Date of Submission

7-29-2021

Document Type

DiP

Degree

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

Keywords

English for academic purpose (EAP), intercultural competence (IC), Chinese international students (CISs), culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL), content-based instruction (CBL), transformative leadership

Abstract

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) focuses on how an English for academic purposes (EAP) program launched by Vancouver Urban College (VUC; a pseudonym) can assist Chinese international students (CISs) in meeting their acculturation challenges and closing the achievement gap for studying in the Canadian academic context. This change initiative is in response to the external student demographic change in Canada and the internal context, including the organization’s vision, its mission, and the strategic plan with a joint focus on building a culturally responsive and inclusive school. A tripod of culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL), transformational leadership, and transformative leadership, grounded in equity and social justice and targeted at the unique learning needs of CISs, provides a guide to shaping the school and classroom education to live up to the school’s vision, which is reflected in its mission statement as ‘we think, we share, we change’ (Strategic Planning of VUC, 2019). The proposed solution is to develop an EAP curriculum focusing on content-based instruction (CBI) as an approach to improving the academic English literacy and intercultural competence (IC) of learners. In implementing the change, a combined framework of Cawsey et al.’s (2016) change path model and Kotter’s (1996) eight stage model of organizational change is applied to guide the process. Finally, a monitoring and evaluation plan based on Deming’s (1993) plan-do-study-act (PDSA) model will be utilized to assess the change implementation and how it can be used to strategically close the achievement gaps of CISs and immigrant students of Chinese origin.

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