Averil Grieve | Monash University (original) (raw)
Conference Presentations by Averil Grieve
With a continuous rise in the number of international students studying in Australia, research in... more With a continuous rise in the number of international students studying in Australia, research indicates student and field educator dissatisfaction with learning on placement or during work-integrated learning (WIL). Field educators are often unwilling to supervise students from non-English speaking backgrounds and students find it difficult to transition to Australian workplace settings. This calls for research into how field educators and international students can be supported during placement. 207 respondents completed either a university or a nation-wide survey about their experiences and training needs in educating international students on placement. 18 also participated in a semi-structured interview. Nationally, only 31% of the respondents indicated they had been trained to work with international students and, in both surveys, an overwhelming 92% indicated such training should be offered to supervisors of international students. Self-perceived professional development needs include identifying cultural differences and developing cross-cultural communication skills. While provision of specialised training aligns with the results of academic research, the supervisors’ self-identified needs indicate a continued deficit approach in the teaching of diverse cohorts of students. In order to transition to a transcultural education approach, this paper explores discrepancies and suggests ways to link the self-identified needs of supervisors with transcultural teaching practices.
Social Work Education by Averil Grieve
Australian Social Work, 2019
International social work students in Australia have reported difficulties in finding quality pla... more International social work students in Australia have reported difficulties in finding quality placement opportunities and dealing with issues such as language and cultural barriers. While placement issues have been mostly investigated from a student perspective, this study explores the experiences and perspectives of placement educators towards supervising international social work students. It draws on an online survey of 83 placement educators working for an Australian university. The majority of placement educators reported that they supervised international students differently to domestic students. These differences were negatively framed as challenges involving students’ language competence, their understanding of cultural norms, and knowledge of Australian welfare systems. This framing implies that cultural and linguistic differences between international students and placement educators are viewed in terms of student deficiency rather than as a positive opportunity for mutual learning and professional development.
Papers by Averil Grieve
Journal of English for academic purposes, Apr 1, 2024
This paper focuses on tertiary English as an additional language (EAL) students' ethical ... more This paper focuses on tertiary English as an additional language (EAL) students' ethical choices, and the factors impacting on them, when deciding whether to engage with artificially-intelligent (AI) machine translation (MT) tools for the writing of university assignments. It also investigates how student responses align with either deficit-oriented or translanguaging theoretical perspectives. Via semi-structured interviews, the voices of 23 EAL nursing and midwifery students indicate an array of ethical positions which are based on three key areas of consideration: 1) ownership of language and ideas; 2) fairness and respect; and 3) personal growth. The study highlights the scalar, strategic and dynamic nature of students' ethical decisions and shows that questions of ethicality tap into individual, social and institutional constructs of fairness and respect, skills recognition, lifelong learning and language dominion. The findings also indicate that discussions of fairness should focus not only on differences between non-EAL and EAL students, but also inequalities within EAL cohorts. Student responses provide evidence of both deficit-oriented and translanguaging perspectives. The researchers call for universities to create clear policies concerning use of MT that recognise the levels of reflection that students engage in when writing their assignments and value the full linguistic repertoires that students bring to global educational settings.
This paper focuses on tertiary English as an additional language (EAL) students' ethical choices,... more This paper focuses on tertiary English as an additional language (EAL) students' ethical choices, and the factors impacting on them, when deciding whether to engage with artificially-intelligent (AI) machine translation (MT) tools for the writing of university assignments. It also investigates how student responses align with either deficit-oriented or translanguaging theoretical perspectives. Via semi-structured interviews, the voices of 23 EAL nursing and midwifery students indicate an array of ethical positions which are based on three key areas of consideration: 1) ownership of language and ideas; 2) fairness and respect; and 3) personal growth. The study highlights the scalar, strategic and dynamic nature of students' ethical decisions and shows that questions of ethicality tap into individual, social and institutional constructs of fairness and respect, skills recognition, lifelong learning and language dominion. The findings also indicate that discussions of fairness should focus not only on differences between non-EAL and EAL students, but also inequalities within EAL cohorts. Student responses provide evidence of both deficit-oriented and translanguaging perspectives. The researchers call for universities to create clear policies concerning use of MT that recognise the levels of reflection that students engage in when writing their assignments and value the full linguistic repertoires that students bring to global educational settings.
Multilingual Matters eBooks, Dec 31, 2014
Patient Education and Counseling
This study investigates laughter by General Practitioners (GPs) in response to patient laughter i... more This study investigates laughter by General Practitioners (GPs) in response to patient laughter in lifestyle behaviour consultations. Method: We examined video-recorded consultations involving 44 patients of four GPs in Australia. After identifying 33 cases of patient laughter, we examined whether GPs laughed in response. We used Conversation Analysis to explore the appropriateness of GP laughter and non-laughter by investigating the talk before and after the occurrence of patient laughter. Results: GP reciprocal laughter was found in thirteen occasions when patients unsolicitedly mentioned their behaviours, laughed and displayed their evaluative stances (whether the behaviours were positive or negative). On twenty occasions, patients laughed in response to GP enquiries, which worked to problematise particular behaviours. In this context, patient laughter was not usually reciprocated (19/20 cases) because reciprocal laughter may risk being interpreted as laughing at the patient, as evidenced by one deviant case. Conclusion: GP reciprocal laughter may be problematic when the behaviour issues are raised by GPs and patients' evaluative stances regarding their behaviour have not yet been revealed. Practice implications: To decide when it is appropriate to reciprocate laughter, GPs should consider the contexts that lead to patient laughter and patients' evaluative stances.
Patient Education and Counseling, 2023
This study investigates laughter by General Practitioners (GPs) in response to patient laughter i... more This study investigates laughter by General Practitioners (GPs) in response to patient laughter in lifestyle behaviour consultations. Method: We examined video-recorded consultations involving 44 patients of four GPs in Australia. After identifying 33 cases of patient laughter, we examined whether GPs laughed in response. We used Conversation Analysis to explore the appropriateness of GP laughter and non-laughter by investigating the talk before and after the occurrence of patient laughter. Results: GP reciprocal laughter was found in thirteen occasions when patients unsolicitedly mentioned their behaviours, laughed and displayed their evaluative stances (whether the behaviours were positive or negative). On twenty occasions, patients laughed in response to GP enquiries, which worked to problematise particular behaviours. In this context, patient laughter was not usually reciprocated (19/20 cases) because reciprocal laughter may risk being interpreted as laughing at the patient, as evidenced by one deviant case. Conclusion: GP reciprocal laughter may be problematic when the behaviour issues are raised by GPs and patients' evaluative stances regarding their behaviour have not yet been revealed. Practice implications: To decide when it is appropriate to reciprocate laughter, GPs should consider the contexts that lead to patient laughter and patients' evaluative stances.
TESOL in context, Mar 22, 2023
Advances in Health Sciences Education
International students who speak English as an additional language report experiencing communicat... more International students who speak English as an additional language report experiencing communication issues while completing their studies and work-integrated learning placements in a range of Anglophone countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia. To address this issue, accreditation and registration bodies for a number of health professions, such as social work and nursing, have advocated for increasing the test score requirements for university English language entry. However, from a sociolinguistic perspective, decisions concerning ways to address communication challenges need to take into account the unique communication skills required for functioning in specific workplace settings. It is therefore essential to identify the types of communication issues occurring during work-integrated learning opportunities (e.g. placement) and to then assess whether these should be addressed by raising general English proficiency or providing s...
Advances in Health Sciences Education, 2022
International students who speak English as an additional language report experiencing communicat... more International students who speak English as an additional language report experiencing communication issues while completing their studies and work-integrated learning placements in a range of Anglophone countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia. To address this issue, accreditation and registration bodies for a number of health professions, such as social work and nursing, have advocated for increasing the test score requirements for university English language entry. However, from a sociolinguistic perspective, decisions concerning ways to address communication challenges need to take into account the unique communication skills required for functioning in specific workplace settings. It is therefore essential to identify the types of communication issues occurring during work-integrated learning opportunities (e.g. placement) and to then assess whether these should be addressed by raising general English proficiency or providing structured learning opportunities for professionspecific communication development within the course content. The present study uses sociolinguistic theory to examine placement educators' perspectives on international students' communication issues using the context of social work placement. It draws on the thematic analysis of interviews with 15 placement educators in Australia. One major finding is that international students' general proficiency or ability to use specific linguistic tools (pragmalinguistic competence) is not a key area of concern for educators. The main challenge seems to involve the students' understanding of sociocultural norms underlying workplace communication (sociopragmatic competence). This finding suggests that, rather than increasing English language entry requirements, universities need to provide international students opportunities to develop their sociopragmatic competence both before and during placement. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations aimed at supporting international students who speak English as an additional language to develop their workplace communication during their studies.
Journal of Social Work Education
Advances in Social Work, Jul 1, 2020
International Journal of Health Professions, 2021
Background Fieldwork is a core element of health professional and education student training that... more Background Fieldwork is a core element of health professional and education student training that is often a professional registration and practice requirement. There are many personal, social, and professional factors that impact on students’ fieldwork performance. The impact of professionalism, resilience, and reflective thinking on fieldwork performance is not well described in the literature. Aim To examine the relationship between health professional and teacher education university students’ perceptions of professionalism, resilience, reflective thinking and their links to fieldwork performance. Methods Ten focus group interviews were conducted with university undergraduate or master's students across four disciplines: occupational therapy (n = 18), pharmacy (n = 6), social work (n = 38), and education (n = 16). Thematic analysis was used to identify codes and categories in focus group transcripts. Commonalities of ideas and constructs were identified and interpreted to cr...
This chapter focuses on the acquisition of the pragmatic marker 'like' by German adolesce... more This chapter focuses on the acquisition of the pragmatic marker 'like' by German adolescents on a ten-month exchange to Australia. Their acquisition is compared to that of German adolescents on a five-month month exchange, German teenagers learning English in Germany and Australian adolescent language. While a number of studies exist on 'like' in adolescent language, little attention has been paid to second language acquisition of 'like' during study abroad. This is surprising considering the importance of 'like' for the expression of adolescent identity and as an indicator of social integration. The data come from twenty-six German exchange students, twenty German non-exchange adolescents and thirteen Australian adolescents. Audio-recordings of unstructured informal conversations were collected before and at the end of the exchange. After transcription, their use of 'like' was coded for either its interpersonal or discourse function. Results show a statistically signification increase in use of 'like' by the exchange students, especially in the first five months of the exchange. This increase was not found in the non-exchange data. After ten months, exchange student usage did not always match native-speaker levels and there was a high degree of individual variation. This was linked to expected length of stay and success of local speech community integration.
With a continuous rise in the number of international students studying in Australia, research in... more With a continuous rise in the number of international students studying in Australia, research indicates student and field educator dissatisfaction with learning on placement or during work-integrated learning (WIL). Field educators are often unwilling to supervise students from non-English speaking backgrounds and students find it difficult to transition to Australian workplace settings. This calls for research into how field educators and international students can be supported during placement. 207 respondents completed either a university or a nation-wide survey about their experiences and training needs in educating international students on placement. 18 also participated in a semi-structured interview. Nationally, only 31% of the respondents indicated they had been trained to work with international students and, in both surveys, an overwhelming 92% indicated such training should be offered to supervisors of international students. Self-perceived professional development needs include identifying cultural differences and developing cross-cultural communication skills. While provision of specialised training aligns with the results of academic research, the supervisors’ self-identified needs indicate a continued deficit approach in the teaching of diverse cohorts of students. In order to transition to a transcultural education approach, this paper explores discrepancies and suggests ways to link the self-identified needs of supervisors with transcultural teaching practices.
Australian Social Work, 2019
International social work students in Australia have reported difficulties in finding quality pla... more International social work students in Australia have reported difficulties in finding quality placement opportunities and dealing with issues such as language and cultural barriers. While placement issues have been mostly investigated from a student perspective, this study explores the experiences and perspectives of placement educators towards supervising international social work students. It draws on an online survey of 83 placement educators working for an Australian university. The majority of placement educators reported that they supervised international students differently to domestic students. These differences were negatively framed as challenges involving students’ language competence, their understanding of cultural norms, and knowledge of Australian welfare systems. This framing implies that cultural and linguistic differences between international students and placement educators are viewed in terms of student deficiency rather than as a positive opportunity for mutual learning and professional development.
Journal of English for academic purposes, Apr 1, 2024
This paper focuses on tertiary English as an additional language (EAL) students' ethical ... more This paper focuses on tertiary English as an additional language (EAL) students' ethical choices, and the factors impacting on them, when deciding whether to engage with artificially-intelligent (AI) machine translation (MT) tools for the writing of university assignments. It also investigates how student responses align with either deficit-oriented or translanguaging theoretical perspectives. Via semi-structured interviews, the voices of 23 EAL nursing and midwifery students indicate an array of ethical positions which are based on three key areas of consideration: 1) ownership of language and ideas; 2) fairness and respect; and 3) personal growth. The study highlights the scalar, strategic and dynamic nature of students' ethical decisions and shows that questions of ethicality tap into individual, social and institutional constructs of fairness and respect, skills recognition, lifelong learning and language dominion. The findings also indicate that discussions of fairness should focus not only on differences between non-EAL and EAL students, but also inequalities within EAL cohorts. Student responses provide evidence of both deficit-oriented and translanguaging perspectives. The researchers call for universities to create clear policies concerning use of MT that recognise the levels of reflection that students engage in when writing their assignments and value the full linguistic repertoires that students bring to global educational settings.
This paper focuses on tertiary English as an additional language (EAL) students' ethical choices,... more This paper focuses on tertiary English as an additional language (EAL) students' ethical choices, and the factors impacting on them, when deciding whether to engage with artificially-intelligent (AI) machine translation (MT) tools for the writing of university assignments. It also investigates how student responses align with either deficit-oriented or translanguaging theoretical perspectives. Via semi-structured interviews, the voices of 23 EAL nursing and midwifery students indicate an array of ethical positions which are based on three key areas of consideration: 1) ownership of language and ideas; 2) fairness and respect; and 3) personal growth. The study highlights the scalar, strategic and dynamic nature of students' ethical decisions and shows that questions of ethicality tap into individual, social and institutional constructs of fairness and respect, skills recognition, lifelong learning and language dominion. The findings also indicate that discussions of fairness should focus not only on differences between non-EAL and EAL students, but also inequalities within EAL cohorts. Student responses provide evidence of both deficit-oriented and translanguaging perspectives. The researchers call for universities to create clear policies concerning use of MT that recognise the levels of reflection that students engage in when writing their assignments and value the full linguistic repertoires that students bring to global educational settings.
Multilingual Matters eBooks, Dec 31, 2014
Patient Education and Counseling
This study investigates laughter by General Practitioners (GPs) in response to patient laughter i... more This study investigates laughter by General Practitioners (GPs) in response to patient laughter in lifestyle behaviour consultations. Method: We examined video-recorded consultations involving 44 patients of four GPs in Australia. After identifying 33 cases of patient laughter, we examined whether GPs laughed in response. We used Conversation Analysis to explore the appropriateness of GP laughter and non-laughter by investigating the talk before and after the occurrence of patient laughter. Results: GP reciprocal laughter was found in thirteen occasions when patients unsolicitedly mentioned their behaviours, laughed and displayed their evaluative stances (whether the behaviours were positive or negative). On twenty occasions, patients laughed in response to GP enquiries, which worked to problematise particular behaviours. In this context, patient laughter was not usually reciprocated (19/20 cases) because reciprocal laughter may risk being interpreted as laughing at the patient, as evidenced by one deviant case. Conclusion: GP reciprocal laughter may be problematic when the behaviour issues are raised by GPs and patients' evaluative stances regarding their behaviour have not yet been revealed. Practice implications: To decide when it is appropriate to reciprocate laughter, GPs should consider the contexts that lead to patient laughter and patients' evaluative stances.
Patient Education and Counseling, 2023
This study investigates laughter by General Practitioners (GPs) in response to patient laughter i... more This study investigates laughter by General Practitioners (GPs) in response to patient laughter in lifestyle behaviour consultations. Method: We examined video-recorded consultations involving 44 patients of four GPs in Australia. After identifying 33 cases of patient laughter, we examined whether GPs laughed in response. We used Conversation Analysis to explore the appropriateness of GP laughter and non-laughter by investigating the talk before and after the occurrence of patient laughter. Results: GP reciprocal laughter was found in thirteen occasions when patients unsolicitedly mentioned their behaviours, laughed and displayed their evaluative stances (whether the behaviours were positive or negative). On twenty occasions, patients laughed in response to GP enquiries, which worked to problematise particular behaviours. In this context, patient laughter was not usually reciprocated (19/20 cases) because reciprocal laughter may risk being interpreted as laughing at the patient, as evidenced by one deviant case. Conclusion: GP reciprocal laughter may be problematic when the behaviour issues are raised by GPs and patients' evaluative stances regarding their behaviour have not yet been revealed. Practice implications: To decide when it is appropriate to reciprocate laughter, GPs should consider the contexts that lead to patient laughter and patients' evaluative stances.
TESOL in context, Mar 22, 2023
Advances in Health Sciences Education
International students who speak English as an additional language report experiencing communicat... more International students who speak English as an additional language report experiencing communication issues while completing their studies and work-integrated learning placements in a range of Anglophone countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia. To address this issue, accreditation and registration bodies for a number of health professions, such as social work and nursing, have advocated for increasing the test score requirements for university English language entry. However, from a sociolinguistic perspective, decisions concerning ways to address communication challenges need to take into account the unique communication skills required for functioning in specific workplace settings. It is therefore essential to identify the types of communication issues occurring during work-integrated learning opportunities (e.g. placement) and to then assess whether these should be addressed by raising general English proficiency or providing s...
Advances in Health Sciences Education, 2022
International students who speak English as an additional language report experiencing communicat... more International students who speak English as an additional language report experiencing communication issues while completing their studies and work-integrated learning placements in a range of Anglophone countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia. To address this issue, accreditation and registration bodies for a number of health professions, such as social work and nursing, have advocated for increasing the test score requirements for university English language entry. However, from a sociolinguistic perspective, decisions concerning ways to address communication challenges need to take into account the unique communication skills required for functioning in specific workplace settings. It is therefore essential to identify the types of communication issues occurring during work-integrated learning opportunities (e.g. placement) and to then assess whether these should be addressed by raising general English proficiency or providing structured learning opportunities for professionspecific communication development within the course content. The present study uses sociolinguistic theory to examine placement educators' perspectives on international students' communication issues using the context of social work placement. It draws on the thematic analysis of interviews with 15 placement educators in Australia. One major finding is that international students' general proficiency or ability to use specific linguistic tools (pragmalinguistic competence) is not a key area of concern for educators. The main challenge seems to involve the students' understanding of sociocultural norms underlying workplace communication (sociopragmatic competence). This finding suggests that, rather than increasing English language entry requirements, universities need to provide international students opportunities to develop their sociopragmatic competence both before and during placement. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations aimed at supporting international students who speak English as an additional language to develop their workplace communication during their studies.
Journal of Social Work Education
Advances in Social Work, Jul 1, 2020
International Journal of Health Professions, 2021
Background Fieldwork is a core element of health professional and education student training that... more Background Fieldwork is a core element of health professional and education student training that is often a professional registration and practice requirement. There are many personal, social, and professional factors that impact on students’ fieldwork performance. The impact of professionalism, resilience, and reflective thinking on fieldwork performance is not well described in the literature. Aim To examine the relationship between health professional and teacher education university students’ perceptions of professionalism, resilience, reflective thinking and their links to fieldwork performance. Methods Ten focus group interviews were conducted with university undergraduate or master's students across four disciplines: occupational therapy (n = 18), pharmacy (n = 6), social work (n = 38), and education (n = 16). Thematic analysis was used to identify codes and categories in focus group transcripts. Commonalities of ideas and constructs were identified and interpreted to cr...
This chapter focuses on the acquisition of the pragmatic marker 'like' by German adolesce... more This chapter focuses on the acquisition of the pragmatic marker 'like' by German adolescents on a ten-month exchange to Australia. Their acquisition is compared to that of German adolescents on a five-month month exchange, German teenagers learning English in Germany and Australian adolescent language. While a number of studies exist on 'like' in adolescent language, little attention has been paid to second language acquisition of 'like' during study abroad. This is surprising considering the importance of 'like' for the expression of adolescent identity and as an indicator of social integration. The data come from twenty-six German exchange students, twenty German non-exchange adolescents and thirteen Australian adolescents. Audio-recordings of unstructured informal conversations were collected before and at the end of the exchange. After transcription, their use of 'like' was coded for either its interpersonal or discourse function. Results show a statistically signification increase in use of 'like' by the exchange students, especially in the first five months of the exchange. This increase was not found in the non-exchange data. After ten months, exchange student usage did not always match native-speaker levels and there was a high degree of individual variation. This was linked to expected length of stay and success of local speech community integration.
Social Work Education, 2021
This paper focuses on how forensic linguistics might assist in developing tools to detect contrac... more This paper focuses on how forensic linguistics might assist in developing tools to detect contract writing in tertiary settings. Academic integrity is threatened by a widespread rise in contract writing, whereby students pay others to write their assignments (Wallace & Newton 2014). Contract cheating is most prevalent among students working in a non-native language (Lines 2016; Rigby et al. 2015), making it centrally important to the Australian tertiary context. Plagiarism software remains unable to detect incidences of contract writing and, despite a number of proposed methods of prevention (Wallace & Newton 2014), contract writing continues to rise unnoticed (O’Malley & Roberts, 2012; Rogerson 2014). Developments in forensic linguistics, in particular, holistic approaches to the analysis of style and stylometrics (Kotzé 2010; Mitchell 2013), may lead the way to reliable authorship attribution. This research argues that such developments can inform academics in the creation of state-of- the-art contract writing detection software.
TESOL in Context: Special Issue, 2022
Interactional competence (IC) is a concept gaining growing currency in language learning (Hall et... more Interactional competence (IC) is a concept gaining growing currency in language learning (Hall et al., 2011), teaching (Wong & Waring, 2020), and assessment (Dai, 2022; Plough et al., 2018; Roever & Dai, 2021). First proposed by Kramsch (1986), IC focuses on developing second language (L2) speakers’ abilities to use language for functional purposes, ranging from “survival as a tourist or a student to negotiating treaties” (p. 366). The conceptualization of language competence as an ability for use differentiates IC from traditional understanding of proficiency, which consists of componential, de-contextualized ability indicators such as lexical range, grammatical soundness, and pronunciation. The ethos of IC emphasizes that language teaching needs to focus on cultivating L2 speakers’ abilities to use their linguistic resources (e.g., vocabulary and grammar) to achieve meaningful social actions in real-world interactional contexts.