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Bouttell, Lauren 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1428-2056
(2023)
Learning English in a Hostile Environment:A Study of Volunteer ESOL Teachers of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK.
In:
Adult Learning and Social Change in the UK.
Adult Learning, Literacy and Social Change
.
Bloomsbury, pp. 59-74.
ISBN 9781350262126
Abstract
Learning English is regularly cited in political discourse as the most important adult learning that new migrants to the UK should undertake. For example, in July 2019, Boris Johnson stated, ‘I want everybody who comes here and makes their lives here to be, and to feel British – that’s the most important thing – and to learn English’ (Halliday and Brooks, 2019). Alongside this political focus, studies have found that many migrants in the UK are also very keen to learn English (Bennett, 2018; Refugee Action, 2019). Learning English is also often presented as the gateway to ‘integration’ for new migrants to the UK. But this political rhetoric has also come alongside contradictory policy provision. Funding for ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) has been cut repeatedly over the last twenty years (Foster and Bolton, 2018; Refugee Action, 2019). There has also been increasingly restrictive immigration policy put in place in the UK during the same time period. The UK government’s proposed Nationality and Borders Bill in 2021 aims to make claiming asylum in the UK much more difficult, and proposes measures such as creating off-shore centres to house asylum seekers while their claims are being processed (Home Office, 2021). Shortly before the completion of this volume, the UK government announced a plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda (Home Office, 2022). This has been widely condemned as inhumane, as well as an evasion of the UK’s responsibilities under the Refugee Convention by sending asylum seekers thousands of miles to a country in the Global South (UNHCR, 2022). As this chapter will explore, this hostile policy context impacts on sanctuary seekers’ ability to access adult education provision and to learn English. This chapter details a study of volunteer ESOL teachers from around the UK and their 60insights about ESOL provision for people who are refugees and asylum seekers. This study suggests that the current lack of funding and policy for community ESOL, particularly in England, means that the current provision is unsustainable. On the other hand, there is also an implication that volunteer ESOL teachers and learners are actively resisting restrictive UK government policy through community-based English classes. I will discuss volunteers’ insights about adult ESOL provision for refugees in the UK, as well as some of the implications of what volunteering as a teacher can show about the relationship between adult education and social change.
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | social sciences(all),sdg 16 - peace, justice and strong institutions ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 05 Apr 2023 12:31 |
| Last Modified: | 30 Sep 2024 13:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/91744 |
| DOI: | 10.5040/9781350262157.ch-4 |
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