Introduction

The postcolonial approach to language-in-education (LIE) policy has highlighted the ideological, discursive and negotiating nature of educational language planning, considering it as a practice distributed to and conducted by different actors at different levels in the society, i.e. the micro, local level and intervening level, as opposed to being exclusively taken charge of by governmental and institutional bodies at the macro level (Baldauf, 2006; Canagarajah, 2005; Liddicoat & Taylor-Leech, 2021; Spolsky, 2009). Canagarajah (2005) further argues that LIE planning should take a “ground-up” approach (p. 195) when developing and executing policies considering how multifaceted and ideological sociolinguistic identity, language attitudes and loyalty are and how mixed community needs can be in the current era of globalization and transnationalism.

In one of his influential essays to argue for micro-language planning, Baldauf (2006) makes an essential distinction between micro-implementation of macro policies and micro-language planning at specific sites, which he respectively terms “implementation studies” and “micro-centric LPP studies” (p. 154, 158). According to this distinction, the former looks at the instrumental role of bottom-up work in carrying out top-down policies, which is the traditional direction in goal-oriented LIE scholarship. The latter encompasses cases where individuals and/or groups and organizations take initiative and exercise agency to develop their own language policy and planning, which is not necessarily an outcome of a macro policy, but more of a response to their own language needs and issues. In arguing for micro-level LIE planning and teacher agency in multilingual education and community language maintenance, Liddicoat and Taylor-Leech (2014) point out that the absence of or inconsistencies in macro-level frames and guidelines often result in community- and language-specific needs and issues left unattended, prompting local actors to develop and execute their own language planning activities to deal with the perceived issues. Some may be tempted to think that this distinction goes against the micro–macro continuum or the onion layers metaphor in LIE (Hornberger & Johnson, 2007). However, this view of micro-centric language planning helps include minority communities and their languages and aspects of minority languages which are small and highly negligible in macro-level planning (Baldauf, 2006). It is, thus, sensible to consider micro-centric language planning as complementary to micro-implementation of macro policy and recognize it as a valid branch in LIE scholarship. This further embraces the discursive and inclusive goal of LIE (Baldauf, 2006; Spolsky, 2009) and closely resonates with the “localized orientation” Canagarajah (2005, p. 195) suggests.

Language Ideology in Micro-centric LIE

Central to micro-centric LIE is the discussion of the relationship between local language planning work and local stakeholders’ language ideology.Footnote 1 Language ideology has been defined as sets of beliefs that language users articulate to justify and rationalize their language use (Silverstein, 1979 cited in Woolard, 1998), and these beliefs closely concern the role of language in language users’ individual and group membership (Woolard, 1998). In the LIE literature, Shohamy (2009) explicitly endorses a highly similar view, according to which language is considered a marker of nationhood, loyalty and conformity, and that language policies, rules and regulations at any level are formulated based on stakeholders’ ideologies about nations and groups, and about “who belongs, who doesn’t […] and who should not belong” (p. 186). These comments lend themselves neatly to the ideology of linguistic differentiation, an influential theme in linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. Linguistic differentiation is, by definition, an ideological process in which linguistic differences and language varieties are noticed, commented on, rationalized, justified and mapped on to perceived relevant and significant social groups and events (Irvine & Gal, 2000). Irvine and Gal (2000) and Gal and Irvine (2019) identify three linguistic differentiation processes: rhematization, erasure and fractal recursivity. Rhematization, previously termed iconization, involves viewing linguistic features as representative of “a social group’s inherent nature or essence” (p. 37). Erasure entails linguistic features that do not fit or is inconsistent with a social group’s ideological scheme being made invisible or unnoticed (Irvine & Gal, 2000). They define fractal recursivity as the projecting and/or performing of linguistic differentiation at one level to another. The three processes of rhematization, erasure and fractal recursivity do not happen in a linear sequence but are intertwined with one inviting the other(s) (Gal, 1998).

The maintenance of a minority community’s language at community languageFootnote 2 schools (CLSs), not-for-profit community-based organizations offering language programs for school-aged children outside school hours, is a prime example of micro-centric LIE planning. This is because volunteer teachers, principals at CLSs and interested community stakeholders take initiative to plan and implement measures to address their own community- and language-specific needs which, in most cases, are neither visible nor taken up at macro-level LIE planning and policies (Baldauf, 2006; Liddicoat & Taylor-Leech, 2014). Local language planning at individual CLSs is best observed in such culturally and linguistically diverse migrant countries as Australia where more than one in every five Australians, or 22.8% of the population, reported speaking a language other than English at home (ABS, 2022). Along with mainstream schools and government specialist language schools that provide foreign and community language programs, there are currently 738 CLSs teaching 93 community languages to more than 105 thousand students in Australia (CLA, 2021). CLSs have been found to play a pivotal role in helping students negotiating their identity and developing stronger migrant communities and greater social cohesion for the host country (Cruickshank et al., 2020). However, they are still marginalized, with their operation and teaching activities generally considered a community’s private issue (Liddicoat, 2018) and their volunteer staff and their language ideologies being peripheralized (Nordstrom, 2020).

To offer a nuanced understanding of volunteer teachers and principals and their decision-making process regarding planning and implementing local community- and language-specific rules at CLSs, this chapter approaches the topic from a language ideology perspective. Drawing on the concepts of linguistic differentiation (Gal & Irvine, 1995, 2019; Irvine & Gal, 2000), this chapter seeks answers to the following questions:

  1. 1.

    In what way do Vietnamese CLS teachers, principals and community stakeholders justify variants and differences if they notice them in the Vietnamese language?

  2. 2.

    To what extent does their justification impact their decision-making process and classroom practices at CLSs?

This chapter continues with an overview of the research context, i.e. the Vietnamese community and Vietnamese CLSs in Australia. The methodology section reports the way in which the participants were recruited, data were collected and analysed, followed by the findings and discussion section. The chapter concludes with a summary of the project and some implications for future research.

Research Context

It is generally accepted that the Vietnamese community in Australia is comprised of war refugees and their relatives and offspring and a more recent wave of skilled migrants, partner migrants, and graduates gaining permanent residency (Carruthers, 2008; DHA, 2019, 2020, 2022; Thai, 2007; Nguyen, 2012). There are stark differences between the two subgroups in their migration motives and pathways, aspiration, attitudes towards and connections with the home and host country (Baldassar et al., 2017). Despite the intragroup differences, the displaced and diasporic discourse of the whole Vietnamese community is firmly instilled, evidenced by the prevalent collective memory of the first generation’s trauma and refugeehood and the unrelenting anti-communist attitudes and distancing from the current regime in Vietnam (Baldassar et al., 2017; Nguyen, 2013).

Vietnamese has been among the top five languages other than English (LOTEs) spoken at home in most recent censuses (ABS, 2022). The maintenance of Vietnamese has often been attributed to Vietnamese CLSs. Data collated from relevant state and territory government bodies and from Community Languages Australia (CLA) show that there are some 50 Vietnamese CLSs in five states and one territory in the country offering outside school hours Vietnamese lessons to some 8,800 studentsFootnote 3 (CLA, 2021; CLSSA, 2023; DOET, 2021, 2022a, b; OMA, 2021). While there is no official record of the first Vietnamese CLS in Australia, some schools report that they started offering Vietnamese language lessons to children of Vietnamese origin in as early as 1978 and the early 1980s. As such, most CLSs were pioneered, and some are currently managed by first-generation Vietnam-born refugees (Table 5.1).

Table 5.1 Number of Vietnamese CLSs and their enrolment
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Vietnamese was identified as an “at risk” language whose enrolments dropped by 32% in a recent study on CLSs in New South Wales (Cruickshank et al., 2020, p. 18). Considering these numbers and the fact that the Vietnamese community is now in its third generation, a critical point where language shift is most likely to happen (Fishman, 2001), it is timely to examine factors affecting the teaching of Vietnamese at CLSs.

Method

Participants

Presented in this chapter is data taken from semi-structured interviews with 11 Vietnamese volunteer teachers, principals and directors from nine CLSs. Most of the participants were recruited through the snowball technique (Milroy, 2008). This technique helps accelerating the establishment of trust  between newly recruited participants and the researcher (O'Connor, 2004). New informants were also recruited after an interview where it was decided that more interviewees were needed to contribute to the exploration of new understanding and meaning of the topic under study. While this theoretical sampling required data analysis to be done concurrently with data collection, it was worthwhile since combining snowball sampling and theoretical sampling could ensure both diversity, transferability and theoretical saturation (Conlon et al., 2020). Table 5.2 outlines the interviewees’ demographics.

Table 5.2 Interviewees’ demographics
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Interviews were conducted via either Zoom meeting or telephone during the period from May to September 2021 due to the COVID-19 restriction on travelling. Written participant consent forms were sent in the email invitation and verbal consent to recording was gained at the beginning of each interview. Ten interviews were in Vietnamese and one was in English. Interviews varied in length since they were mainly interviewee-led.

Data Analysis

The interviews were transcribed automatically on Transwreally.com. The transcripts were then checked manually and revision was made where needed. Thematic data analysis (Braun, 2022) was conducted on the original transcript in Vietnamese. Interview extracts quoted in this chapter were translated into English by the researcher.

Positioning: The Outsider, the Insider and the Critic

Since interpretation of qualitative data is significantly influenced by the investigator’s background, social position and perspective in the research process (Malterud, 2001; May & Perry, 2014), it is essential at this point that I briefly describe my positioning. I considered myself an outsider of the Vietnamese diaspora in Australia in that I did not share their migration trajectories, their lived experiences of the Vietnam war-related events and emotions and feelings. I considered myself an insider in that we are all native Vietnamese speakers and are involved in maintaining Vietnamese despite our differences. I was a critic of what I observed in my two other roles in that every now and then I stepped back and used my research questions and my prior training as a language teacher and teacher trainer to guide my listening and interpretation. The knowledge and findings presented in subsequent sections are situated and described in close relation to my positioning and lenses.

Findings

Interviews with the participants covered a range of topics related to maintaining Vietnamese as a community language in Australia, challenges and opportunities for this maintenance work, pedagogy and curriculum and other related topics. Relevant to this chapter is the discussion of teachers’, principals’ and stakeholders’ language ideologies and how such ideologies affect their local language planning and teaching activities.

Linguistic Differentiation as a Common Practice

A strong theme emerging from the data is the interviewees’ critical comments on different linguistic features they noticed. The interviewees differentiated and labelled two varieties of Vietnamese: tiếng Việt hải ngoại (overseas Vietnamese or OV) and tiếng Việt trong nước (domestic Vietnamese or DV). OV is the Vietnamese brought to the diaspora by the first generation and has been used since; DV refers to the Vietnamese that is contemporarily used inside Vietnam and recently enters the diaspora. Most comments on OV and DV focused on the lexicon including semantic changes, etymology and orthography.

Senior teachers and principals expressed their strong criticism for some DV lexical items for their overuse and irrational semantic changes. Table 5.3 outlines some of the most problematic items perceived by the interviewees and the justification for their criticism. Among these items, the word “hoành tráng” was repeatedly criticized by many senior interviewees. They believed that speakers inside Vietnam and recent arrivals in the community used the word excessively in almost any context. This made the Vietnamese language less rich.

Table 5.3 Critiqued DV lexical items
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A teacher frankly criticized DV as “rất tệ” (very bad) and not as “phong phú” (rich) as OV.

“Tôi cho rằng sau 1975 cho đến 1997 tôi thấy tiếng Việt vẫn còn rất là tốt, vẫn còn ảnh hưởng trước 1975, miền Bắc và miền Nam. Nhưng mà sau 1997 thì tiếng Việt trong nước rất là tệ. Cái lý do là tại vì họ đổi chữ, đổi từ ngữ[…]. Tối không thể dùng mấy cái chữ đó.” (TMR7)

“I find that after 1975 to 1997, the Vietnamese language was still very good, still influenced by pre-1975(language), in the North and the South. But after 1997, the Vietnamese language inside Vietnam has become very bad. The reason is that they changed the words. […]. I can’t use those words.” (TMR7)

TMR7’s reference to “the influence of pre-1975” suggested his recognition of a variety of Vietnamese he was familiar with as the standard for the Vietnamese language as a whole. In doing this, he was conducting the process of erasure by simplifying the sociolinguistic field of Vietnamese and drawing attention to only one of its aspects, the pre-1975 variety, and rendering linguistic forms appearing after a perceived point in time invisible. Similarly, his firm decision to not include perceived wrong words in his own linguistic repertoire clearly reflected the working of erasure in which Vietnamese was considered homogeneous with internal linguistic variations being disregarded and vocabulary items that did not fit a standard being eradicated.

TFR10, a retired teacher-principal referred to post-1975 vocabulary items as“từ cộng sản”(communist words). These vocabulary items were brought to the South by northerners after April 1975 and later brought to the diaspora by later arrivals.

“[….] Nhưng với những người mà họ có mối thù nó quá sâu nặng thì họ nói về những cái đó thì họ điên lên, nó sùng sục sùng sục trong con người họ, nhất là những người hồi xưa là sỹ quan hay những người mà trong gia đình họ bị cộng sản nó áp bức hay cái gì đó. Con biết là ở bên nước ngoài này những người đó không ít đâu, rất là nhiều đó.Rất là nhiều gia đình bị như vậy.” (TFR10)

“[…] However, for people who have too bitter feud (with the communist regime), particularly those former officers (in South Vietnam’s army) and those whose family were suppressed by the communist side or something like that, just the use of those words could drive them nut and their anger bubbled up. You should know that there are not a few, but so many of them living overseas. A lot of families were treated so. (TFR10)

The label “từ cộng sản” (communist words) was a typical example of linguistic differentiation where both rhematization and fractal recursivity were at play. Unfamiliar vocabulary used by northerners indexed communism and reminded some people from the South of all the suffering and trauma they had been through. Labelled “cộng sản” (communist), newly introduced lexical items were considered as having the essence of communism, the perceived cause of all pains and trauma overseas Vietnamese experienced. Since communism was believed to be “không bao giờ tốt” (never good) (TMR6), communist words were not good either. This absolute generalization and “totalizing vision” (Gal & Irvine, 1995, p. 974) was a textbook example of rhematization where language use of the other is believed to originate from their virtues not historical events (Irvine & Gal, 2000).

Fractal recursivity was also apparent in the label “từ cộng sản” (communist words). During the Vietnam war, there was an opposition between the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) and the communist-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). This political opposition was reproduced and projected onto a linguistic level where communist words used in the North were contrasted with non-communist words used in the South. This intergroup opposition happening inside Vietnam then was brought outside Vietnam to Australia and recurred as an intragroup opposition within the Vietnamese community. In this sense, the dichotomizing process originally involving the opposition against communism inside Vietnam recurred at both linguistic level and geographic level.

Linguistic differentiation was recorded among recent migrant teachers too, though at a much milder degree. Junior teachers who migrated to Australia from Vietnam as skilled workers, partners or who gained residency after their education also noted that some lexical items used by their senior colleagues’ language use and in the textbooks and materials were archaic, mainly due to their etymology.Footnote 4 For example, in Table 5.4, in each of the three words “tam cá nguyệt”, “lễ mãn khóa” and “tu nghiệp”, all elements are Sino-Vietnamese. Sino-Vietnamese elements invoke abstractness, archaism and elegance and are typical of formal language register. Perception of and attitudes towards Sino-Vietnamese elements in Quốc ngữ—the current official language of Vietnam are ambivalent. While Sino-Vietnamese elements are widely considered an important part of the Vietnamese language lexicon, using them excessively is sometimes considered out-of-date and met with negative attitudes. Nguyen (2013) argues that speakers of Vietnamese have a strong tradition of preserving their language as a way of confirming and maintaining their identity during times of colonization and liberation.

Table 5.4 Critiqued OV lexical items
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In their commentary on OV, more recent migrant teachers like TFS3 showed their understanding of the features of OV and their reluctant acceptance and gradual use of some OV lexical items.

Cái chỗ chị dạy thì cái thầy hiệu trưởng mở trường từ năm 1984, tức là (trường) hơn chị 1 tuổi. Thế hệ chị em mình là ở Việt Nam nên là cái ngôn ngữ nó hiện đại đúng không? […] Nên là ví dụ nhé, ví dụ thôi, ngôn ngữ họ dùng rất là cổ xưa, mình cũng chẳng blame ai đâu nhưng mà lúc đầu mình cũng hơi khó chịu một tí, nhưng mà về sau thì mình cũng phải tìm cách để mình cố nói như người ta, nói bằng thứ tiếng Việt cổ mà của miền Nam (TFS3)

“The place where I taught was established by the principal in 1984, a year older than me. Our generation (growing up) in Vietnam so our language is modern, right? […] So for example, their language was very ancient. I don’t mean to blame anyone but at first, I was a little uncomfortable, but later I had to find every way to try to speak like them, speak the ancient southern Vietnamese dialect.” (TFS3)

In this comment, OV was described as ancient as opposed to the perceived modern DV. These features of OV were mapped onto first-generation migrant teachers who established CLSs a long time ago. It is important to note that, unlike their senior colleagues who labelled problematic items or excluded them from their own repertoire, TFS3 reported gradually familiarising herself with a different way of speaking despite her initial reluctance. This means that the working of erasure was not present in the case of TFS3. Her assimilation into the community of practice at CLSs could be explained by their identity and power, which, due to space limit, cannot be fully discussed in this chapter.

In short, both senior and junior teacher interviewees in this project were engaged in the ideological processes of linguistic differentiation: rhematization, erasure and fractal recursivity. Two varieties of Vietnamese, OV and DV, were identified and contrasted. Linguistic differences between OV and DV were mainly lexical ones and comments focused on their etymology, orthography and semantics. OV was praised by senior teachers and principals for being better and richer but was criticized by younger teachers as too archaic. DV was condemned by senior interviewees for its semantic changes.

Language Standardization at Varying Degrees

This section focuses on the educational impact of the three linguistic differentiation processes analysed earlier. Showing awareness of inevitable language change and coinage of new words, senior volunteer teachers, however, seemed to strongly hold on to prescriptivism and language standardization.

Some vocal teachers firmly reported their complete eradication of perceived misused or oversued lexical items such as “vô tư” (naive), “khẩn trương” (hurry/urgent), “tốc hành” (express), “hoành tráng” (majestic), “tham quan” (sightsee), arguing that they interfered with students’ acquisition of new vocabulary and their language learning.

“Tôi không có thể soạn giáo án rồi cho chữ “hoành tráng” vào đó. Cái gì cũng để hoành tráng thì học sinh nó đâu có hiểu đó là cái gì. […] Cái gì mà cũng hoành tráng thì ý nghĩ của các em nó bị frozen, bị đóng băng đó. Có nghĩa là nó không tưởng tượng được.” (TMR7)

“I can’t use the word “majestic” in my lesson plan. If everything is majestic, students will not understand what it means. […] If everything is majestic, their thinking will be frozen. It means that they cannot imagine.” (TMR7)

In this example, TMR7 mentioned the interest of his students to support his decision to exclude certain vocabulary items from his lessons, which may sound educational to a certain extent. However, language education-wise, this decision-making process clearly illustrated the prescriptive approach TMF7 took in his lesson planning, which has been unanimously considered detrimental to students understanding of how a language works and how to use it (Curzan, 2019). The adoption of this prescriptive approach to teaching Vietnamese at CLSs raised concerns over the knowledge and skills of volunteer teachers who may or may not have proper training and expertise in linguistics, language education and pedagogy. This concern, in fact, has been frequently discussed in studies on CLS volunteer teachers’ training, qualifications and professional development (Cruickshank et al., 2020; Cruickshank et al., 2018; Nordstrom, 2020; Scarino, 2017).

Commenting on material development, other volunteer teachers shared a similar approach to compiling and editing handouts or textbooks, according to which perceived strange or sensitive words were avoided altogether and removed upon being spotted in subsequent editions.

“[…] Cô giáo mà đi kiếm tài liệu thì cũng phải kiếm tài liệu nào trước năm 75. […] Những người soạn sách họ biết nên họ cũng tránh dữ lắm.” (TMR10)

“[…] When looking for materials, teachers would find materials that are pre-1975. […] Textbook writers all know (this), so they try hard to avoid it.” (TMR10)

This extract highlighted the direct influence of language standardization and the ideology of erasure in language planning activities at CLSs. The reported intentional search for pre-1975 materials and language and avoidance of unfamiliar words suggested that changes in the Vietnamese language would not be made available to CLS students. It seems apparent that these practices were supportive of maintaining an acceptable variety or version of the language, not a living and evolving Vietnamese nor the one used inside Vietnam.

The highest level of selectivity and standardization was recorded when an exclusive adoption of pre-1975 language was endorsed by community stakeholders in leadership roles. The justification for this endorsement was that language taught at CLSs must be the one officially approved of by a perceived valid authority and should not go against the expectations of parents and other community members. TMR8, for example, only accepted vocabulary that he believed had been approved of by “Viện Hàn lâm” (the Academy), an authority under the former South Vietnam government, and ignored items that were “không có trong từ điển” (not in the dictionary yet) despite them being used widely.

“Là bởi vì trước năm 75 nước Việt Nam chúng ta có cái Viện Hàn lâm và khi mà Viện Hàn lâm là nơi mà người ta quyết định tất cả những từ ngữ và những cái chữ mà dùng rất chính xác mà mình dùng để ám chỉ hay chỉ định một cái món vật hay ý định gì. Nhưng mà sau 75 tôi đã nhìn thấy rất nhiều từ ngữ nó được sử dụng rất quen thuộc nhưng mà chưa được chính thức phê chuẩn để mà chữ đó ám chỉ hành động hay là những cái vật đó nó đúng hay sai. Chính vì vậy cho nên tất cả các sách giảng dạy ở X đều dùng những cái từ ngữ của trước 1975 mà thôi.” (TMR8)

“This is because before 75 our country Vietnam had the Academy and it was where people decided all words and accurate words to describe or denote an object or an intention. But after 75, I have seen so many words being widely used but they have not been officially approved of as right or wrong terms/words to denote an action or object. Therefore, all textbooks in X use pre-1975 words only.” (TMR8)

The interviewee insisted on exclusively using approved vocabulary and those listed in a dictionary and his distinction of right and wrong vocabulary clearly indicated his strong prescriptivism, standardization and codification. Actual use of new vocabulary, though acknowledged, was not considered sufficient for lexical items to be included in textbooks. The interviewee’s sole recognition of a past body and the refusal of a current one signalled their political stance which intertwined with their language ideologies. Despite their claim that “Chúng tôi dạy ngôn ngữ và văn hóa và không bàn về chính trị hay tôn giáo” (We teach language and culture and don’t talk politics and religion. (TMR8), politics seemed strongly influential in this local actor’s decision-making at the CLSs.

While senior CLS teachers firmly expressed their resistance against perceived problematic linguistic differences in both their own language use and teaching activities, recent migrant teachers tended to approach variants and differences they noticed in the textbooks with understanding and a descriptive perspective.

“Tại vì họ soạn sách từ lâu rồi và hồi đấy là hồi họ đi vượt biên, ở Sài Gòn họ dùng như thế nhưng bây giờ thì nó khác rồi. Nhưng mà họ đâu có về Việt Nam mà họ biết đâu. Cũng chẳng biết, toàn dân miền Nam, mà dân miền Nam từ hồi xa xưa ấy, nên không có cớ gì mà mình phải bắt họ nói theo thứ ngôn ngữ tiếng Việt hiện đại. Họ đâu có về đâu, họ ở bên này họ vẫn sử dụng như là thời xưa thôi.” (TFS3)

“Because they developed their textbook a long time ago since they crossed the border. Back then in Sai Gon they used (language) that way, but now it is different. But they don’t come back to Vietnam so they don’t know (about it). I don’t know. They are all southerners, southerners from long long time ago, so we have no reasons to force them to follow the modern Vietnamese. They do not come back; they stay here; they keep using (language) like the old times.” (TFS3)

It seems evident from the explanation that as a later arrival, TFS3 acknowledged the validity and the continued use of the archaic Vietnamese in the diaspora. Her belief in not imposing DV or modern Vietnamese in the diaspora could be closely linked to her reluctant acceptance and use of OV discussed earlier. This signals her open and descriptive attitudes towards language change and variation, and her weaker language standardization than that of that her senior colleagues.

When it comes to classroom practices, instead of explicitly denouncing differences in language use in textbooks and materials, junior teachers like TFS3 reported their descriptive classroom practices where they advised their students of different ways of speaking available for them to choose from.

“Chị không có ý blame là giáo trình ấy không được, chị chỉ thấy nó không giống với thứ tiếng Việt hàng ngày mình dùng ở Việt Nam. […]. Chị điều chỉnh để làm sao cho giống giáo trình, mặc dù đôi khi mình thấy là sai nhưng mình không nói là sai, mà mình nói là hoặc là nói thế này, hoặc là nói thế kia. Đó, kiểu thế.” (TFS3)

I do not mean to blame that the textbook is not good, I just find it different from the version of Vietnamese I use in Vietnam. […]. I adjusted to stay close to the textbooks. Even though sometimes I find it wrong, I don’t say it, but tell (students) that we can either speak like this or like that. Like so.” (TFS3)

In this example, even though TFS3 personally identified right and wrong ways of speaking, she did not exclude any from the materials but introduced them to her students and gave them alternatives. This, in a sense, enriched her students’ language input and repertoire.

Low Interest in Resources Generated in the Home Country

Closely linked to the interviewees’ selectivity and standardization when it comes to developing classroom materials and their reported classroom practices was their lack of interest in resources for teaching Vietnamese as a second/foreign language developed in Vietnam. Discussing the time and effort invested in designing their own curriculum and developing materials, the informants shared that they did not find the textbooks currently produced in Vietnam relevant to their context, mainly due to political reasons. TFR12, a senior consultant who used to work as a principal, described textbooks made in Vietnam as highly political and not age-appropriate for their students.

“Tại vì một số phụ huynh của tôi là gốc tị nạn không à, nếu mà xin lỗi cô nhé, đưa sách bên Việt Nam qua dạy nói về chính trị nhiều quá con nít nó không (học được). Ở đây nó phải ngây thơ, nó phải học hỏi những cái gì cho nó trong sáng, không có nghĩ tới thù hận, không có nghĩ tới những cái chuyện gì hết. Thành ra những gì chúng tôi dạy bên đây rất thoải mái, không có áp đặt về tư tưởng hay tôn giáo” (TFR12)

Because some of the parents at my school are refugees, excuse me for saying this, if we use textbooks from Vietnam, which talks too much about politics, to teach their children, they can’t learn. Children are naïve here; they have to learn things that are innocent and without hatred or that stuff. So what we teach here is light-hearted and (e don’t impose religion or ideology. (TFR 12)

Referring to the origin of the parents, TFR12 highlighted their diasporic nature and assumed the opposition between them and the current Vietnam, implying parents were a contributing factor in their disinterest in materials from Vietnam and their general decision-making. What also stood out from this example was the interviewee’s perception of textbooks produced in Vietnam: political and not age appropriate. It is important to point out that the textbook mentioned in the extract was the one TRF12 got to read more than 10 years ago when she visited Vietnam. It was designed to teach Vietnamese as a first language for primary school-aged children born in Vietnam. It seems then that their impression of and knowledge about language education and teaching resources inside Vietnam was not updated.

In the same vein, TRF11, who was a teacher-principal at a CLS she attended when younger and came to the leadership role out of gratitude and respect for their former teacher, elaborated on the pressure from senior community members on her decision-making on certain resources from Vietnam.

“And you should also understand the underlying pressure we would be under if we were to use textbooks from the current regime in Vietnam. We would be under a lot of backlash from our elders and senior citizens because we’re not teaching the history of the country in its origin, but teaching a brainwashed version of it, or a version that wouldn’t be accepted by Vietnamese abroad.[…] It means out of respect for them. If they say: T, this particular textbook disrespects them or their heritage, their upbringing and the trauma they went through, then as a leader I would support that generation because they are my teacher.” (TRF11)

This extract illustrated more than just a significant homage paid to senior members and former CLS teachers. It highlighted the powerful impact of the community’s collective memory (Agnew, 2005; Cohen, 2008; Nguyen, 2013) on contemporary community language maintenance. As a discourse, senior members’ collective memory of the Vietnam war, their escape from Vietnam and all the sufferings they went through connected past and present and individualized the whole community. This is evidenced by the decision-makers at the CLSs in this study upholding their seniors’ values in their own language planning activities. It seems then that the maintenance of Vietnamese as a community language at the CLSs under study was essentially about whose language and whose heritage.

Despite their initial disinterest in resources and textbooks from Vietnam and their considerable respect to parents and senior community members and former teachers, the interviewees reported taking a more independent, informed and pedagogical approach to utilizing and exploiting external materials and resources. It appears essential to them that resources undergo thorough validation if and before they could be used at their schools.

“I would be using parts of materials that are useful and validated from Vietnam textbooks no matter what year they were made, before or after 1975. […] As a teacher and teaching culture of origin, I would teach what would be relevant in our Australia, the current society of Australia: freedom of speech, democracy and the ability to understand the quality of life. I think if we can take resources from textbooks there that are relevant and filter out the bureaucracy or the red tape and the politicalness of it and provide children with that experience of learning that does not connect them to the war or the thing they are not exposed to, then that would be my approach to it.” (TFR11)

The extract points to two important aspects in the informant’s language education ideology. On the one hand, validating and cherry-picking relevant and quality activities and details from different sources was a sound pedagogical principle. On the other hand, the contrast between textbooks made in Vietnam and the Australian values of democracy and freedom can be interpreted as an overgeneralization. This overgeneralization was supported by her impression of textbooks specifically designed to teach Vietnamese as a first language to children in Vietnam.

Nhập gia tùy tục: Entering a House, Following Its Rules

CLS principals and community stakeholders also explicitly shared their expectations of teachers regarding their language use and practice while teaching at CLSs.

TFS3, the only northerner teacher at her CLS, recalled her job interview with the principal. At some stage during the interview, the principal asked if she could drop her northern accent and mimic the southern accent while in class, at which she was shocked and politely refused. Although there are officially three main regional dialects in Vietnamese, including the northern (Ha Noi) accent, the central (Hue) accent and the southern (Sai Gon) accent, the northern accent of TFS3 was requested to be made invisible. This was most likely because it was different from that of the majority of the community and did not fit their expectations and beliefs. This request exemplified erasure and totalization where internal variation, particularly those that do not fit the structure, is disregarded.

A similar expectation was shared when a community member stakeholder firmly expected later arrival teachers to follow and respect CLSs’ program.

“Đương nhiên mỗi người có một quan điểm sống khác nhau. Tôi không bao giờ bảo mọi người là: Tôi thấy cái này là trắng thì mọi người cũng phải bảo là trắng. Không, Tôi không bao giờ có cái quan điểm như vậy. Mỗi người đều có những cái quan điểm sống khác nhau, Nhưng có 1 điều tôi yêu cầu và tôi chỉ xin tất cả mọi người “Nhập gia tùy tục”. Có nghĩa là khi mà qua tới đây thì nên chịu khó theo những cái gì mà bên này người ta đang có, đang sinh hoạt, đang sống. Có nghĩa là khi mà đồng ý vô trong trường Việt ngữ ở tại X thì cái ngôn ngữ và chương trình giảng dạy mặc dù nó có thể khác với những gì mà những người này đã từng học hay từng giảng dạy, hay từng làm ở Việt Nam, nhưng mà mình qua tới đây thì mình nên tôn trọng những cái ngôn ngữ và chương trình các trường bên này người tra đưa ra.” (TMR8)

“Of course, people have different viewpoints. I never tell people: I see this as white, so you have to see this as white too. No. I never have that viewpoint. People have different views on life. But the only thing I require and beg of everyone is “When in Rome do as Romans do”. This means, once you have arrived here, you should try to follow what people here are having and the way they are doing things and living. This means once you accept to work in a Vietnamese community language school, you should respect the language and curriculum schools here issue, despite the fact that they may be different from what you learnt or taught back in Vietnam” (TMR8)

In this comment, that later arrivals were expected to follow the perceived norms at work, implying abandoning their prior social and linguistic experiences, could be considered an endorsement of assimilation of CLSs’ ideologies. An important point in this extract was the strong assertion of the Vietnamese community and Vietnamese CLSs in Australia as a legitimate and independent entity from Vietnam. This assertion echoes Baldassar et al. (2017)’s observation of the community’s complete distancing practice from the political leadership involved in its refugeehood. This case is similar to what Alfaraz (2018) observed in her study of the Cuban diaspora in the United States. Through the same process of erasure and rhematization, the Cuban diaspora confirmed their legitimacy and authenticity in relation to their homeland.

Competing sets of ideologies can be seen in the extract. On the one hand, the participant acknowledged differences, freedom of beliefs and reported their practice in line with their belief. On the other hand, he exercised his belief and power and expected others to give up on differences and follow the perceived norms. This stood in stark contrast with his other ideology. It seems then that the latter ideology dominated the former and reshaped the participant’s practice. This also highlighted the pluralistic and dynamic nature of language ideologies (Gal, 1998; Pennycook, 2004; Rampton & Holmes, 2019).

Discussion

Dabene and Moore (1995) cited in Gardner-Chloros (2009) discuss key linguistic features of a migrant community. They state that there are disparities in language use among migrant community members resulting from their different levels of engagement with both the home and host countries. While linguistic differences can be explained by drift and separation (Irvine & Gal, 2000), the case of the Vietnamese community is more complex considering the historical and political events involved in the community vintage.

In one of the few essays on language planning in Vietnam, Nguyen (1997) discusses different language policies adopted by North and South Vietnam during the division of the country. Both North and South Vietnam conducted their own language planning and employed certain propaganda mechanisms whose tasks, among other things, were to coin new vocabulary items to emphasize the dark nature of the other side and highlight their superiority. In the North, lexical items such as “Nguỵ quân, ngụy quyền” (puppet army, puppet gorvernment), “nợ máu với nhân dân” (owe blood debts to the people) or “tay sai” (henchman) were used widely to paint a picture of an inhumane and ruthless South Vietnamese government (Nguyen, 1997, p. 154). Similarly, in the South, such terms as “Cộng sản 3 vô: vô tổ quốc, vô tôn giáo, vô gia đình” (Communists with 3 Nos: No nation, No religion and No family); Cộng sản bán nước cho Nga, Tàu (Communists sell Vietnam to Russia and China) (p. 145) were widely spread to defame the Northern regime. While Nguyen (1997) notes a reconvergence of Vietna mese language planning inside Vietnam in the past three decades, one cannot deny the far-reaching impact of former planning, leading to the pervasive use of political and sensitive vocabulary items by Vietnamese living overseas, clearly evidenced by the label “communist words” some 46 years after the fall of Sai Gon. In her project with the Vietnamese diaspora in Canberra, Nguyen (2020) also found that the participants in her project, who were first-generation refugees, explicitly supported and only used the ancient Sai Gon dialect (Tiếng Sài Gòn xưa) and disapproved of the communist Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt cộng sản). It seems apparent that the ideology and practice of linguistic differentiation, particularly through the working of erasure and rhematization was a typical feature of the diasporic segment of the Vietnamese community in Australia. This feature was consistent with Gal and Irvine’s (2019) notes that people in the diaspora are most attracted to differences in language use of the others “whose biographies differ from their own” (p. 229).

In the present project, senior first-generation CLS teachers were, understandably, more actively engaged in linguistic differentiation than their junior colleagues, causing them to directly equate linguistic features with the nature of their speakers (rhematization), and firmly excluding lexical items that did not meet their standard and norm (erasure). It can also be seen that the interviewees’ language ideologies were entangled with their political ideologies and stances, so much so that any comment on Vietnamese as a community language in the project ultimately ended up in a discussion on the formation of the diaspora and the Vietnamese language as part of the heritage they brought with them in their boat journey. This means while the CLS teachers claimed that they did not talk politics and religion in language teaching, their decision-making and reported classroom practices were tightly intertwined with their political stances and were used as a marker of their “political loyalty and identity” (Gal, 1998, p. 317). In other words, Vietnamese CLSs are not just a provider of Vietnamese language programs but also a means to maintain and transmit the community’s legacy and heritage. The foundational generation’s shared discourse of resisting and distancing from the political leadership in Vietnam was reflected in their micro-centric language planning and policies. It can be concluded from the analysis above that micro-centric language planning activities at the CLSs in this study were, to a large extent, political.

Regarding the teaching of Vietnamese as a community language, there is a felt need for Vietnamese CLS volunteer teachers, principals and local stakeholders to reconceptualize the nature of language learning, and to redefine goals and pedagogies for their community language education. In recent years, researchers and policymakers have highlighted the nature of language learning as intercultural, interlinguistic and meaning-making and specified the goal of teaching students language variation in macro-level documents guiding the teaching of community languages including Vietnamese in the Australian curriculum (ACARA, 2022; Lo Bianco, 2020; Lo Bianco & Kathryn, 2014; Scarino, 2017, 2021). However, it seems that such changes are yet to be internalized and effectively implemented at the CLSs in this project. Findings from this study reveal that the goals of teaching and learning Vietnamese were mainly linguistic and communicative competence within the Vietnamese community overseas. Given the changing composition of the Vietnamese community, these goals place the language outside learners’ sociological world (Lo Bianco & Slaughter, 2009). This is likely to result in their lack of interest in and motivation for learning the language and can even explain the drop-in enrolments at Vietnamese CLSs as discussed in the literature (Cruickshank et al., 2020; Nordstrom, 2020).

In approaching linguistic differences between OV and DV, it is recommended that CLS teachers, especially senior ones, take a more descriptive lens in their lesson planning and classroom practices. This will lead to varieties and dialects of Vietnamese being used as educational resources, rather than obstacles, in the teaching and maintaining the language. Another recommendation would be for the CLSs to update on and utilize relevant materials from their home country to enrich their resources to teach Vietnamese.

In the context of the peripheral status of CLSs in the education system, there have been concerted efforts to advocate for CLSs in Australia in more recent years. There have been strong calls from researchers for an ecological view (Liddicoat & Taylor-Leech, 2014, 2021) of and a “differentiated approach” (Scarino, 2021, p. 21) to support CLSs. Such a view and approach would mean differences among and within communities, their community languages and individual learners are all thoroughly considered. This means that language specificity, a community’s history and changing composition and learners themselves are considered the teaching of a community language. A differentiated approach is then closely linked, if not similar to micro-centric language planning at CLSs, in that community- and language-specific features, which are less likely to be visible and taken up by macro-level LPP, should be thoroughly examined and addressed when local language planning is developed and executed. In the case of the Vietnamese CLSs, it is suggested that future training and professional development activities should also adopt an individualized approach. By doing so, volunteer teachers and principals’ awareness of the interrelationship between language ideologies and classroom practices, the changing nature of language learning and community language education can be heightened. This is likely to help them internalize and implement changes in their classroom practices effectively.

Conclusion

This paper has illuminated micro-centric LIE planning at Vietnamese CLSs by analysing the CLS teachers’, principals’ and community stakeholder’ decision-making and reported classroom practices from the perspective of language ideology. It has highlighted the prevalence of linguistic differentiation among CLS stakeholders and the interrelationship between language ideologies and political ideologies. Micro-centric LIE at the Vietnamese CLSs in this project mostly concerned with sociopolitical and sociolinguistic issues of the Vietnamese community as a diasporic group and some technicalities of the Vietnamese language spoken overseas and inside Vietnam. It has also recommended that Vietnamese language varieties and differences should be celebrated and used as teaching resources, rather than being viewed as a divider. Vietnam CLSs should continue cherry-picking relevant materials from their home country to enrich their resources. Professional development activities for CLS teachers and principals should focus on individual communities’ history and development and their language technicalities to guide their classroom practices.

While the absence of classroom observation and the small number of participants in this project may limit the findings and implications, this study does contribute to the depth of available literature on individual CLSs. It is recommended that future studies can take an ethnographic approach to closely examine CLS teachers’ language ideology, reported and recorded classroom practices and students’ perception and reaction to have a more comprehensive picture of community language education. Another topic worth examining is the opinions of experts, language educators and language policy makers on language and community-specific issues in relation to the host country’s macro-level directions and objectives to examine the status of community language education.