be explored later in the chapter in relation to how linguistic competence is understood to facilitate "integration" as a measure of economic, civic, and/or social participation with the dominant culture. Next, however, it is important to outline the changing relationship between the federal government and the provinces to see how the responsibility for language training for adult immigrants is shared.

Since the British North America Act in 1867, immigration was pronounced a joint responsibility of the federal and provincial governments. While the federal government has taken some responsibility for language training over the last half century, the provinces had been responsible for the administration of broader settlement services until settlement was recognized as a federal responsibility in the 1970s. Prior to federal sponsorship of these programs, settlement services were provided by voluntary organizations such as community centres, ethnic organizations, church groups, and women’s organizations. In 1973 the federal department of Manpower and Immigration initiated a study of settlement needs to establish a settlement policy. The policy came to fruition in 1979 when the department began the Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program (ISAP), which provided funding for settlement services.

ISAP and LINC remain the two sources of federal funding for settlement services today. Provincially, Ontario offered the Ontario Settlement and Integration Program which provided funding for general settlement assistance (counseling, translation), and language training, as well as training for settlement workers and volunteers. In 1997, however, the program was replaced by the Newcomer Settlement Program which provides general assistance, orientation, and referral, but no longer funds ESL training. The federal government has only provided funding for settlement since 1978, and it was, until the LINC program, always seen as a set of services separate from language training. With the introduction of the LINC program, however, a shift occurred where language training began to be considered more broadly as a component of settlement, rather than purely for the purposes of vocational training or citizenship preparation. This shift cements ESL for adult immigrants to the realm of social welfare--it is now directly linked to settlement and integration services.

The provision of provincial and federal ESL programs have always operated as separate entities. The provinces run their own ESL programs under provincial ministries, the names and configurations of which change with the frequent changes in provincial and federal governance. In the late 1980s in Ontario, for example, provincial ESL programs were available through the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, the Ministry of Citizenship, and the Ministry of Skills Development. Now, the latter department is no more, and ESL is provided by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. In Ontario in the 1960s and beyond, the community colleges profited well from the provincial ESL programs, as well as from the federal interest in language training for labour market preparation.¹ The federal department responsible for the training purchased courses from the provincially-run colleges. As a result, college ESL programs developed substantially, as did the ESL profession and teacher training. The provincial provision of ESL is housed most commonly within educational institutions, and so apparently would be linked to the realm of education, while the federal provision of it (a much smaller program by comparison) is linked up to immigration. In this way, ESL is understood as "training" and deemed one in a number of services that is part of settlement and integration. The provision of ESL is organized provincially and federally, but in all cases each ministry or federal department works separately and independently from the others. While other provinces, such as Manitoba and British Columbia, have managed to coordinate their provincial and federal programs to work together, Ontario has not. This means that there is more possibility of overlap and duplication in services; more importantly, it also means that there is more possibility of gaps and absences where services are needed.

The federal government’s provision of ESL for adult immigrants solely for the purposes of citizenship and the labour market preparation has generally fallen short of the need for ESL according to advocacy groups for immigrants and refugees, and practitioners and scholars in the field of ESL. The more detailed reasons for these critiques will be explored shortly, but one of main reasons is simply a matter of demand, due to the changes in the management of Canada’s immigration policy. Canada has seen large numbers of migrants arrive in Canada after the World Wars and at other times in the last century: in the 1920s mainly Eastern European immigrants settled here, and there were peaks in immigration in the late 1950s and the mid-1970s due in part to large numbers of refugees, where the annual levels went above 200, 000 arrivals (Elliot & Fleras, 1990, p. 60). In the last decade, the government has responded to the drop in the nation’s birth rates, out-migration, and labour shortages by augmenting immigration levels from an annual rate of approximately 125 000 immigrants and refugees per year in the 1980s to arrivals of approximately 225 000 immigrants and refugees each year in the 1990s (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 1996a). The actual numbers of immigrants and refugees settling in Canada frequently fall short of the proposed targets, perhaps due to bureaucratic backlogs.

Changes in the management of immigration policy resulted in the introduction of the "points system" in 1967, further modified in 1976. This was an attempt to change Canada’s ethnocentric and racist immigration policies that operated by selecting immigrants from "preferred" countries and prohibited the acceptance of immigrants and refugees who were "undesirable" for one reason or another, be it because of their nationality, ethnicity, race, or area of origin (Elliot & Fleras, 1990, p. 56). The "points system" is based on criteria such as education, occupation, and language skills. Three classes of immigrants were also established at this time (family, economic [business or skilled worker], and refugee). The recognition of a refugee class was an important part of the Immigration Act that was passed in 1976 and implemented in 1978. Prior to this, Canada accepted refugees only on an ad hoc basis (Hawkins, 1991, p. 174). These changes to immigration policies and regulations all contributed to increased migration from "Third World" countries and historically "non-conventional countries of origin" (Elliot & Fleras, p. 57). By 1987, 70% of immigrants and refugees came from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin and South America, while 30% derived from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe (Boyd & Taylor, 1989). The source countries of immigrant and refugees arriving to Canada now are very similar to those of a decade ago. In 1998, 46% of the immigrants to Canada were from Asia and the Pacific; 22% from Africa and the Middle East; 22% from the United States and Europe, and 8.1% from South and Central America (CIC, 1998b).

Since these changes to immigration policy and regulations, Canada’s policy has demanded greater numbers of economic immigrants (skilled workers and business class comprising investors and entrepreneurs), and there has been a decrease in the numbers of family class migrants and in the demand for unskilled workers. Canada, along with other "first world" nations, has played a large role as a refugee-receiving nation. This is the third group of migrants in Canada’s policy, people who may be fleeing from political instability, civil war, or similar effects of colonization and globalization. The result is that "third world" countries are mined for the benefits of the "first world," leaving them resource poor and struggling with poverty and violence. While significant numbers of European refugees entered Canada following the Second World War, the country accepted an average of only 10 000 refugees per year until the late 1980s, when global political and economic conditions contributed to regular and more numerous flows of people seeking asylum and refuge. Since then, the refugee class accounts for approximately 10% of total annual immigration to Canada, that is, 20 000 - 28 000 refugees per year in the 1990s (Richmond, 1994, p. 256). Citizenship and Immigration Canada states that the number of refugee claimants has increased from 500 in 1977 to 24 000 in 1997 (CIC; 1998a).

With the increases in immigration levels and changes to immigration policy and regulations, the late 1980s and 1990s saw more migrants coming to Canada from Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa. The linguistic repertoires of the "newcomers" to Canada vary greatly, as do their levels of education and literacy. Each year the federal government publishes annual immigration overviews that tabulate the numbers of immigrants and refugees (adults and children) arriving in Canada by "language ability." The numbers show that in the refugee class, about 45% of the refugees arriving to Canada from 1994 - 1998 speak neither official language. The averages are a little bit higher in the family class, at an average of 55% of family class applicants speaking neither official language. The most interesting result of these tabulations reveals that in the business class the percentages are very much the same. When tabulated for the principal applicant’s language ability, the percentages per year hover around 50%, and when the language ability of the principal applicant is assessed to include that of his or her dependents, the averages rise to show that 60% of the immigrants in the business class do not know either official language (CIC, 1996d; CIC, 1998c).

The CIC Immigration Overviews reveal that approximately half of all immigrants and refugees arriving in Canada since 1994 - 1998 do not speak English or French. Notable too, is the fact that the other half, about 40%, do speak English, with only 10% or less speaking French (CIC, 1996d; CIC, 1998c). The English language ability of the business class, however, is of little concern because the economic status of these immigrants takes care of the "problem" of integration. The business class of immigrants, however, is certainly not the target group of the LINC program. Their status as business immigrants ensures their labour market participation, and I argue, also ensures that they will be deemed "integrated" on the basis of their economic contribution, regardless of their official language skills. It is the family and refugee classes who are the targets and recipients of ESL programs for adult immigrants because their immigrant status does not secure economic integration as the status of the business class does. For the adult immigrants in the refugee and family classes, the "problem" of integration is not solved by labour force participation. Indeed, the labour force participation of this group is not guaranteed, thus other measures of and systems for integration are considered necessary. "Language ability" emerges as a major focus and factor of immigrant integration that, for the family and refugee classes, will be the first step toward the goal of economic integration.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, then, the labour-force orientation of the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission (CEIC) ESL programs was deemed too narrowly focussed for the increasing numbers of family and refugee class migrants who were arriving in Canada. Advocacy groups for immigrants and refugees, teachers of ESL, and scholars in the field critiqued the language programs offered by Canada Employment and Immigration Commission on the grounds of exclusion. The labour force bias of the programs prevented many immigrant women from participating in ESL programs. Paredes (1987) and Giles (1988) argue that the CEIC sponsored language program of the 1980s systematically discriminated against immigrant women. The Settlement Language Program, devised as a precursor to the LINC program and introduced in 1985 by Employment and Immigration Canada, was a response to these challenges and was designed specifically for immigrant women (Burnaby, 1998, p. 250). Because it was a pilot program, the funding for it was a meager 10%; the other 90% went to the Canadian Jobs Strategy program. Criticisms of the CEIC language training program continued, however, to focus on the labour force bias of the programs (Boyd, 1992) and on the gendered and raced discriminatory practices of CEIC employees who controlled access to the program (Doherty, 1992).

The introduction of LINC, Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada, in 1991 was not just a response to the pressures put on the government by advocacy groups, it was also a convenient opportunity to restructure the organization and funding of language training for adult immigrants. The LINC program signals a major shift in the provision of ESL because for the first time the majority of the funding is designated for general "instruction," not labour-market orientation or citizenship classes. The Immigration Plan for 1991 - 1995 introduced changes to federal language training that would alter the balance of funding to favour general orientation over labour-oriented language classes. When the program was implemented in June 1992 by Employment and Immigration Canada, LINC received 80% of the funding dollars and 20% went to corresponding Labour Market Language Training (LMLT) program. With the change in federal governance from the Conservative party to the Liberals in October 1993, the department responsible for immigration was renamed to become the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. LINC and LMLT moved from the department responsible for employment to that of immigration under the direction of the Settlement Branch, the department which funds the programs today.

A 1992 framework study of LINC issued by Employment and Immigration Canada acknowledges that previous language programs were for market purposes only, hence the need for language training "for broader settlement and integration objectives" (Shane, 1992, p.1). The principle objective of the LINC program is "to provide language training in order to facilitate [newcomers’] social, cultural, economic, and political integration into Canada so that they may become participatory members of Canadian society as quickly as possible" (p.1). The goal of the program was to increase participation of immigrants in federal language training programs from 28% in 1991-1992 to 45% by 1995. The government wanted to devise a language training program that would reach more newly-arrived immigrants and refugees more quickly; at the same time, the program had to be "cost-effective" in this period of severe federal cut-backs.

The plan for LINC was carried on by the new Liberal government in 1993. As mentioned above, the colleges were benefiting financially from both federal and provincial ESL programs. The government saw that some of the federal expenditures on language training could be cut if the program were opened up to competition on the market. The shift here from "public" service to "private" service is part of the larger trend of privatization of services in Canada in the early 1990s, and also signals the dissolution of the welfare state. The federal language training program was offered on a contract basis, open for application by businesses, non-profit groups, NGOs, community groups, and educational institutions. The federal government characterizes the devolution of responsibility for federal programs to the provinces as "partnerships." The LINC program is an example of this, where the funds come from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, but the administration and development of the program is the responsibility of the province. The devolution of federal responsibility for language training is part of a larger project of "Settlement Renewal" initiated in 1994, with the aim of transferring direct administration for settlement services for integration back to the provinces. The rationale is that this arrangement allows for "partners" to administer services who are "more closely connected to the communities where these services are delivered" (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 1996c, p.2). LINC was an early step in the development of this settlement partnership in Ontario, which is effectively the devolution of federal responsibility and administration of another branch of social services and welfare provision that was under federal jurisdiction. Interestingly, the "Settlement Renewal" process in Ontario has been at a standstill for a number of years. It appears that Ontario and Ottawa have reached a stalemate in negotiations to indicate that the planned devolution is creating some problems between the federal and provincial governments. With the LINC program structured as it is, however, language training remains to be the primary settlement service provided by the federal government.

With the introduction of LINC the government declared a renewed commitment to federal language training, with increases of $200 million dollars in funding from 1991 - 1995, and a corresponding increase in training seats for immigrants (Employment and Immigration Canada, 1991b). The LINC program was introduced to make more training available for more immigrants and refugees as quickly as possible. The early LINC documents say that it is the government’s intention to get immigrants and refugees into the program within the first year of their arrival in Canada. The focus on immediate training for immigrants means that the program is only open to Convention Refugees and landed immigrants/permanent residents; Canadian citizens (francophone, allophone, the Aboriginal population), and refugee claimants are not eligible. The strict guidelines that dictate who may enter the program delimits the government definition of "immigrant" to the most recently arrived, so that language training for immigrants who have become citizens is the responsibility of the provincial ESL system. The government has opened up the program to be accessible by those without labour market intentions, but at the same time restricts the definition of who an immigrant is by defining those eligible for training as "newcomers."

The word "newcomer" first appeared as a term to refer to immigrants after the Second World War. The previous terms that were used in public and political discourse, such as "foreigner," "alien," and "DP" (displaced person), were replaced by "newcomer" at this time (Ciccarelli, 1997, p. 3) The shift in terminology signals a shift in ideology. The explicit threat posed by "aliens" and "foreigners" who must be assimilated is softened. The term "newcomer" emphasizes the newly-arrived status of immigrants, and seems to imply that they are not threatening but "new" and perhaps a bit naïve about Canadian ways. The "newcomer" moniker suggests that the immigrant is a blank slate ready to begin the process of integration. The discursive construction of "newcomers" as such puts a friendlier face on immigration, and follows in line with Canada’s more recent attempts to erase overt racist discourse from its immigration policy. Simmons asserts that the effects of the effort to remove racist discourse from immigration policy is twofold: while it promotes some tolerance, it can also produce covert racist discourse couched in economic terms (1998, p. 98). In LINC policy, the term "newcomer" is used to categorize who is eligible for language training, and carries with it ideological implications that paint a positive picture of the ideal new-to-Canada immigrant subject.

The "newcomer" arriving in Canada has the option of attending a LINC program, but they are offered only in English, and only outside of Quebec. There are no LINC programs in French or English in Quebec, although there are ESL classes in Quebec intended for the non-immigrant population. According to the Canada-Quebec accord, completed in 1991, Quebec manages its own immigration policies, and is not under federal jurisdiction. The province receives direct financial compensation from the federal government. Quebec selects its own immigrants, and is entirely responsible for linguistic and cultural settlement services. Immigrant populations are provided with FSL classes. The English-only focus of the LINC program means that for those populations outside of Quebec who might want access to French as a Second Language classes there are just a few provincial FSL programs.² The distribution of federal funds to language training programs does not recognize the second of Canada’s two official languages outside of the province of Quebec. This may be the result of a lack of demand for FSL programs outside of Quebec, but this explanation suggests that consumer demand is the only contingency that determines the provision of services. It is possible that the relationship between the provision and organization of ESL and FSL services in Canada is structured by elements that are more complicated than this.

While the federal English language training program is not available to any Canadian citizens (francophone or allophone), or refugee claimants, a 1991 document explains that the new immigrant language training policy "will make a range of more flexible options accessible to a greater number of immigrants, regardless of their labour market intentions" (Employment and Immigration Canada, 1991b, p.3). The LINC program recognizes and makes provisions for women and single parents by including childminding services as part of the program, and the policy specifically acknowledges the necessity to provide support for childminding and transportation so that more women can access the program (p.3). A training allowance, however, is not provided, as in the previous CEIC program. Instead, immigrants and refugees can continue to receive social assistance, employment insurance, and adjustment assistance (for refugees) while in the program. In a study of Level 3 LINC classes in Ontario, the researchers found that the provision of child minding services is increasing the participation of women and single parents, thus they assert that LINC program has improved the exclusion of women and single parents from federal language training on this basis (Hart & Cumming, 1997).

One of the major effects of the move to make LINC a contract-based program was that it broke down the unionized status and income security of ESL teachers who were somewhat protected by the (public) college system. Under the LINC program, each "SPO" (Service Provider Organization) creates its own budget. The organization can choose to hire full time or part time teachers, and can determine, within a range, what the teachers get paid. There is no job security when the contracts are only on a yearly basis, when the twelve month contract includes two months of unpaid holidays, and when full time work is difficult to obtain. LINC has contributed to the destabilization of the working conditions of ESL instructors. The impact of LINC severely challenges the status of the ESL profession, and similar moves have resulted in the loss of job security for ESL teachers in the provincial system as well. In the provincial college system, for example, ESL is now offered both as "credit" and "non-credit" courses. As a result, non-certified teachers can be employed at less cost to the institution.

The conditions of work of ESL teachers in both provincial and federal programs in Ontario are seriously at odds with comparable positions held by teachers of for-credit programs in the school and college systems. A survey of ESL and LINC programs in Ontario notes that teachers at schools and colleges have long-term stability, reasonable pay, good benefits, and union protection. The same is not true for ESL and LINC teachers. Only a third of the teachers surveyed have permanent status, only half were in unions, and 40% had no benefits (Power Analysis, Inc., 1998, p. 62-66). The status of ESL and LINC teachers is so much lower than that of other teachers because, for one reason, ESL is regarded as a form of social welfare provision for immigrants and refugees, and is not valued as "education." There is a relationship here between the status of the students of immigrant language training programs and that of the people who teach them that is ideological in nature. Both the students and the teachers of ESL for adult immigrants occupy marginalized positions within the social hierarchies that structure ESL as a form of education and work. The field is occupied mostly by women, which suggests that the larger social processes of gender discrimination might work in concert with the "social services" status of the program to devalue the work of the staff and the educational pursuits of the students, as I will explore in the next chapter.

In spite of the blows that the ESL teaching profession has received as a result of the negative changes in the conditions of employment over the past decade, various regulatory bodies have been developed to increase the status and legitimacy of the profession. A number of provincial, national, and international professional organizations, such as TESL Ontario (Teachers of English as a Second Language of Ontario) and TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) are interested in and working on the standardization of certification of ESL teachers. In fact, by the year 2000, TESL Ontario intends to function as a certification body for adult ESL instructors (Sanaoui, 1998, p, 10). The latter initiative is not an independent one on the part of TESL Ontario, however, as it was the provincial government that instigated the development of the certification project. The interest of the government in doing so is to assert "quality control" over the field of ESL, regardless of the rather miserable conditions of employment and remuneration of ESL professionals (B. Burnaby, personal communication, October 19, 1999). While professional standards are increasing, the competition for jobs and the working conditions of those jobs are not seeing a comparable increase in standards. The LINC program, however, seems to have established a good reputation and status among ESL teachers. A number of teachers told me that it is high in the hierarchy of programs to teach in the ESL profession. A good reputation is accorded to LINC because it is one ESL program where it is possible to obtain year-long full-time work. There may also be symbolic value to attributed to LINC because of its association with government efforts to standardize certain aspects of the profession and develop "quality" ESL, which might lend legitimacy and authority to the LINC program.

The efforts to standardize the professional requirements of ESL instructors are accompanied by efforts to create a standardized measure of ESL proficiency. Part of the mandate of the LINC program was to standardize an ESL client assessment "tool" and develop a standard set of ESL proficiency criteria. In 1996, the department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) consulted with an advisory group of experts to create the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB), a set of task-based descriptive levels in three areas: reading, writing and speaking/listening. The advisory group developed a benchmark assessment tool which is used to place clients in the appropriate level of LINC. There is also a set of benchmarks for literacy learners. In 1998, Citizenship and Immigration Canada formed the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks in Ottawa. The Centre works to promote the CLB system to other ESL providers, and sponsors research projects on adult language training. The Canadian Language Benchmarks are intended to provide "consistency of outcome, assessment, and competencies" (CIC, 1996b).

The government’s interest in developing ESL teacher certification, the language benchmarks, the assessment tool, and the Centre is an interest in becoming a regulatory body to manage and control the assessment of and access to federal ESL programs. Perhaps the most contested aspect of the LINC program by workers and scholars in the field at its inception was the insistence of CIC to maintain centralized control of the assessment and referral of LINC clients. Since the program was introduced, groups and individuals involved with LINC have argued that the centralized assessment and referral system hinders delivery of the program for a number of reasons. One of the most frequent complaints was that the service providers often found the assessors’ ranking of the clients did not match the levels present in their classrooms (see Baril, 1993; Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants [OCASI], 1993). There have been improvements in this area. When LINC was implemented quickly, poorly, and unpreparedly, there simply was no uniform assessment tool, hence the development of the Canadian Language Benchmarks Assessment. But CIC has refused to rescind any control of the assessment and referral procedures.

The government control of access to the program is convenient: LINC was designed to increase the number of immigrants and refugees in language training program, and the centralized referral system ensures that CIC regulates access to the program. By opening up the federal program to community based organizations, school boards, colleges, private businesses, and others, the service providers perform the function of outreach to the local community. The client makes contact with the local centre, then he or she must be assessed at a CIC LINC Assessment Centre (A-LINC),which may or may not be in the client’s community, and is referred to an appropriate service provider. The A-LINC assessors do make fairly frequent visits to the local service providers for assessment as well. What this system does, then, is incite competition for clients among the service providers, who are competing to market their services to the CLBA raters. The competition for clients extends to the bids for the LINC program, where the competition between providers creates budget proposals that try to squeeze in "the most students at the lowest price" (Baril, 1993, p. 24).

A further critique has been leveled at this form of administration of the LINC program. Contrary to the policy statements of LINC that ensure an increase in language training opportunities for immigrants and refugees, the contract-based organization of the program has resulted in school boards and colleges replacing their ESL programs with LINC. The provincial service providers have jumped on the federal bandwagon, which means that there are fewer programs for citizens. The Director of an immigrant serving organization in Scarborough, notes that it is the issue of incrementality, the failure to increase in the number of language training seats, that is the greatest concern to herself and her colleagues in the field of language training for adult immigrants (personal communication, January 27, 1998). She asserts that LINC contracts to school boards and colleges outnumber those for community-based organizations in Toronto.

The LINC program offers language training for basic communication, with hopes that it will prepare immigrants for the next step, be it Labour Market Language Training (LMLT), further education, or employment. The strongest critique of the LINC program, voiced immediately at its inception, is that the program falls short of the primary goals stated above. When the program began, there were three levels of classes offered. Joan Baril, in her province-wide study of the program in 16 sites and 10 cities in 1992, argues that the language level where LINC leaves off is too low: "[t]his is not enough English to take an apprenticeship . . . go on to college or university, arrange schooling for one’s children, or in fact, take any meaningful role in Canadian society" (1993, p. 13). The language program offers "very little - perhaps access to a menial job" (p. 13). Similarly, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants published a report on the program that surveyed 44 community-based immigrant serving organizations; 75% of the agencies deemed LINC language levels "too low for integration" (OCASI, 1993, p.8). Since 1993, LINC has developed to include levels 4 and 5, and a computer skills component. But not all agencies deliver or get funding for all levels. Hart and Cumming (1997) found that Level Three "may not have been adequate to prepare these people for training or other educational courses in English" (p.54). These findings confirm assertions made over a decade ago that state-funded language training programs marginalize its clients, particularly women, and serve the needs of capital by creating and maintaining an unequal distribution of linguistic resources to immigrants and refugees who, as a result, can only acquire unskilled, low wage jobs (Paredes, 1987; Ng & Das Gupta, 1981).

The advent of LINC created many changes in the organization of federal language training for adult immigrants. It shifted the focus of the goal of the programs from labour market and citizenship preparation to a focus on "integration"-- the implications of which will be explored below. The focus on integration means that the program did become available to women refugees and immigrants who were denied access to the majority of the programming because of the labour force orientation. The exclusion of immigrants who cannot be defined as a "newcomer," and the goal of the program to provide the most basic language skills, are two aspects that are argued to be insufficient to achieve the goal of "integration" by those working in the field of ESL and settlement services (see Baril, 1993; OCASI, 1993; Hart & Cumming, 1997). Finally, the move to put the language training program up for contract has had deleterious effects, such as the destabilization of the working conditions of ESL teachers, increased competition among service providers, and the placement of CIC as the centralized regulator and distributor of LINC program referral and assessment, to the consternation of service provider organizations. In what follows, I will conclude this chapter with an analysis of the broader ideological concerns that underpin the current manifestation of language training for adult immigrants.

Ideologies of Language and Immigrant Integration

The policies of the LINC program reveal certain ideologies about language, the politics of immigration, and nationalism. What remains constant throughout the history of federal language training programs is the belief that language acquisition is the first step toward integration. Learning English in the LINC program, where the course content is supposed to be "about" Canada, is understood in an instrumental way as a "skill" that is possible to acquire. But it is a very complex process: learning the language is a primary means of integrating into Canadian society. Integration, described in a federal document on settlement and integration, is a process of "adapting [to the] principles, traditions, and values that are inherent in Canadian society" (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 1996c, p. 9). The status of the LINC program as a settlement language training program means that integration is one of its goals.

There is great value attributed to English to accomplish the goal of assimilation. Language is understood to be deeply connected to ethnic identity: it is about becoming (more) Anglo-Canadian. It "is still commonly understood to be the central pillar of ethnic identity" (Edwards cited in Billig, 1995, emphasis in original). In the realm of language planning and policy, language and ethnicity are "an almost fixed collocation," Blommaert (1996) asserts. In the relationship between language and ethnic identity, there is little room for a conceptualization of an individual who might speak more than one language, or have ties to more than one ethnic group, hence to more than one nation. The solution to the nation’s problem of linguistic, racial, and ethnic heterogeneity presented by the immigrant population is linguistic homogeneity.

In this section I am considering that ways that the ideologies of language that surface in governmental language policies reflect upon the linguistic and cultural diversity that exists in the immigrant population. Richmond (1994) comments that "one of the more powerful features of modernity is the homogenizing influence of the state in the face of ethnic and cultural diversity" (p. 194). Canada’s LINC program is an attempt to deal with the problem that linguistic and cultural diversity presents. The history of the institution provided on the previous pages shows that the program has changed from its blatantly assimilationist beginnings in the late 1940s. But the socio-historical process that are embedded in the ideologies and practices of a program such as LINC are deeply connected to ideas about language and nationalism that view the "differences" presented by immigrant populations as threatening, and as elements that need to be managed. These processes are larger than LINC and the people who created the program, and larger than the people who run the program.

English language training for adult immigrants is a hegemonic force that operates to manage linguistic, and hence, ethnic, difference in a monolingual/bilingual nation-state that is threatened by linguistic (and "other") diversity. Billig (1995) discusses the rise of the modern nation-state and the corresponding rise of nationalism, where nationalism is "the ideology that creates and maintains nation-states" (p. 19). Nationalism often (but not always) relies on language to create imagined boundaries of belongingness, as Billig notes: "the creation of a national hegemony often involves a hegemony of language" (1995, p. 29). Furthermore, the notion of "a language" is itself "an invented permanency" (p. 30). Language training for adult immigrants relies on the banality, the "common-senseness," of these inventions to provide the rationale for the program. It makes sense that immigrants and refugees receive language training to facilitate entry into the labour force, or other markets. But the symbolic values associated with learning "a language" are weighty. The path that leads to "integration" through ESL instruction is littered with issues of identity, race and ethnicity, and assimilation that makes becoming "integrated" a much more complicated journey.

Since the first language training programs began, linguistic proficiency was understood to be the key to integration. The definition of integration, however, isn’t so clear. As part of the Settlement Renewal project begun in the early 1990s, CIC met with settlement and integration "stakeholders" across Canada to determine how the responsibility for settlement services would be shared and administered, which included the formulation of a set of "shared principles" (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 1996c). The document that was a product of the consultations proposes a set of six "Key Elements of Integration." The first key element defines integration as a "two-way process, which involves commitment on the part of newcomers to adapt to life in Canada and on the part of Canadians to adapt to new people and cultures" (p. 9). The second element states that "[t]he ability of newcomers to communicate in one of Canada’s official languages is key to integration" (p. 9). The next two elements emphasize the newcomers’ self-sufficiency, and the importance of shared "principles, traditions and values that are inherent in Canadian society" (p.9). The last two of the six "Key Elements of Integration" focus on the role of settlement and integration services to promote immigrant self-sufficiency, and the need for comparable services across the country (p. 10).

Throughout the document the federal government emphasizes that there are limited resources for newcomer integration. The limited resources justify the narrow definition of "newcomer" that determines who is eligible for federally-funded settlement services, and for how long: "Available funds cannot, for example, support standards to ensure that all newcomers receive language training to a certain level of competency" (p. 13). The conveniently vague phrase " a certain level of competency" ensures that the government cannot be held accountable for certain results from federal language training programs. Similarly, the service provider organizations (SPOs) cannot be held accountable for reaching certain levels of linguistic competence with each student. At the same time, however, accountability for integration and results standards were considered by the government as a top priority for "measuring integration results." The document states that "CIC would work on developing integration indicators (e.g. knowledge of an official language) and results measures (e.g. number of refugees and immigrants that have increased their competency in one of the official languages)" (p. 13). The suggestion that language could serve as an "integration indicator" means that integration is measurable. The document discusses the use of employment rates as a measure for integration, but acknowledges that some immigrants, such as the elderly, will not enter the labour force. Knowledge of an official language is deemed the best measure of integration.

The government policy documents on the LINC program concur with the belief that language acts as a resource to access symbolic and material resources. The second part of the government equation, however, rests on a belief that language learning itself fosters integration, and here integration means accessing mainstream institutions and services. Thus, the objectives of the LINC program are based on the needs and demands of these majority institutions. The bureaucratization of assessment (the development of professional certification standards and standardized assessment tools described earlier) demonstrates "quality control" over the production of ESL programs and professionals. At the same time, the accountability measures of the language training program are wholly structured to protect and legitimize the initiatives of the government. Therefore, the government cannot be held accountable for the results of the program. If the system of federal language training delivers a service that ensures quality instruction and quality assessment, then the failure to produce results that indicate successful integration is the responsibility (and failure) of the immigrants themselves. Integration may be described in policy as "a two-way process," but integration cannot be a two-way process if the means and measures of integration are completely controlled and defined by the political elite. As Blommaert and Verschueren (1998) explain in their study of public discourse about the migrant debate in Belgium, integration is "a boundary concept" that has no definition or destination because the criteria for it and the power to define it rests with the majority. Integration, they note, is "deeply alienating, a paradox where harmony can’t be reached because inequality is inscribed in the process" (p 112).

Learning the English language removes what is considered to be the greatest barrier to integration: the inability to communicate in English. Learning English will facilitate communication in all spheres of the immigrant’s life by increasing his or her access to and participation in mainstream institutions and services. The belief that increased English language skills will result in better chances of communication and hence greater access to the mainstream does not take linguistic or social inequality into account: a person’s accent, race, gender, and culture influence the success of any interaction, thus linguistic competence does not necessarily confer guaranteed access to mainstream institutions and services. In other words, the authority of a speaker’s talk depends upon the power relations that situate the speaker and also depends upon the context, or field, in which he or she speaks. Language is a resource, and competence in the field permits access to other symbolic and material resources. To gain access to those resources, however, the speaker has to be believed to be heard--his or her talk must be granted some measure of authority by the listener so that what is being said is understood as legitimate and "hearable" at all (Bourdieu, 1977).

As the work of Bourdieu makes clear, linguistic competence is not merely a "skill" that can be acquired in a facile process of transmission. Linguistic interaction must be recognized as a process that enacts complex social relations that are shaped by social, political, economic, and institutional constraints and possibilities. Similarly, the teaching of English as a second language most certainly brings these conditions to the fore, where the teacher and learners’ identities and the institutional constraints of the learning environment form a complex field of power relations that shape and influence the interaction that takes place. In the ESL classroom, as in other educational sites, the cultural hegemony of institutional practices is rarely recognized, and student success is gauged only at the level of individual motivation, rather than regarded as a factor that must be accounted for within the social and institutional structures that contribute to its shape. In the field of second language teaching and learning, theorists and practitioners acknowledge that language planning and language policy have intense political implications both ideologically (see Tollefson, 1991, 1995) and at the level of practice (see, for example, Auerbach, 1995).

The overview provided here of the ideologies of language that surface in the discourses of ESL and federal language policies attempts to establish what English "is, has, and does," as Phillipson (1992) puts it. In the LINC program, English is understood as a "skill" that is fairly simple to transmit to others. What it has is value as a symbolic and material resource, and what it does is permit immigrants and refugees to begin to participate in institutions and services that will enhance their productivity and encourage economic, social, and civic integration. A number of contradictions arise, however, to complicate this view. Studies of language planning, policy, and ESL reveal that learning a language is in fact "political" in that the inequalities that structure social interaction and social identities are reproduced in the teaching and learning of English. The reproduction of social and economic stratification that occurs through linguistic interaction means that access to resources is not necessarily secured once an immigrant or refugee acquires English language skills.

The reproduction of social stratification that occurs through language learning is locatable not just in the social hierarchies that structure any social interaction, but also in the discourses that shape the history of the field of ESL. The central role accorded to language and its relationship to nationalism in the modern nation-state means that teaching English is part of the hegemonic project of nation-building. The colonial history of English Language Teaching shows that a large part of ESL began in colonial education systems where the unabashed goal was assimilation, or the creation of an undereducated underclass capable of doing the menial work required to run the colony (Phillipson, 1992). These historical discourses weave in and through those of the present day, to inform how linguistic interaction structures social relations in the practice of ESL. To cast the net even wider, however, the mode and rationality of governance that the LINC program represents deserves some attention.

Managing LINC

The proposition that language is the key indicator of immigrant integration provides a forceful rationale for the existence of the LINC program. Language is understood to be the key component to immigrant settlement and integration--this is the dominant ideology of the federal language policies.³ It is also the dominant ideology of public and political discourses about immigrant integration, and provides the rationale for immigrant lobby groups to advocate for more funding and better services for language training programs. For the government, however, the prospect of measuring immigrant integration via English language skills means that integration itself is measurable. There is a great investment on the part of the federal government in tracking and managing this population through the LINC program. Accountability and competition (the marketization of federal ESL programs), are the catchwords that underwrite the LINC program. These days, they are increasingly familiar discursive terms that define the management of arenas such as health and education, where the enterprises of the capitalist market have taken over those of the welfare state. In an attempt to account theoretically for the ways that the LINC program manages itself, I turn to Foucault’s (1978/1991) notion of "governmentality." Foucault’s theory of governmentality combines the individualizing and totalizing forms of power that he explored in previous works: the regulation of the body, hence the surveillance, control, and management of subjects to create the self-regulation of apparently "free" citizens, and the idea of "biopower," a politics concerned with the welfare of subjects as members of a population through statistics, censuses, and the control of health and reproduction: the management of the living and of life (Foucault, 1975/1977, 1976/1990).

Governmentality is, most simply, "a way of problematizing life and seeking to act upon it" (Rose, 1993, p. 288). Its focus is on how to govern most effectively to ensure the security of the state, its individuals, and the prosperity of both. The main component of governmentality’s rationale, Foucault says, is "the apparatuses of security" (1978/1991, p.102). The issue of security of the state and of individuals surfaces frequently in public and political discourses on immigration. As Hawkins (1991) notes, immigration "touches on the most fundamental of political concerns--the well-being, development, and security of the state" (p. 245). Immigration is commonly perceived to pose a threat to the privileges entitled to the "native" population that are secured by their citizenship within the nation (Richmond, 1994, p. 222). The notion of governmentality helps to account for the ever-present linking of personal security with collective (national) security, both of which are potentially threatened by the presence of immigrant "others." The LINC program, for example, as a provision of social welfare for adult immigrants, works to manage the insecurity and risk that the population presents to the nation economically, politically, and socially.

Rose (1993), a governmentality theorist, discusses how liberalism has historically shaped Western democracy to contribute to current forms of governmentality. He notes, for example, liberalism’s reliance on a relationship between governance and knowledge production in the social and human sciences, and a reliance on the authority of expertise to isolate and work to solve "social problems" (p. 291). Liberalism also invests great hope in its subjects, Rose argues. It "seeks to shape and regulate freedom in a social form, simultaneously specifying the subjects of rule in terms of certain norms of civilization, and effecting a division between the civilized members of society and those lacking the capacity to exercise their citizenship" (p. 219). Hence we get "devices," such as schooling and the family, that "promise to create individuals who do not need to be governed by others, but will govern themselves, master themselves, care for themselves" (p. 291). Social work and welfare perform this function, and in doing so delineate those who are wise, healthy, and civilized from the rest. The most interesting aspect of this to me is what must take place in the "devices" of schooling or the family to produce self-regulatory citizens, and how it is that people take on the work of the nation.

Rose (1993) asserts that governmentality explains the activities of politics today because it rethinks the polarization of the private and the public spheres (political and private security; national and individual prosperity; public citizenship and private welfare) to show them as interdependent, and it offers an understanding of power that complicates a "top down" relationship between a centralized state and civil society:

The strategies of regulation that have made up our modern experience of "power" formulate complex dependencies between the forces and institutions deemed "political" and instances, sites, and apparatuses which shape and manage individual and collective conduct in relation to norms and objectives, but yet are constituted as "non-political." (Rose, 1993, p. 286)

The relations between the "political" forces and institutions and the apparently "non-political" instances and sites of practice are not direct, but are relations that are established "between various centres of calculation and diverse projects of rule . . . such that events within the micro-spaces of bedroom, factory floor, schoolroom, medical consulting room might be aligned with aims, goals, objectives and principles established in political discourse or political programmes" (Rose, p. 287).

In the realms of health and education, for example, disparate and diverse programs, experts, policies, etc., produce knowledges and practices that are embodied by doctors and patients, teachers and learners, who accomplish the work required by the nation to improve it, to try to make it better, healthier, and more productive. The LINC program is one such "device," and what interests me further is how the objectives and goals at the level of the nation become that of the citizen, who is engaged in a national project of which we are all a part.

Conclusion

This chapter considers the history of federal language training for adult immigrants and looks at the various discourses that filter through the LINC program, such as ESL theories and practices, governmental policies and rationales, and ideologies of language. The historical changes that have taken place in the provision of ESL services for adult immigrants reveal different configurations of what that program is for (preparation for citizenship, the labour market, or general orientation) and who the language training recipient is (male, female, newly-arrived immigrants). The changing focus of the language training programs show that integration is being conceived of in different ways as well. The goals of the previous programs (citizenship and employment) signaled, in a rather direct way, that immigrant integration had been achieved. But these programs were not reaching enough immigrants due to various exclusions, as discussed earlier. The federal language training program had to be refigured in favour of general orientation classes where the goal of the program, linguistic competence itself, becomes the measure of immigrant integration. Interestingly, the gendered divisions of labour and education come into play here to structure the language training programs, so that now most of the recipients of ESL and LINC programs for adult immigrants are women (Power Analysis Inc., 1998, p. v).

Canada’s provision of ESL for adult immigrants has always maintained itself as a function of social services, rather than education. With the advent of the LINC program, the reorganization of ESL for adult immigrants is a testament to this, with deleterious effects on the ESL teaching profession. These effects are keenly felt by the employees and the students in the LINC program that I consider in the next chapter, to suggest that there is a correlation between the marginalization of ESL teachers and the social positioning of the students that they teach.

The final section above encapsulates some of the ways that ESL training for adult immigrants functions to reproduce and regulate the conduct of its employees and its students in the service of the goals and objectives of the nation. Language training for adult immigrants is, I argue, the management of the economic and social risks presented by the immigrant population. The form that this social relation takes is not a product of the language training programs, or of the government that implements them, but is a reflection of the ways that the modern nation-state functions to grapple with linguistic and cultural differences. The rationality of governmentality as such is an ideological legacy embedded in socio-historical processes that, while taken up by and through us, is also greater than us.

A closer look at these processes is now in order to consider the particular constraints that emerge when the extra-local discourses of the LINC program discussed here meet the people in the program in a local context. In the chapter that follows, I will address the institutional organization of one LINC program. Following that, in Chapter Four I will look at the ways that specific linguistic interactions and practices shape and are shaped by the combined institutional and discursive constraints and possibilities that are produced in one particular and local instance of a LINC program.

Endnotes

¹In Ontario and Canada, community colleges provide diplomas and certificates in post-secondary education and training in professional and technical trades, while the universities grant degrees in higher education.

| Table of Contents/Chapter 1 |  Chapter 2  |  Chapter 3  |  Chapter 4  |  Conclusion  |

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