International students’ socialisation and transition experiences in high school

Soltani, Behnam

doi:10.4324/9781003168737-4

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…As reported by the student above, video making could enhance his linguistic capital (Soltani, 2021a) and enrich his perceived employability, particularly given that social media played an important role in his career and video making specifically in his field of work was a capability that he thought he could transfer to future work contexts.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…As seen in the extracts above, international students invested in various forms of capital (Tomlinson, 2017, Soltani, 2021a, b) through engaging with people from diverse backgrounds, developing their resilience (e.g., learning to work with others), enhancing their discipline-specific capabilities and getting familiar with the practices and cultural norms of the workplace and wider society. Such an investment enabled them to think resourcefully and independently, hence exercising their capacity to act, which resulted in their perceived future employability and professional identity.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(5) They essentialize the identity of individuals and assume that all capable or employable individuals behave in exactly certain ways regardless of the circumstances in their social space. (6) They do not refer to any learning process to capture the developmental professional identity construction of individuals within their higher education social contexts (Soltani, 2021a, b, 2022).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It involves a process through which individuals acquire and internalize the norms, values, practices, knowledge and skills of the relevant CofP’s, thereby shaping their identities and impacting their professional capabilities. In the context of international students, language socialization goes beyond language proficiency, per se, to encompass the acquisition of employability forms of capital (social, cultural, linguistic, psychological, human, and identity) (Tomlinson, 2017; Soltani, 2021a). These forms of capital, combined with students' personal experiences, aspirations and imagined employable selves, form the basis of their employability construction.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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International students' employability: a language socialization perspective

Soltani,

Tomlinson

2024

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PurposeThis study introduces a non-orthodox approach to the dominant policy-based approaches to graduate employability through contextualizing international students’ everyday experiences within their educational and wider structural contexts of the labour market.Design/methodology/approachThe study used narrative frames to collect data from 180 international students from China, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Nepal at a New Zealand tertiary institution. Narrative frames as a research tool in educational contexts are used to ellicit the experiences of individuals in the form of a story as participants reflect on their experience. The frames use sentence starters to draw responses from participants about their experiences (Barkhuizen and Wette, 2008).FindingsThis study argues that, through a socialization process, international students develop identities that fit an ever-changing labour market. This process is catalysed by a higher education landscape that produces career-ready subjects capable of appropriating different social spaces that prepare students and graduates to enter the labour market. Further, it argues that graduate employability should be understood as a complex process through which students and graduates socialise themselves through negotiating the socioacademic spaces by (1) familiarising themselves with the dominant workspace norms, (2) positioning themselves as more career-ready individuals, and (3) imagigining employable selves capable of meeting the needs of the job market.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has limitations. Only one data collection source has been used. It would have been great to use narrative frames along with interviews. In addition, the data would have been stronger if the researcher could have used classroom observations, which could be a future initiative.Practical implicationsThis study could provide practical insights to tertiary institutions about international students’ developing capabilities and identities so they could better prepare themselves for the world of work. Further, this study provides insights about some of the challenges that international students face in tertiary contexts to become career-ready. Hence, educators could employ strategies to better support these learners in their everyday learning spaces. This study also has useful benefits for future and current international students and international graduates regarding what investments they need to make so they can better socialize themselves in their tertiary and workplace practices.Social implicationsThis study has social implications. It helps international students better understand the social, cultural and academic expectations of their host countries. Therefore, they could better socialize themselves into those practices and contribute more effectively to their academic and workplace communities. The study also helps academic and workplace institutions strategize more effectively to address the social and cultural needs of international graduates. The study also contributes to the social and cultural understanding of the teachers that engage with international students on a daily basis by helping them devise activities that better address these students’ and graduates’ needs.Originality/valueThe study adds theoretical and methodological value to the debates around graduate employability. It includes the voices of 180 students and unravels their day-to-day experiences of capability building and employability development from their own perspectives.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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International students' employability: a language socialization perspective

Soltani,

Tomlinson

2024

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“…Socialization is of two types: people are socialized either through language or to use language so that they become experienced members of their relevant communities and social groups (Kulick & Schieffelin, 2004, p. 350). Second language (L2) researchers have used this theory to examine the L2 and social development of learners within the context of L2 culture (Duff & Doherty, 2019; Kobayashi, Zappa‐Hollman, & Duff, 2017; Soltani, 2015, 2021a, 2021b; Soltani & Tran, 2021; Soltani & Zhang, 2021). The cultural, social, and political context where people learn a language determines not only what linguistic forms they hear and use but also how socially significant are the linguistic and cultural forms they are exposed to and use (Watson‐Gegeo, 2004, p. 334).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining space, silence, and agency in language socialization of an international student in the EAP and mainstream courses

Soltani

Trần

2022

TESOL Quarterly

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This article draws on the concept of the Production of Space (Lefebvre, 1991) to interpret the silence of one female international student from Japan in two semesters of study in a New Zealand Tertiary institution. Data from an English for Academic Purposes course and mainstream courses, and from various sources including video/audio recordings of classroom interactions, interviews, diaries, field notes, institutional documents are presented. The findings show that silence is produced by the academic social space in three aspects of perceived, conceived, and lived. The new perceived space of learning positioned the focal student as unfamiliar in her new habitat. The conceived space also silenced the focal student because the conceived space exerted socio-academic norms in which the individual was not invested. Finally, the lived space produced a silent individual in the sense that she appeared as less powerful in her interactions with other peers because her sociocultural and linguistic capabilities were not on a par with those of other peers. The study concludes that space is an active, dynamic, and social being that regulates the individual's interactions and that silence should be understood in relation to one's positioning by the social space, and the appropriation of space by the individual in social space. Notably, despite being positioned as a silent individual by the academic social space, the international student exercised agency both

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Digital Spaces of Engagement: Perspectives on Using Zoom and Virtual Spaces in Online Classrooms

Ishii

Soltani

2021

Teaching in the Post COVID-19 Era

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International students’ socialisation and transition experiences in high school

Cited by 8 publications

References 1 publication

International students' employability: a language socialization perspective

International students' employability: a language socialization perspective

Examining space, silence, and agency in language socialization of an international student in the EAP and mainstream courses

Digital Spaces of Engagement: Perspectives on Using Zoom and Virtual Spaces in Online Classrooms

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