Journal of Research & Scholarly Output 2006 - Grimsby Institute of ...

Journal of research & scholarly output
Autumn 2006 Edition
Volume 1

FOCUS
Journal of research & scholarly output
ISBN: 1 900134 65 9
FOCUS
Page

Editor’s
Comments
by the Director of Research at the
Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher
Education, Dr. John Esser PhD, MSc,
B.Sc, PGCE
I first arrived in Grimsby on a dark,
foggy night in 1977 to be interviewed
for a biology lecturer’s post at what
was then Grimsby College of
Technology.
Thanks to the fog, my first impressions of
Grimsby are somewhat hazy, but I was
struck by the friendliness of the local folk
and the availability of decent fish – both
something of a novelty to us southerners.
Fortunately, I was offered the post and soon
got stuck into teaching everything from
‘Microbiology for Nursery Nurses’ to
‘Oceanography for Fisheries Managers’.
At that time, the emphasis in further
education colleges was very much on
teaching, with little opportunity for
academic staff to become involved in
research. I was, however, fortunate in that
then, as is the case now, Grimsby College of
Technology, now Grimsby Institute of
Further and Higher Education, was
developing its higher education portfolio,
and my new head of department had the
foresight to recognise the importance of
research-active staff in underpinning this.
Staff were encouraged to do research as
well as teach; a strategy which, within a few
years, resulted in Grimsby College
becoming an internationally recognised
centre of food education and research.
On a personal level, this enlightened
approach presented me with the
opportunity to gain a PhD in applied
entomology and go on to spend the next 23
years leading international development
research and consultancy projects, seeing a
lot of the world whilst doing so.
Having recently returned to working in
Grimsby, with a remit to raise the Institute’s
research profile, I was very keen to become
involved in initiatives that might generate
similar career development opportunities for
fellow staff and students – initiatives such as
this journal.
The journal’s principal objective is simple –
to encourage in-house research through
providing a medium that allows staff and
students to present their research findings
and other scholarly outputs to a wide
audience.
Over the coming months the editorial team
shall be working hard at getting the journal’s
balance and format right; but to succeed we
need your input. The contributors’ notes at
the back of this issue provide initial
guidance on how to do this - so please, no
excuses; let us have your submissions
NOW!
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Welcome to the
first Journal from
The Grimsby
Institute of
Further & Higher
Education
by its Principal and Chief Executive,
Professor Daniel Khan MA, FCCA, FAIA
It is with great pleasure that I
introduce the first issue of the
Institute’s new journal.
The journal will showcase the scholarly
activity undertaken by members of the
Institute’s staff and our partners, in
particular those engaged in teaching on our
higher education courses, a number of
whom are currently undertaking taught and
research-based higher degrees. Much of
what follows evidences hard work and
commitment to their respective subject
areas.
Teaching informed by research activity will,
by its very nature, enhance the pedagogical
process and raise the status of those
involved in delivery. The Institute is
committed to doing everything that is
possible to support this process to ensure
the research, particularly action-based
research, becomes fully embedded within
the culture of the organisation. It forms part
of our wider commitment to our local
population to provide high quality
undergraduate courses.
early Access Movement, has experience in
teaching in the Further Education sector and
a career-long commitment to widening
participation in higher education from
under-represented groups. His article and
his current research project are particularly
apposite at a time when the spotlight is on
higher education within further education as
never before. My personal thanks to him.
As with all academic journals FOCUS
should be viewed as an arena of debate. It
will not shy away from controversial topics
which are presented in a rigorous academic
manner and do not descend into polemic.
Finally, I would simply like to add that higher
education has made great strides within the
Institute over the past few years. This is to
the credit all those involved in its delivery,
organisation and support. This new journal
is one more step on the road to the
Institute’s re-definition of itself as a fully
integrated further and higher education
establishment.
It is our intention to invite an external
academic to contribute to each edition and I
am particularly pleased that Gareth Parry,
Professor of Education at the University of
Sheffield, agreed to be the first such
contributor. Gareth was a luminary of the
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Contents
The Collegiate and Transfer Functions
of Further Education Colleges in the United Kingdom
Page 3
The Challenge of Teaching International Students
Page 21
WISHful Thinking?
Page 39
Critical Circuits and Textual Constructs:
Henry James’ ‘The Figure in the Carpet’
Page 49
Vocational Excellence in Seafood Processing
Page 59
‘Comics are for Kids’ - Exploring the Origins
of Bias Against Sequential Art in the United Kingdom
Page 73
Error Analysis and Interlanguage
Page 85
Information for Contributors
Page 95
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The Collegiate and
Transfer Functions
of Further Education
Colleges in the
United Kingdom
By Professor Gareth Parry - School of Education, University of Sheffield
In many ways, British further education
colleges perform similar collegiate and
transfer functions to American community
colleges but, unlike their transatlantic
counterparts, they stand outside the
framework of arrangements established for
universities and other higher education
institutions. Whereas community colleges
are considered part of – even central to – the
American higher education system, the
further education colleges are administered
in a separate sector of post-compulsory
education. Not just regarded as different,
they are required to provide most of their
programmes at levels below that of
undergraduate education. Although small
amounts of higher education are offered by
a majority of colleges, and larger amounts
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y a minority, their location in a discrete
sector of further education or post-16
learning was intended, among other things,
to discourage any upward drift in their
mission.
While state-level responsibility for public
community colleges has promoted a variety
of models, including combined university
and community college systems,
administrative and then political devolution
in the four countries of the United Kingdom
has highlighted differences as well as
commonalities in their tertiary
arrangements. Among the most marked of
these differences, both within and between
the four jurisdictions, has been the higher
education role of further education colleges
(Parry, 2005).
In England, about one in nine higher
education students are taught in further
education settings and most of them
concentrated in a minority of colleges. In
Scotland, by contrast, around one-quarter
of all higher education students are enrolled
in further education establishments and
nearly all colleges have significant amounts
of work at these higher levels. In the much
smaller territories of Wales and Northern
Ireland, the picture is different again: the
Welsh colleges accounting for the smallest
proportion of higher education numbers
(8%) and those in Northern Ireland closer to
the figure for Scotland (20%).
Until recently, there has been little
appreciation and insufficient understanding
of the nature, scope and significance of
these variations. Indeed, a focus on British
patterns and trends tended to mask
important differences in the way that
England and Scotland accomplished the
shift from elite to mass scales of
participation and, in the Scottish case, how
that country achieved levels of nearuniversal
access nearly ten years ahead of
those projected for English higher
education. These growth patterns and
policies are the subject of the second part of
the paper where the college contribution to
higher education and the character of
collegiate and transfer activity in England
and Scotland are compared.
Some reference is also made to the situation
in Wales and Northern Ireland although, for
reasons mainly of size and student mobility,
they have less claim to be treated as
separate systems. These two countries
have large numbers of their population
studying elsewhere. In Northern Ireland, this
is largely because of the under-supply of
places in the province. In Wales, not only did
a large proportion of Welsh students register
at institutions in England, but Welsh higher
education establishments serve very
substantial numbers of English students.
The English system is by far the largest,
enrolling close to 80% of the student
population in its eighty-eight universities,
forty-three higher education colleges, and
over 300 further education colleges offering
courses of higher education. Scottish
institutions, on the other hand, recruit
around one in seven of the total, and those
in Wales (5%) and Northern Ireland (3%)
take a smaller share. These proportions
hardly change if students studying at a
distance with the Open University are
included.
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Before embarking on ‘home international’
comparisons (Raffe, 2000), some shared
features of further education establishments
in the United Kingdom are briefly reviewed.
Compared to the higher education and the
compulsory education sectors, it is still the
case that further education is the least
studied part of the education and training
system. There are notable scholarly studies
on the history and contemporary
development of further education but the
coverage is generally better for England and
Wales (Cantor and Roberts, 1986; Cantor et
al., 1995; Ainley and Bailey, 1997; Hyland
and Merrill, 2003) and sometimes limited on
the role of higher education in further
education (Green and Lucas, 1999;
Smithers and Robinson, 2000). However,
there are now specific studies on the college
contribution to higher education in Scotland
(Gallacher, 2003) and England (Parry and
Thompson, 2002; Parry, Davies and
Williams, 2003) as well as those on
collaboration between further and higher
education (Abramson, Bird and Stennett,
1996).
Further education: shared features and
developments
Three major aspects of the past and present
development of British further education
colleges should be noted, each with a
bearing on their capacity to provide higher
education and, where necessary, transfer
their students to degree-awarding
institutions.
Diversification, differentiation and the
curriculum
First, although they have their roots in
technical and vocational education, the
colleges are much more plural in their
curriculum than commonly supposed. This
is especially the case in England where
some 250 establishments are styled general
further education colleges and just under 40
are specialist institutions. There are also
another 100 or so sixth form colleges that,
before their transfer into the English further
education sector, were under schools
regulations. This set of colleges has a
traditional focus on academic education for
16 to 19 olds and they are usually smaller
and more selective than the further
education colleges.
Following the decline in manufacturing and
the collapse of apprenticeships in the 1970s
and 1980s, many further education colleges
diversified into academic, general, basic
and second chance education at the same
time as renewing their general and specialist
vocational programmes. In expanding their
courses leading to upper secondary
academic qualifications, they frequently
competed with local schools (and sixth form
colleges) and often offered a broader range
of subjects than school sixth forms. In
developing their second chance education
they built on a long tradition of open access
to adults who used the college as an
‘alternative’ route to qualify for higher
education, to re-enter the labour market, or
to change direction.
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A number of colleges were also centres for
adult education, for professional and
continuing education, for basic skills, and
for English as a second language. Given this
portfolio of programmes, the majority of
students were adults who studied mainly
part-time. Some who entered straight or
soon after leaving secondary school
preferred the more adult environment of the
college and for many it was an opportunity
to improve on their school performance by
re-taking examinations or beginning new
and different courses of study.
Colleges came to rival schools as settings
where young people prepared for higher
education but, unlike institutions of
secondary education, they also offered
vocational qualifications and access
courses not available in the compulsory
system. Only in respect of academic
qualifications – A-levels in England, Wales
and Northern Ireland and Highers in
Scotland – was there an overlap, although
much less so for Highers which remained
largely a school-based qualification.
Vocational qualifications, including those at
the higher levels, were distinctive to further
education establishments and frequently
provided staged access to higher education
within these same colleges or entry to
higher education establishments. As a result
of the rise of access courses in further
education colleges, greater numbers of
adults returning to study chose to qualify for
higher education through courses
specifically designed for older students.
Previously, their main option had been parttime
A-level courses in the colleges
(examinations intended for young people
who studied full-time for two years) but,
from the 1980s onwards, locally and
nationally recognised access programmes
became a normal entry route for many
‘mature’ and ‘non-traditional’ students.
Dual sectors of further and higher education
A second feature of further education
colleges was their public funding and their
operation under regulations different from
the universities (all but one funded by the
state) and the schools (mainly supported by
the state but with a significant private sector
involvement). The colleges were originally
part of a local authority system of further
education that included, at one end, the
polytechnics and other establishments
devoted mainly to ‘advanced’ (higher
education) programmes and, at the other,
the great majority of colleges mostly
concerned with ‘non-advanced’ courses. In
Scotland, the central institutions (the
equivalent to polytechnics) were funded by
the Scottish Office while, as elsewhere, the
further education colleges came under the
local authorities (or the library boards in
Northern Ireland). On the other side of the
binary line, each of the ‘autonomous’
universities in the United Kingdom was
funded by the Westminster government
through a single intermediary body.
At the end of the 1980s, the English
polytechnics were removed from local
government and, at the beginning of the
1990s, the further education colleges in
England and Wales were themselves
established as independent corporations
funded by central government through a
further education funding council in each
country. In Scotland, the further education
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colleges were also incorporated, receiving
their funding initially direct from the Scottish
Office and later from their own further
education funding council. At the same
time, a new unified higher education sector
was created in each jurisdiction bringing
together the established universities and the
former polytechnics and higher education
colleges, several of which became new
universities. In this way, each country
acquired its own higher education funding
council and eventually its own further
education funding council. Only in Northern
Ireland was this not the case.
Henceforth, their provision – along with that
of school sixth forms, community education,
and government-funded training and
workforce development providers – was
planned and co-ordinated, area by area,
through a network of 47 local LSCs.
However, dual sector divisions did little to
inhibit the development of a wide variety of
collaborative arrangements between
institutions in the two sectors, some longstanding
and several pioneered by the local
authorities.
Collegiate and transfer functions
For the last fifteen years, then,
establishments that had further education
as their primary goal were treated separately
from institutions that had higher education
as their central or only purpose. Along with
dual sectors of further and higher education
came separate and different regimes for
allocating public funds, assessing the
quality of education, and collecting and
publishing statistical information. The small
size of the Scottish and Welsh systems
allowed for a measure of co-ordination and
joint working between the funding councils
for each sector, including the use of a joint
executive.
This was always more difficult in England,
especially after 2000 when a new body –the
Learning and Skills Council (LSC) – was
established to take responsibility for the
strategic development, planning, funding,
management and quality assurance of the
whole of post-16 learning, excluding higher
education. Under this reform, the further
education colleges lost their own sector.
If by collegiate function is meant the
approval of a course or programme for
transfer credit to a senior institution (as in
the American system), the equivalent in
further education would be the recognition
of undergraduate qualifications below the
level of the bachelors degree (the first
degree in British higher education) for
transfer into the early, middle or later years
of a three or four year degree. The collegiate
and transfer functions exercised by British
colleges are of a different nature and order
to those in the community college system.
Not only do general further education
colleges, along with sixth form colleges and
schools, serve as important access and
qualifying environments for students
seeking entry to the front-end of
undergraduate programmes in universities
and other institutions of higher education,
but the opportunity to transfer into the later
stage of a first degree at these institutions
has not, until recent years, been a feature of
British arrangements.
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The reasons for this are historical and
structural. Although the four-year degree in
Scotland was less specialist in its admission
requirements and curricula, both the
Scottish degree and the three-year full-time
honours degree in the rest of the United
Kingdom have been – traditionally and
predominantly – the preserve of
establishments of higher education. With no
tradition or concept of a general
baccalaureate degree (except perhaps in
the Open University), and without the
modular-credit structures to facilitate
student choice, mobility and transfer, the
British first degree was a relatively selfcontained
and linear phenomenon. While
the former polytechnics led the move to
more modular and flexible curricula, there
has been no systematic development of a
credit framework within and between the
post-secondary sectors. Once again, the
central authorities in Scotland and Wales
have shown more willingness to begin this
process than those in England.
Nevertheless, collegiate and transfer
functions are now increasingly undertaken
by further education colleges. Unlike in
American colleges where the collegiate
function is associated traditionally (though
not exclusively) with the liberal arts
curriculum, the higher education
programmes offered by further education
colleges are, in the main, vocational in
orientation. They lead to qualifications, such
as the higher national diploma and the
higher national certificate, that were once
awarded by the business and technical
education councils, and today by some of
the universities as well. Moreover, for most
of their history these higher diplomas and
certificates were designed and operated as
free-standing qualifications, leading directly
to employment or used by employers to
train and upgrade their existing workforce.
Then, as now, the colleges do not make
their own awards, whether at the higher
levels or for any other programme they
teach.
Another consequence of specialist and
selective entry to full-time first degree
education has been high rates of graduation
and a reluctance therefore to consider
changes that might undermine the efficiency
and effectiveness of the British system. As a
result of expansion and competition, many
universities are less selective than
previously yet government policies aimed at
widening participation carry with them an
insistence that high rates of completion be
maintained. For students not to complete
their studies in the minimum expected time
is still regarded by the central authorities as
a sign of failure on the part of the institution
and the student.
Given the higher status and higher individual
rates of return to first degree qualifications,
as well as the growth of strongly vocational
programmes at the bachelors level, many of
these short-cycle higher diplomas and
certificates have since been used as
intermediate or transfer qualifications. When
offered by higher education institutions
themselves, as they still are in England and
Wales, they have been integrated into the
structure of first degree courses, as exit
qualifications for some students and as
entry points for those claiming ‘advanced
standing’ on the basis of previous
qualifications or experience. When offered
by further education colleges, they are
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probably the closest the British have come
to the American transfer function.
Although most higher diploma and
certificate students have to transfer to a
higher education establishment if they wish
to graduate with a first degree, a small
number of colleges in England provide
internal progression to the bachelors degree
in selected specific subjects. In these
circumstances, the colleges have to satisfy
the validating and awarding university that
they can provide research-related teaching
at a level comparable to that offered in the
final years of a university bachelors degree.
As in the United States, a major issue for
further education colleges is the extent to
which their higher education courses are
aligned to, and accepted by, the
universities. Some transfer relationships are
the subject of articulation agreements and
others might be managed or negotiated on
an individual basis. Given the long-standing
and continuing role of further education
institutions in preparing students –
especially adults – for admission to the first
year of undergraduate programmes in the
universities, articulation agreements are
often more common and better developed
for this purpose than they are for transfer
activity at the higher levels.
In summary, the collegiate and transfer
functions of further education colleges
involved the movement of students with
sub-degree higher education qualifications
gained in the colleges sector to first degree
programmes in the universities sector.
Across the United Kingdom as a whole
some 13% of higher education students
were taught in further education
establishments and an increasing
proportion of these sought progression to
the first degree, either by ‘top-up’
arrangements (where available) in the same
colleges or, more usually, by transfer to
universities. If only undergraduate students
are included, and if Open University
students are excluded, the proportion of
college-based higher education students
across the United Kingdom as a whole is
17%, or one in six of the undergraduate
population in face-to-face institutions.
Partly because of the different data
collection systems in each sector, and partly
because of the difficulty in tracking
individual students, there is little reliable
data on the volume and pattern of students
moving from higher national qualifications to
the first degree. A government document
reporting data for 1997 suggested that 55%
of students who completed a higher national
diploma in England went on to achieve an
honours degree. Just how many of these
represented internal progression within the
same establishment (which might be a
further education college or higher
education institution) and how many
actually transferred to another
establishment was not indicated
(Department for Education and
Employment, 2000). The same source
calculated that 29% of those completing the
two-year diploma began their degree course
in year two and 50% started in year one.
Progression and transfer rates were also
likely to vary in relation to the scale, shape
and significance of the college contribution
in the different parts of the United Kingdom.
In the remainder of this paper, the college
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contribution made, first, to the shift to mass
higher education and, second, to the drive
to near-universal access is compared
between the four countries of the United
Kingdom. On the basis of this evidence, two
models of collegiate and transfer activity
can be identified, one associated with new
policy directions in England (and Wales) and
the other reflecting a more settled path of
development in Scotland.
Mass higher education: growth
trajectories and the college contribution
In the short period between the end of the
1980s and the first half of the 1990s, British
higher education underwent a dramatic
expansion, with the age participation rate
for young people in full-time undergraduate
education doubling to over 30% and the
size of student population increasing by
more than half. Both the suddenness and
the pace of expansion took most observers
by surprise. In quantitative terms, if rather
less in its values, British higher education
moved from an extended elite to a mass
system. What was intended as a modest
increase in numbers to help counter a
demographic downturn in the school-leaver
population became the basis for
unprecedented levels of growth. Buoyant
demand combined with funding policies
designed to lower the unit of resource
produced a wave of ‘efficient expansion’
that required neither the creation of new or
alternative institutions nor the reform of the
traditional entry and exit qualifications for
higher education.
Underneath this expansion were country
variations in the levels and patterns of
growth. Rates of increase were considerably
higher in Wales and England, where total
student numbers rose by 56% and 47%
respectively, and lower in Scotland and
Northern Ireland, where both rose by under
40%. At the beginning of the expansion
period, Scotland and Northern Ireland had
participation levels in excess of 20% and, in
this sense, were already on the threshold of
mass scales of higher education. By the end
of the growth phase, participation levels in
Scotland were still 25% higher than in
England, with Northern Ireland and Wales
located between the two. Although its
increase was greater than for other
territories, England was the only country not
to have passed the 30% mark by 1993.
In all four countries, institutions in the (then)
non-university sector of higher education
(including those becoming universities after
1992) grew faster than the established
universities. However, the gap between
these two sets of higher education
establishments was smaller in Scotland,
mainly because it was the further education
colleges that secured the most rapid growth
in higher education enrolments (a feature it
shared with Northern Ireland). By contrast,
the further education sector in England was
a source of much slower growth and, in
Wales, the numbers of college-based
enrolments actually declined.
In the two largest systems, therefore, the
college contribution to the shift to mass
higher education was significantly different,
even divergent. In Scotland, it was the
further education colleges that took the bulk
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of expansion. Its one-year higher national
certificate and its two-year higher national
diploma courses, available part-time and
full-time, accounted for the great majority of
this higher education contribution. These
programmes were offered within a Scottish
framework of vocational qualifications and,
in the tradition of local authority further
education, they were funded (and continued
to be regarded) as ‘advanced’ further
education. In this way, the colleges were
able to assume major responsibility for a
level and category of work that was offered
less and less by the central institutions.
Moreover, support for this growth continued
under the Scottish Office after 1992 when it
took over funding responsibility for the
colleges from the local authorities.
establishments was just one factor
sustaining the college contribution to higher
education at these levels.
This discrete mission for higher education in
further education at the sub-degree levels is
evident in the not inconsiderable amounts of
advanced work found in most colleges.
Most of this provision is part-time,
continuing a long and well-established
pattern of students studying while in
employment. Nevertheless, more recent
growth has seen a new focus on full-time
courses at the higher national levels. As a
result of these twin trends, the majority of
new undergraduate level entrants to
Scottish higher education now commence
their studies in further education settings.
When, in response to a looming financial
crisis, full-time undergraduate expansion in
all parts of the United Kingdom was brought
to a halt in 1994, Scotland had more than a
quarter of its higher education students in
the further education sector. All the same,
this was only a slight increase in the college
proportion found at the start of the
expansion era. What has been described as
two parallel systems of higher education in
Scotland (Gallacher, 2002) was not a
product of the passage to mass higher
education. Rather, it was a means by which
that country was able to achieve a relatively
smooth transition to mass conditions and,
at the same time, maintain its lead (with
Northern Ireland) in higher levels of
participation in the United Kingdom. That
advanced further education courses were
funded at a lower average level of resource
than the early years of a four-year degree
programme in Scottish higher education
As in all regions of the United Kingdom, the
opportunity to study in a locally accessible
college is particularly important in providing
a route back into education for adult
students, both at the stage of initial entry to
further education and then into higher level
programmes. Scottish further education
colleges do not just bring an older range of
students into undergraduate studies than
other face-to-face establishments. There is
evidence as well that, compared to the
higher education sector, they have been
successful in attracting a much higher
percentage of students from disadvantaged
areas (Raab, 1998). Participation rates in the
colleges for those from the most
disadvantaged areas were about twice as
high as those in the higher education sector
and, in the Scottish system at least, the
further education colleges appeared to have
a key role in widening access to higher
education.
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Except in relation to the franchising of
undergraduate courses to further education
establishments, the college contribution to
the great expansion of higher education in
England was secondary. Its role was
auxiliary and ancillary. Neither their history
of engagement with higher level work, nor
their costs, nor their flexibility and
accessibility, were able to compete with a
pattern of demand that reproduced and
reinforced the hegemony of the honours
degree in the English system. In this country,
most of the surge in growth was focused on
the first degree and was taken by the higher
education institutions.
Among the latter, it was the polytechnic
numbers that expanded the fastest (by more
than two-thirds during the expansion years).
The rate of increase among the established
universities was half this figure (at 37%) and
among the further education colleges –
where growth was slowest – it was 23%. In
any other context, the level of growth in
further education would have been
exceptional but the effect of spectacular
expansion elsewhere was to reduce the
college proportion of higher education
enrolments.
It was only the introduction of franchising,
always a minor phenomenon in Scotland,
that prevented an overall reduction in the
college contribution to English higher
education. Franchising involved a higher
education establishment sub-contracting
the teaching of some of its undergraduate
programmes (in whole or part) to one or
more further education colleges. The fastest
expanding polytechnics were in the van of
this development, especially when capacity
limits had been reached in taking additional
students into their own buildings and
campuses.
Colleges were also keen to enter into
franchise arrangements. It brought new
income streams into the college and the
status attached to higher level work was
attractive to many teaching staff. It provided
avenues of progression for its students,
especially those unable or unwilling to
attend a higher education institution outside
their locality or region. Franchising also
brought some colleges into higher
education for the first time as well as
diversifying the levels and subjects of
undergraduate study taught in further
education settings.
Like the growth to which it gave rise,
franchising was neither planned nor
regulated by the sector bodies and it
attracted concern in some quarters that
quality and standards were being
compromised. It coincided as well with the
creation in 1992 of a new further education
sector. Part of the rationale for this reform in
England was to relieve further education
colleges of the burden of higher education
(seen as the proper responsibility of
universities and polytechnics) and so enable
them to focus more clearly on their core
mission (at the upper secondary and
associated tertiary levels). Indeed, the new
further education funding council operated a
policy of ‘no policy’ in respect of the higher
education it inherited from the previous local
authority system and which it was obliged to
continue to fund.
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Near-universal access: two models of
collegiate and transfer activity
As a result of these growth trajectories and
features, England lurched to mass higher
education without the colleges being viewed
or treated as central to this transition (Parry,
2003). In Scotland, quasi-markets were also
used by the state to sponsor expansion at a
lower unit of resource yet the outcome here
was a clear division of academic labour
between provision of first degree and
postgraduate education (in the higher
education sector) and sub-degree
vocational higher education (in the further
education sector). Higher education in the
Scottish colleges was funded directly for
this purpose. Many of the colleges that
offered higher education in England did so
on the basis of both direct and indirect
(franchise) funding and this contributed to a
mix of levels, types and parts of
undergraduate qualifications taught in
further education, including the first degree.
When the national committee of inquiry into
higher education (the Dearing inquiry, 1996-
97) examined these matters, it was
impressed with the participation levels
achieved in Scotland and recommended
that renewed growth in England should be
concentrated at the sub-degree levels. More
significantly, but equally controversially, it
proposed that the majority of this expansion
should be located in further education
colleges. More than that, these colleges
should be funded directly for this ‘special
mission’ and, to prevent any erosion or drift
in this mission, no growth should be allowed
in first degree and postgraduate education
in the further education sector. Franchise
relationships were viewed with considerable
disquiet by the inquiry and the new quality
assurance body for higher education was
asked to regulate and contain their
development.
This attempt to give English colleges a
distinct role in higher education was
recommended by a committee of inquiry
into higher education, not further education.
It was yet another example of policy and
purpose being made for further education
by an external body or party, in this case the
higher education sector. Such was the
strong division between the higher and
further education sectors in the English
system that the recommendation
occasioned little public response from the
colleges. Among the 50 or so colleges that
accounted for over half of the higher
education numbers in further education,
there was some dismay that their
aspirations to provide courses to the first
degree might be checked. The other college
providers, where higher education
frequently represented small pockets of
activity and where some of this was funded
indirectly, were equally concerned about
curbs on franchising.
Whatever the source of their concerns, there
was no active or collective engagement by
the colleges with the Dearing proposals.
More often it was the ambivalence or
hostility of higher education establishments
or agencies that commanded more
attention. However, it must be remembered
that most colleges were clear that their core
mission lay elsewhere and, compared to the
huge number of enrolments at the further
FOCUS Page Page 13

education levels, higher education students
were but a tiny fraction of the student
population in the sector. When published, it
was other recommendations in the inquiry
report that were to dominate public debate
in the post-Dearing years.
In retrospect, the main political purpose of
the Dearing inquiry (which received
bipartisan support from the governing and
opposition parties) was to make the
‘breakthrough’ on the introduction of fees
for full-time undergraduate courses
(including those in further education
colleges). Adopting a different model than
that recommended by the inquiry, the new
Labour government required an up-front
flat-rate private contribution to the costs of
all first degree and sub-degree
programmes. At the same time, the Blair
administration implemented a manifesto
pledge to establish, following referendums
in each country, a parliament in Scotland
and national assemblies in Wales and
Northern Ireland. One of the first actions of
the Scottish parliament was to reject the
English approach to fees and to devise its
own deferred payment scheme.
Given that political devolution highlighted
and reinforced trends toward greater
differentiation between the four countries, it
was during the second Blair government
that it became possible to conceive of two
models of collegiate and transfer activity in
the English and Scottish systems. Troubled
by damp demand for existing sub-degree
qualifications and by some critical quality
assessment reports on higher education in a
minority of colleges, the Westminster
government embarked on major policy
experiment designed to change (‘break’) the
traditional pattern of demand for English
higher education.
Firstly, a new two-year work-focused
qualification – the foundation degree – was
invented to enhance the standing of
vocational sub-degree higher education
and, over time, to replace previous
qualifications at this level. This was the first
new major higher education qualification to
be introduced since the diploma of higher
education in the 1970s. Secondly, a target of
50% of the 18 to 30 age group in higher
education was identified to lead the drive to
widening participation, to close the ‘skills
gap’ at the intermediate levels and to
achieve near-universal access by the year
2010. Reflecting its skills agenda and a
somewhat low-trust relationship with further
education, the government looked to
colleges to ‘deliver’ this qualification in
association with employers and the
universities.
Contrary to the Dearing recommendations,
the main instrument for this delivery function
was to be indirect funding, either in
franchised arrangements or through
recognised funding consortia. In what the
government described as a ‘structured
partnership’, employers would contribute to
the design and operation of the new
qualification, colleges would teach much of
the programme, and universities would
award the short-cycle ‘degree’. As in past
and present franchise relationships, the
universities awarded additional funded
places for foundation degrees would need
to ‘top-slice’ these funds to cover the costs
of their quality assurance and other
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FOCUS

services. The remainder would be passed to
the colleges to teach these programmes.
Currently, the proportion retained the
franchising university ranges from 5% to
50%, with most partnerships reporting
between 20% and 40% (Parry et al., 2003).
Thirdly, the undergraduate fee regime
introduced by the first Blair government was
partially de-regulated. From 2006, higher
education providers were allowed to charge
up to three times the previous flat-rate fee
and, unlike the earlier scheme, students
were able to begin to pay this when in
employment. Unsurprisingly, the ruling
coalition in Scotland announced its
opposition to these ‘top-up’ fees. Equally, it
saw no reason to adopt foundation degrees.
The Welsh assembly also gave a
commitment not to introduce variable fees
during the life of the present administration.
On the other hand, policy borrowing in the
form of foundation degrees proceeded
apace.
So, in conclusion, two models of collegebased
undergraduate education and
transfer can be discerned, each with their
own dilemmas of access, progression and
‘employability’. In England, there has been
continuing ambivalence about the role of
higher education in further education as well
as an unresolved ambiguity about the
purpose of the foundation degree. Is it
primarily an exit qualification leading to
entry or re-entry to the labour market? Or, is
it a transfer qualification enabling students
from a wide range of social and economic
backgrounds to achieve the first degree
qualification? Or, should and can it be both?
As a new qualification, the foundation
degree has yet to prove itself one way or the
other. Moreover, most of the public debate
and media interest in access issues in
England has been preoccupied with the
placement of ‘bright’ working class young
people in some of the leading researchintensive
universities. In Scotland, where the
higher national diplomas and certificates will
be retained (and revised) and where higher
education numbers will be held at present
levels, the access problem is more
immediately a transfer or progression
question. More than a third of full-time
higher national students in Scotland
progress to further study, including the first
degree, but these routes are often limited
and spread unevenly between the new and
old universities (Osborne et al., 2002).
If, as at present, attrition is greater at the
sub-degree levels and the number of those
transferring into higher education
institutions is less than desired, there is the
prospect of many adult and working class
students finding their opportunities reduced
or delayed in an increasingly stratified
pattern of Scottish higher education. There
is a risk as well that, if ‘widening
participation students’ become the main
audience for the foundation degree, then
England might follow Scotland in allowing
two relatively disconnected systems to
conceal new patterns of inequality in ‘a new
learning divide’ (Morgan-Klein, 2000).
Retention and transfer are likely to figure
large in the work of the new merged funding
council for further and higher education
planned in Scotland. No such reform is
contemplated in England, at least not ahead
FOCUS Page Page 15

of the conclusions of an independent review
of further education colleges (the Foster
review, 2004-05). This review was prompted
by worries about the mission and identity of
general further education colleges. In one
set of policies, they were asked to play a
leading role in the delivery of foundation
degrees. In another set of policies, these
same institutions were urged to make
special provision for individuals as young as
fourteen and fifteen years of age who would
undertake studies in college as part of their
secondary school curriculum. A third set of
policies insisted that such colleges cultivate
a specialist vocational focus and make that
central to their mission.
Arguably, these were not conditions that
favoured the development of secure and
sustainable higher education in the college
sector. In England, further education
colleges had yet to be widely regarded or
accepted as normal and necessary settings
for undergraduate education.
This paper was presented at the Annual
Conference of the Council for the Study
of Community Colleges, Boston,
Massachusetts, USA, 8-9 April 2005.
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FOCUS

References
Abramson, M., Bird, J. and Stennett, A.
(eds.) (1996) Further and Higher Education
Partnerships. The Future of Collaboration,
Buckingham, Society for Research into
Higher Education and Open University
Press.
Ainley, P. and Bailey, B. (1997) The Business
of Learning: Staff and Student Experiences
of Further Education in the 1990s, London,
Cassell.
Cantor, L. M. and Roberts, I. F. (1986)
Further Education Today: A Critical Review,
London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Cantor, L., Roberts, I. and Pratley, B. (1995)
A Guide to Further Education in England
and Wales, London, Cassell.
Department for Education and Employment
(2000) Foundation degrees. Consultation
paper, London, DfEE.
Gallacher, J. (2002) ‘Parallel lines? Higher
education in Scotland’s colleges and higher
education institutions’, Scottish Affairs, 40,
pp. 123-139.
Gallacher, J. (2003) Higher Education in
Further Education Colleges: the Scottish
Experience, London, Council for Industry
and Higher Education.
Green, A. and Lucas, N. (eds.) (1999) FE and
Lifelong Learning: Realigning the Sector for
the Twenty-first Century, London, Institute of
Education University of London.
Hyland, T. and Merrill, B. (2003) The
Changing Face of Further Education,
London, RoutledgeFalmer.
Parry, G. (2005) ‘British higher education
and the prism of devolution’, in T. Tapper
and D. Palfreyman (eds.) Understanding
Mass Higher Education. Comparative
Perspectives on Access, Abingdon,
RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 160-189.
Parry, G. (2003) ‘Mass higher education and
the English: wherein the colleges?’, Higher
Education Quarterly, 57 (4), pp. 308-337.
Parry, G. and Thompson, A. (2002) Closer by
degrees: the past, present and future of
higher education in further education
colleges, London, Learning and Skills
Development Agency.
Parry, G., Davies, P. and Williams, J. (2003)
Dimensions of difference: higher education
in the Learning and skills sector, London,
Learning and Skills Development Agency.
Parry, G., Moseley, R., Thompson, J. and
Blackie, P. (2003) Review of Indirect Funding
Agreements and Arrangements between
Higher Education Institutions and Further
Education Colleges, Issues Paper 2003/57,
Bristol, Higher Education Funding Council
for England.
Raab, G. (1998) Participation in Higher
Education in Scotland, Edinburgh, Scottish
Higher Education Funding Council.
Raffe, D. (2000) ‘Investigating the education
systems of the United Kingdom’, in D.
Phillips (ed.) The Education Systems of the
United Kingdom, Wallingford, Symposium
Books, pp. 9-28.
Smithers, A. and Robinson, P. (eds.) (2000)
Further Education Re-formed, London,
Falmer Press.
Morgan-Klein, B. (2000) ‘Scottish higher
education and the FE-HE nexus’, Higher
Education Quarterly, 57 (4), pp. 338-354.
Osborne, M., Gallacher, J. and Murphy, M.
(2002) A Research Review of FE/HE Links.
Report to Scottish Executive, Stirling,
Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning.
FOCUS Page Page 17

About the author
Professor Gareth Parry works in the School of Education at the
University of Sheffield. His research and teaching interests are in
higher education policy and change, access and participation,
system and organisation, and international tertiary education. He
has published widely in these areas. In addition he is a Fellow of
the Society for Research into Higher Education and a Director of
the ESRC Study 'Universal Access and Dual Regimes of Further
and Higher Education'.
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The Challenge
Picture courtesy of
Dr John Esser
of Teaching
International
Students
By Stephen Bloy - Deputy Director, Academic Programmes and Action
Research at The Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education.
Abstract:
Colleges and Universities now see
education as a global enterprise, which has
effectively led to the commodification of
education. Although there appears to be an
assumption that the world is quickly moving
towards a converging commonality, with
educational needs becoming homogenised
and driven by advances in world trade,
technology, communication, transport and
travel, do we need to recognise, that in an
international market how we teach
education programmes and/or curricula
may require extensive adaptation? The
intention of this paper is to consider and
discuss issues that may well influence the
successful teaching of standard educational
programmes to a cohort of international
students. The empirical exploration of this
paper is framed within the context of the
world in which we live and draws a focus on
the important issues such as social, cultural,
FOCUS Page Page 21

values, educational background, systems
and expectations. The intention is to add to
current discourse in what is increasingly an
important dimension in the field of
education.
Key words:
International, teaching education, values,
culture, social reality.
culturally diverse in its composition.
Intentional or unintentional ignoring or
ignorance of factors such as societal
background, history, cultural differences,
attitudes and values, educational
background and expectations may impact
on the successful delivery of educational
programmes to an international student
group.
Introduction
It is often argued that the global dimension
has added impetus to the effective
commodification of contemporary life with
the world rapidly moving towards a
converging commonality with needs
becoming homogenised (Ritzer, 1996;
Smart 1999). Both the Further and Higher
Education sectors now operate within a
dynamic global market, with universities and
colleges developing international
perspectives and pursuing marketing
strategies to attract international students
(Morrison, 1998). With education however,
an alternative view may be to acknowledge
that although there are global needs and
opportunities we may need to accept that
education per se may not be truly a global
product. Just as a manufacturing company
may change the packaging of a product or
vary the specification slightly to suit the
country or culture of a country they wish to
access, education programmes and/or
curricula may also require adaptation for an
international market. In reality, the allure of a
universal educational product may distract
from the real challenge educators face
today, that is to deliver and support ‘the
product’ in a manner that suits a student
population which is likely to be increasingly
In addition to discussing these issues in
general terms, because of the Grimsby
Institute of Further and Higher Education’s
rapidly growing direct involvement in China,
specific reference will be made to issues
arising from teaching Chinese students in
the UK. The Grimsby Institute’s increasing
involvement in China is not unique as,
Rosecky et al., (2004) point out:
“Evolution in its worldview has moved China
from a classic Marxism/Mao dicta to a more
pragmatic educational approach, one that
includes non-public education”.
Universities, institutes and colleges and
their educational programmes do not
operate in a vacuum, they are through the
tutors, support staff and students
inextricably connected to their societalcultural
environment. Recognition of the
diverse cultural and educational
backgrounds of the students should
highlight the necessity to review the
assumptions that we make when teaching
or developing educational programmes.
Burrell, & Morgan,(1979) argue:
“The rationale for a particular way of thinking
is grounded in a network of implicit or
explicit assumptions regarding ‘ontology’
(Science of Being –Reality) and ‘human
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nature’ that define an individual’s view of the
social world. These assumptions provide the
foundation of behaviour inclining the
individual to see and interpret the world from
one perspective rather than from another”.
How we learn to see and our perspective of
what we learn to see is socially constructed
and is framed in the language and life that
we lead or have led. Consequently, we may
as tutors and lecturers, albeit inadvertently,
have a tendency to view our world as the
world without recognising that the ways of
seeing are constantly being shaped by
numerous hidden forces that make reality
real in a culturally specific way. Individual
perception and our understanding of our
world are developed through the tools
provided by language and other learned
ways of seeing that forms our culture. By
acknowledging that this is the case, it is apt
to question what effect does or could this
have on our teaching style or a students
learning style.
Within the context of developing education,
Fink. (2001) contends that:
“Policy initiators and makers often see
students as mere statistics, whereas the
policy implementers, i.e. the educators,
have to face the reality of promoting and
developing the learning of a specific group
of students with all the associated diversity
and complexity”.
Fink (ibid):
“Each context creates a set of variables with
which the policy implementers (educators)
must contend and about which some policy
initiators seem unaware, unimpressed, or
even uncaring”.
To just assume that programmes can be
delivered in a standard form without
consideration for the formative background
of the students is a flawed strategy. A recent
discussion with some teachers from central
China attending a comprehensive English
training programme at Grimsby Institute of
Further and Higher Education illustrated this
point very clearly. Seeing a detachment of
Ghurkha soldiers on a parade during a
cultural visit to York, they ask where they
came from? When told Nepal and shown
where Nepal is on a world map, they denied
the existence of Nepal. For them this
country does not exist. And, these were
secondary education teachers!
Clearly, as educators it is important to
accept that to develop an understanding of
the culture of a country from a student’s
educational perspective, it is necessary to
have some understanding of the country’s
history and in particular recent history and
transformational events. The fall of the
Berlin wall in 1989 and the end of the
Ceacescue regime in Romania are two
examples of transformational events that led
to major cultural changes. Furthermore,
these events, among others, signalled the
demise of the old world bipolar order and
set the scene for a new world order in which
the internationalisation of education would
come to the fore. The successful delivery
and support of educational programmes it
would seem requires careful consideration
of cultural transferability, generic and
specific applicability and manipulation of
meaning. Recognition of the effect this may
influence how we develop and deliver
education programmes to a diverse cohort
of students. We should also consider
FOCUS Page Page 23

whether our metaphors, stories and
examples might be devalued and worthless
if the students cannot relate to them.
Furthermore, what barriers to the transfer of
learning could we actually be creating by
just failing to think through in sufficient detail
what is really required to ‘internationalise’
the programmes successfully?
According to Lumby (2004),
“an educator is lacking essential breadth if
practice remains bounded by the values and
approaches which have emerged over time
in any one location”..
The very notion of a converging education
commonality with needs becoming
homogenised raises a series of important
issues. For example, within this concept of
globalisation of education, terms such as
world-class education are now being used.
What does it mean; is it a marketing strap
line or a philosophy? What does
globalisation really mean in practice to our
learners? Dimmock, (2004) contends:
“A tension and struggle may exist between
the forces of globalisation bringing
homogenous change and those of societal
culture tending to preserve long cherished
customs and ways”..
Furthermore, Lumby (2004) argues that:
“An international perspective adopts a
stance which recognises the homogenizing
force of globalization but, also recognises
the profound differences that remain”. And
adds “that an international perspective
implies looking for what is shared, in
context, issues, values and practice but also
looking for what is different or appears
different”..
Whilst Fink (2001) points out:
“Well intentioned, highly motivated people,
both policy makers and policy
implementers, seek in their own ways to
create the very best educational experiences
for young people. Unfortunately, they have
become so caught up in their own paradigm
or mindset that they are unable or unwilling
to see the perspective of others, or to
acknowledge that their way may not support
the students learning”.
The world today is integrated in a way that
can lead to worldwide learning. However, in
the context of pedagogical approaches for
the international learner, Dimmock, Lumby
and Fink are clear in that identifying and
understanding cultural differences, values
and assumptions about human beings and
the world in which they live, in other words
identifying the student’s paradigm, is key to
the successful delivery and support of
educational programmes to a cohort of
international students. The unstated but
implicit challenge is that in a global market
the aim is to deliver and support education
programmes in a manner which truly reflects
awareness of cultural root differences.
Munoz & Katsioloudes (2004) advocate:
“As international learners and processors in
a global environment, those unfamiliar with
varying cultural codes may experience a
high level of stress in social encounters and
suffer from interpersonal anxiety and self
doubt”.
Through the methods we adopt when
teaching an international student group
there could be the tendency to impose,
either consciously or sub-consciously, the
culture and associated values and beliefs
developed in the English speaking world. In
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doing so we could then fall into the trap of
ignoring the powerful influence of the
student cohort’s home country’s ‘deep’
culture. It is necessary to recognise that the
epistemological development of educational
processes, curricula, teaching methods and
learning styles in the developed societies of
the so called ‘first-world’ are the products of
centuries of influence, evolvement, progress
and specific refinement. For example, the
United Kingdom’s educational evolution can
easily be traced back as a series of ‘building
block’ stages from modern history to
Roman Britain. If we look even further back
we can see that what the Romans taught us
is based on their accumulated knowledge
drawn from the Greeks, Egyptians and other
earlier Mediterranean centred civilisations. It
is argued that our knowledge and way of
thinking owes much to the learned scholars
from the ancient classical world.
Fink (2001) contends:
“educational systems in most Western
countries have delivered what society has
historically wanted them to deliver”.
However, historical development of an
educational system and way of learning in
one part of the world does not guarantee
appropriateness in another part of the
world. To assume that it does, ignores, or at
best, pays little regard to the
epistemological development of learning
and education in other countries. In China
for example, education and sophisticated
learning has also developed over several
millennia but in a totally different way from
the western world. Chinese knowledge and
ways of learning are not derived from the
same base - point as in the UK. A dissimilar
set of factors and influences shaped the
thinking and development of education and
learning in China. Chinese learning draws
from Confucius, Taoism, Buddha and
Chinese scholars such as Lao Tzu, not from
Aristotle and Archimedes. Early Chinese
scholars did not have much interest in pure
abstract thinking. When they came across
abstract ideas, they expressed them in
concrete or visual objectives. For example,
instead of saying fast, they would say a
thousand mile horse. For the concept of old,
Chinese had three different ways of
expression: one was aged sixty years,
another was seventy years, and a third was
aged eighty or ninety years. Kam-Cheung
Wong (2004) points out:
“Both in subject content and in the method
of thinking in philosophy, the ancient
Chinese were at great distance from the
ancient Greeks, who developed early
interest in the universe and in logic which
laid the foundations for the development of
Western worldview”.
Logic remains essential in Western
philosophical training to this day (Russell,
1961). Not so for the Chinese!
Perhaps even more relevant, Chinese
learning and societal perspectives in recent
history have been greatly influenced by
Marxism and Maoism; philosophies which
are poles apart from the predominant ways
of thinking in the so called west. Hofstede
(1996) adds:
“In attempting to understand differences,
one needs history and in understanding
history, one needs culture………….Thinking
is affected by the kind of family they grew up
in, the kind of school they went to, the kind
of authority and legal system they are
accustomed to. The causality between
FOCUS Page Page 25

institutions and culture is circular; they
cannot be separated”.
Societal culture is a significant theoretical
construct. Moloi (2003) refers to culture at
three levels - surface, middle and deep. In
her opinion, it is the deep culture i.e. the
culture that develops through the language
and life of the people, informed by time,
traditions and history, that is difficult to
change. Moloi (ibid) contends
“that insufficient attention to the local culture
results in only shallow surface comparison”.
Within this concept of deep culture it is
prudent to question whether the Chinese
‘thousand mile horse’ lack of abstract type
of thinking still prevails and consider the
impact would it have on learning transfer.
The exploration by Morgan (1986) of the
concept of psychic prisons by using the
allegory of Plato’s cave, suggests “People
can get trapped by illusions hence the way
they understand reality is limited and
flawed”. Whilst Fink, (2001) observes:
“we get caught up in ones own mindset that
we become unwilling or unable to see the
perspective of others”.
Consequently we could reject alternative
viewpoints because they do not sit
comfortably within our paradigm.
Lumby, J. (2004) argues
“an international perspective consequently
leads to a critical attitude of existing theory
which is based largely on western values
and also of the dominant group within the
west – white middle class men”.
The point that Lumby makes is crucial as it
encourages reflection on the influence of
personal values. We often develop ideas
about other people’s values by observing
their behaviour, rather than through detailed
discussion. Such observations may well be
biased towards the support or confirmation
of the personal values and viewpoints that
we already hold. It is important that we
acknowledge what may be accepted as fact
or truth in one culture may not be in another.
The denial of the existence of Nepal as a
country previously referred to emphasises
this point. Developing the ability to see
things from a different perspective from
other parts of the world is needed to change
our embedded thinking to ensure the
successful transfer of learning to an
international student cohort. Lumby (2004)
provides a useful definition:
“An international perspective can therefore
be defined as viewing values and practices
in locations across the world including one’s
own with sufficient openness to reach
insights about similarities, differences and
their scale and translating such insights into
renewed commitment and ideas for
developing one’s own practice. Such a
stance offers vibrant learning to leaders (and
educators) wherever they are based”.
Within the framework of indicative content
and learning outcomes, educational
programme planning in the UK is quite
straight forward – define what the students
must learn, divide the learning into
convenient chunks, produce schemes of
work and lesson plans, establish
timeframes, develop an assessment/ testing
regime, organise learning resources, then
tell the teachers how to achieve
predetermined targets. The Higher
Education programmes for delivery at
Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher
Education are planned and organised in
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precisely this way. The process has not
fundamentally changed in recent years, with
very little modification except for subject
specific updating. It is probable that the
majority of educational programmes in the
UK are probably organised in this manner.
Reducing the learning into component
parts, focusing on parts of the process and
not the whole is an approach to education
proposed by Taylor and Ford (1947). The
conventional wisdom is that the logical,
linear and consistent with western
intellectual thought with reason and
rationality is the only accepted way of
knowing. The scientific management
principles of dividing work up in discrete
components, establishing the one best way
and sticking rigidly to the format may be the
most efficient way to mass produce
consumer goods. I would question whether
it the most effective way to organise
learning. Our acceptance of the notion that
how we learn to see is very culturally
specific should lead to the consideration
that this style of teaching may not be
consistent with the learning style of Chinese
students. Consequently, in planning to
teach a diverse student cohort, what
assumptions and favoured ways of thinking
must be challenged and addressed to
ensure that the manner in which the
teaching is structured, organised and
delivered is right for the learning style of the
international students?
Analysis of the Research
Analysis of the research undertaken for this
paper suggests that there is a need to reflect
on how we teach international students
when they come to study in the UK. The
research is summarised as a discourse
drawn from the responses of colleagues.
Italics indicate where verbatim quotations
have been used but without specific
identification of origin. The research analysis
focused on three main issues: the impact of
cultural differences; student learning style
and teaching style.
Exploring the affect of Cultural differences
Within the context of planning the
programmes, the major issue was that for
the majority of the students forming the
subject of this research English is their
second language. Allowing additional time
for delivery of materials, workshop activities
and for students to discuss, answer
questions and to illustrate the application of
the theory to their specific circumstances
emerged as a constant theme. Tutors also
need to be aware, that religious events
including; prayer times, holidays and fasting
can and do affect student learning.
Consequently, the speed at which the
programme/lesson can be moved along can
be very different. It was also argued, when
planning course handbooks and curriculum
projects that tutors are responsible for
making all courses inclusive. The group will
be from a diverse range of socio-cultural
backgrounds and as such planning should
accommodate this.
“I have found that extra explanations of the
assignment briefs were required and these
have been thoroughly deconstructed in a
separate English and Cultural Studies class”.
Also within the discussions on assignments,
the issue of plagiarism emerged. Chinese
students regularly copied each others work
FOCUS Page Page 27

and used material from literature and
websites without proper Harvard
referencing. Apparently this custom is not
frowned upon in China and is, to a certain
extent, actively encouraged. When
challenged, the Chinese students did not
think that they had done anything wrong.
Rather than cheating, the Chinese students
saw this as a mark of respect to use work
that has already been written. And is an
acceptable method of learning.
Identification and awareness of this cultural
issue demonstrates the need for tutors,
when planning the programmes, to ensure
that students are made aware that custom
and practice they are used to may not be
appropriate. Consequently, tutors should
also plan for additional support to help
students address this issue so that students
are not disadvantaged because of language
or cultural differences. Furthermore, in
Chinese Colleges, there appears to be no
pressure to complete homework. Chinese
students did not seem to be used to it and
appeared not to like the concept of doing
things.
“They say they have completed the work
when they haven’t, which raises the issue of
the student losing face if challenged”.
The Chinese do not appear to understand
the reasons why this work needs to be
done.
When designing group activities, care
should be taken when choosing groups to
ensure those less able learners and those
with limited English speaking skills are
placed with students that are more able.
Contemporary learning theory suggests that
peer tutoring is not only effective in helping
less able students, but also can extend
pupils that are more able.
“I.choose to separate foreign students from
each other as they have a tendency to ‘stick
together.’ I have found that separating
students encourages them to integrate
better and serves to improve their spoken
English skills”.
It is also necessary for tutors to understand
that in China registers are not used, which
can create issues with punctuality,
particularly if students attend when they feel
like it – apparently Chinese tutors don’t pick
up on lateness. Although the discipline
imposed by the lecturers at the Grimsby
Institute was respected, it was a major
mindset change for the Chinese students.
Cultural differences and the manner in
which different societies educate pupils may
create initial difficulties in engaging the
student, particularly in respect of the often
used question and answer approach to
teaching. Tutor responses indicate that the
manner in which students have been
previously taught may make it problematical
to question learners, particularly with the
use of direct questions. In many cultures the
potential for loss of face is a very serious
issue, far more so than perhaps in Western
cultures. Having to ask a question, or the
possibility that an answer one gives may be
incorrect, could limit the initial engagement
of students. Chinese students are not used
to engaging in classroom discussions as
part of the learning experience. In China,
learning is mostly tutor led. Chinese
students are not really encouraged to
debate – although they like to and are
encouraged to read out loud. As the tutor is
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seen as the senior person, differences in
cultural courtesy, deference and
unwillingness to contradict can inhibit the
free transfer of information. Consequently,
students have to be encouraged to join in
and the tutor has to create the right culture
to ensure learning.
“In conventional lectures there is little
interaction, whilst the seminars should be
student led. There has been an
understandable reluctance to join in
discussions and it has taken about a whole
term to make this a normal practice, but with
patience and encouragement it does
happen”.
The tutor needs to convince the students
that open discussion would be appreciated
and beneficial to the course and is a
teaching strategy used to develop their
understanding. However, there may have to
be a trade off with adopting this strategy.
Until the students are relaxed about being
questioned and are comfortable with this
expectation, the tutor may have to consider
changes to teaching style. It may be that for
a particular student cohort or particular
student a particular teaching strategy may
never be appropriate!
It was contended, that recognition of this
point helped with the issue of classroom
management. Some tutors observed that
international students often have a tendency
to repeatedly hold conversations in their
native language to purposely exclude the
tutor. As one tutor observed, “during my
first lesson with international students I was
failing to engage them, they then started
talking between themselves, thus disrupting
the rest of the session”. Also within the
context of engaging students and
classroom management, it appears that
where the tutor stands is important to note.
In China, teachers stand at the front of class
and don’t walk around – conventional
lecture style; walking about is very different
from what Chinese students are used to.
The concept of walking about, into the
student body metaphorically speaking,
could be considered intimidating for some
students and impact on learning transfer.
Including into lesson planning activities that
have a link to what they are interested in and
what they can relate to was considered an
appropriate tactic. For example:
“I included statistics and information
regarding what is happening in China into
the lesson, this surprised the learners as
they commented ‘wow, Chinese
information,’ created an immediate interest
and engaged the learners”.
Making allowances for differences in the
international student’s learning style.
It appears that with the Chinese there are
definite differences in learning styles. They
are used to working through text from cover
to cover and expect to be ‘spoon fed’.
Which text book are we using and, starting
at chapter 1 appears to be the mindset.
Colleagues had to introduce the concept of
lectures and seminars and point out to
students that it was not necessary to read
text books from cover to cover. They appear
to have difficulty in grasping that you pick
out what you need.
“‘I found that their learning style had been
very didactic and the seminar set-up was
alien to them, therefore I continued to check
FOCUS Page Page 29

their understanding of issues with them. I
also had to spend time explaining to them
how HE operates in the UK which they are
now becoming accustomed to. It was
however difficult at the start as it was a
major culture change for these students”.
Where English is a second language, care
has to be taken to avoid misunderstandings
particularly about the way things were
phased. And, even where the spoken
English appears good, not all jokes go down
well. The differences in the sense of humour
(cultural) could create a barrier to successful
learning or even be perceived as offensive.
The recent example of the cartoons that
appeared in the Danish press and greatly
offended Muslim communities world wide
should indicate to tutors that cultural
sensitivity is required and that humour may
not always be appropriate. Barriers can also
be created by the nuances of the English
language itself. The use of technical terms,
jargon, expressions and in particular jokes
does not appear to work with a cohort of
international students.
“I have studied cultural relativism during my
degree so I did not perceive that there would
be differences. However, I have found that
the language barrier had a negative impact
on learning”..
Similarly, we have to consider the suitability
of the metaphors, individuals and examples
we use to illustrate the points we are
making. Using Richard Branson and Robert
Maxwell to illustrate a lecture I gave on
leadership in the Republic of Sudan, I was
faced with row upon row of blank faces.
Who are they? A colleague reflecting on a
similar experience observed:
“When delivering a lesson regarding
leadership for degree level learners I
included what I thought would be well
known leaders to discuss. The Chinese
learners in the group were not comfortable
discussing their own leaders and were not
familiar with leaders such as Tony Blair or
Condoleeza Rice, even George Bush. I
altered my strategy and engaged learners by
talking about football managers and letting
them lead the seminar”.
Clearly time needs to be taken to prepare
well in advance and find out the Chinese,
African, or other equivalents? Failure to do
so could be seen at best as an oversight
and over reliance on a western way of
seeing things, or at worst very ignorant and
disrespectful of other cultures! The notion of
using fairly ‘neutral’ examples such as
football players as illustrated above may be
the most sensitive approach.
There was a broad consensus that
allowances should be made for the students
use and understanding of the English
language. The structure of the Chinese
language for example influences their
construction and use of English. Awareness
of how we regularly and perhaps unwittingly
use colloquial English expressions is
important, and these should be avoided.
“I try to be careful with my language and
avoid slang terms as much as possible for
pupils who have limited English speaking
skills”.
Tutors need also to be aware that getting the
Chinese students to write 2000 word
assignments was an anathema to them
because they were not used to it. Therefore
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the teaching style/expectations and
assessment methodology may need to be
modified to compensate. It was also
considered to be paramount that the tutor
really got to know and understand the
student’s learning styles. One tutor
observed:
“Without making that extra effort to get to
know and understand their needs I have no
doubt that there would have been many
more failures of assignments. Much of their
work is practical so tutors are having more
demands placed upon them in having to
further explain requirements that are easily
understood by UK students”.
Another theme that emerged was that
students expect to be provided with
information, rather than develop
understanding through practical application
of the theory. In the UK, tutors use and refer
to a variety of text books and opinions and
encourage students to take responsibility
for their learning. In China, the tendency is
to use only one, which is the set text. The
tutor explains everything without challenges
from the students. In the UK, students are
expected and encouraged to question and
challenge as part of the learning process.
Chinese students because of
cultural/political/national influences and
background do not challenge, which reflects
the observation by Moloi (2003) on ‘deep’
culture being difficult to change.
A Personal Viewpoint:
The information gathered from the empirical
research was not surprising. There wasn’t a
wide divergence on what was required to
develop a teaching strategy appropriate for
international students. The synthesis of
observations appear to reflect what was
identified in the literature regarding the
cultural aspect of the globalisation of
education, Lumby (2004), Dimmock (2004),
Fink (2001), and the driving forces of
McDonaldisation, Ritzer (1996), Smart
(1999). There was a general agreement that
successful teaching of an education
programme to an international student
cohort should be based on a well thought
out planning process that is informed at
both the macro and micro levels. Identifying,
planning for and respecting the differences
in personal values and culture,
differentiation and the learning styles of the
students, which further reflected the
observations and points made by Moloi
(2003), Wong (2004), Morgan (1986) and
Fink (2001).
It was strongly argued that there are huge
benefits from having a culturally diverse
group in the classroom, especially when
discussing global issues. Added to this
there are benefits for British students in their
development of citizenship, learning and an
understanding of the benefits of celebrating
diversity. There was consensus that
understanding the culture, recognising the
differences and knowing what we can do
and what we may need to change was
fundamental to the successful transfer of
learning to international students. Lumby
(2004) states:
”an international perspective is not about
knowing about the practice of others, but
about reaching a deeper understanding of
our own practice and how it relates to that of
other”..
FOCUS Page Page 31

Tutors need to be prepared and be aware of
the deep cultural backgrounds of their
students (Moloi, 2003; Dimmock, 2004;
Fink, 2001). This often means doing some
background research into the manners and
customs so that unintentional offence is not
caused (Hofstede ,1996). Equally, all agreed
that it was necessary to learn as much as
you can about the culture beforehand,
(Wong, 2004). At a social level, some tutors
acknowledged it can be difficult to make
small talk conversation – which reflects the
observation by Lumby, (2004) “an educator
is lacking essential breadth if practice
remains bounded by the values and
approaches which have emerged over time
in any one location”. To be able to relate on
a social level can be one of the most
effective strategies of learning transfer.
In addition, tutors should be aware of how
students respond and relate to you and take
appropriate action to ensure that no offence
is given and that learning outcomes are met.
The term “offence” refers to incidents that
would seem bad mannered or inappropriate,
e.g. shaking hands on introduction is not
always appropriate, particularly with Arabic
students. Shaking hands with an Arabic
woman who is not your wife, mother or
sister is not acceptable at all.
It was considered an appropriate teaching
strategy to engage the students by clearly
stating at the beginning of the course
exactly what is expected of them with
respect to their participation in lectures,
seminars, classroom discussion and
assignment requirements. However in doing
so, the tutor needs to understand where the
students are, metaphorically speaking, at
the beginning of the course and what
support the students may need to meet
those expectations. It is also just as
important for the tutors to reflect on where
they are, metaphorically speaking, in
preparation for teaching international
students and make necessary adjustments
to their style and expectations.
Recruiting students from different societies
has a positive impact not only on the
finances of the host University or Institute
but also to the wider community in general.
However, the university or institute needs to
ensure that appropriate study support for
these learners and staff development for the
tutors delivering the programmes is
available to ensure a quality education for
all. It was argued that there should be
resources available that give tutors a quick
guide to a learner’s culture, making sure that
they do not stereotype. One colleague went
further by suggesting:
“I think that there should be extra employees
devoted to areas within the institute to help
learners with summative assessments who
have subject knowledge for the curriculum
areas as well as an understanding of ESOL”.
In conclusion, it became clear that teaching
a cohort of international students can be
problematical if cultural, societal and
language differences are not recognised or
acknowledged. It is not safe to assume that
learning transfer can be successful without
understanding the formative background of
the student. The modifications required in
teaching style may in practice only be minor,
such as lengthier explanations, teaching at a
slower pace, additional study support on
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FOCUS

eferencing or the use of meaningful
examples to highlight some tactics – minor
in application, major in outcome. Minor or
not, my conclusion is that by not
considering these issues the teaching
strategy is flawed and the potential for the
successful transfer of learning and a
positive student experience greatly
diminished.
FOCUS Page Page 33

Reference Papers
Dimmock, C. (2004) ‘Societal Culture,
Leadership and School Improvement’:
Lincoln University March 2004
Lumby, J. (2004) ‘International Perspectives
on Leadership and Management’: Lincoln
University March 2004
Moloi, C (2003) ‘Educational Leadership
from a Personal Perspective’: Lincoln
University November 2003
Smith, M. (2004) ‘Mediating the world:
Development Education and Global
Citizenship’ Globalisation, Societies and
Education Volume 2, No1 March 2004,
Carfax Publishing
Wong, K-C. (2004) ‘Cultural Issues and
Education Leadership’: Lincoln University
March 2004
Ritzer, G. (1996) The McDonaldisation of
Society: Pine Forge: London
Rosecky, R.B, Smith, L.W. & Yongfang, L
(2004) Non – Public Collegiate Education in
Modern People’s Republic of China, in
International Education JournalVol.15, No 2
(2004)
Russell, B (1961) History of Western
Philosophy 2nd Ed, London: Routledge in
Wong, K-C. (2004) ‘Cultural Issues and
Education Leadership’: Presented at
Lincoln University March 2004
Smart, B. (ed) (1999) Resisting
McDonaldisation: London Sage
Taylor, F.W. (1947) Scientific Management:
Harper Row: New York
Walker, A. & Dimmock, C. (Eds). (2002).
School Leadership and Administration:
Adopting a cultural perspective. New York:
Routledge Falmer
Bibliography
Burrell, G. & Morgan, G. (1979) Social
Paradigms and Organisational Analysis,
London, Heineman
Fink, D. (2001) The Two Solitudes: policy
makers and policy implementers in
Fielding, M. (2001) Taking Education Really
Seriously - Four years’ Hard Labour,
London, Routledge Falmer
Foskett, N & Lumby, J (2003) Leading and
Managing Education: International
Dimensions, London, Paul Chapman.
Hofstede, G. (1991) Culture and
Organisations: Software of the Mind:
London: McGraw Hill
Morrison, K. (1998), Management Theories
for Educational Change, London, Paul
Chapman
Morgan, G. (1985), Images of Organisation,
London, Sage
Munoz, J.M. & Katsioloudes, M.L (2004)
Executive Perceptions on International
Education in a Globalised Environment: in
International Education Journal Vol5, No 2,
2004
FOCUS Page Page 35

About the author
Although originally a qualified engineer, Stephen is due to complete
his Doctorate of Education Degree (EdD) during the academic year
2006/7. His doctoral research interests are Educational Leadership
and Management, Managing Quality in Education, and the
influence of culture in education. During his doctoral studies he
has written several papers addressing these themes. He was
awarded a Masters Degree in Business Administration (MBA) by
the University of Humberside in 1995. In addition he also holds a
Post Graduate Certificate of Education, a Diploma in Management
Studies, a Diploma in Purchasing and Supply and several training
qualifications.
Stephen has held several senior managerial posts in industry. He
was a Purchasing Manager for Nestle (UK) Ltd for many years and
then the training manager for a private training provider before
returning to Nestle (UK) Ltd as the Company Training Manager.
Stephen was recruited by the then Grimsby College to specifically
manage their Management Development Centre. Stephen has also
undertaken freelance managerial consultancy contracts, for major
organisations both in the UK and more extensively in the Middle
East and Africa. He is currently employed as the Grimsby Institute’s
Deputy Director for Academic Programmes and Action Research.
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WISHful Thinking?
By Rob Cooling - Head of Health and Safety Training and Consultancy
Services at East Coast Occupational Safety and Health (ECOSH), a
commercial subsidiary of the Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher
Education.
As the current legal framework fails to
support effective worker involvement, this
paper questions whether organisations
should consider adopting a systems
approach to managing Worker Involvement
in Safety and Health (WISH).
In February 2004 the Health and Safety
Commission (HSC) published a visionary
strategy for workplace health and safety in
Great Britain to 2010 and beyond. In this
strategy the HSC described its mission is to
“gain the recognition of health and safety as
a cornerstone of civilised society and with
that achieve a record of workplace health
and safety that leads the world”. Worker
involvement was presented as a
fundamental success factor in striving
towards this vision.
The rhetoric on worker involvement is
nothing new, the phrase that health and
safety should be ‘everybody’s business’ has
been around a long time, yet the idealistic
shouts of ‘empowerment’ and ‘selfmanagement’
remain heady aspirations.
Even though we live in a society which
outwardly promotes industrial democracy,
very few organisations have taken the steps
necessary to embrace worker involvement
in safety and health (WISH). Most
organisations continue to artificially
subscribe to the weakest forms of worker
involvement, often to meet legal
requirements, with the underlying proviso
that these changes do not markedly shift the
balance of power within the organisation.
Yet why is this the case? Why is it only the
most enlightened organisations that have
FOCUS Page Page 39

harnessed the vast reservoir of untapped
knowledge and experience possessed by
the workforce? This question is difficult to
answer, particularly in consideration of the
irrefutable benefits of worker involvement.
Recent research conducted by the HSE
(HSE, 2005) suggests that the prevailing
safety culture within an organisation is a key
determinant of the extent of worker
involvement, yet this perspective may seem
somewhat paradoxical as effective worker
involvement is fundamental in supporting a
positive safety culture. In addition, issues
such as a lack of understanding of the
importance and meaning of health and
safety, perceived complexity of health and
safety legislation, and the associated time
and costs incurred in implementing new
practices, were all cited as substantial
barriers to involving the workforce in health
and safety.
Indeed, effective involvement of the
workforce in health and safety is vital. The
workforce know about their job and working
conditions and will have insights into how
they impact upon their health and safety.
They have the potential to identify key
issues and may already have suggestions
for improving health and safety at work. The
management of occupational safety and
health is always more successful when it
involves workers and their representatives
than when it is pursued unilaterally by
management. This assertion is backed up
by a growing body of evidence which
indicates that effective WISH has a positive
impact on both individual workers and
organisations as a whole. Research collated
by the HSE (Health and Safety Executive
n.d.) demonstrates that workers who are
involved are more committed and feel more
valued. This is reflected in greater job
satisfaction and a lower likelihood of leaving
the organisation.
Further research illustrates that those
organisations which encourage WISH, in all
its various forms, experience significant
improvements in health and safety
performance. In particular, empirical
evidence (Reilly et al., 1995) has shown, that
where trade union safety representatives
work together with employers, accident
rates can be up to 50% lower than where
managers alone make decisions over health
and safety.
One of the main problems lies in the fact
that current legislation does not support or
encourage effective WISH, nor is it relevant
to the ‘changing world of work’. The current
legal provisions within the UK promote
WISH founded upon the principle of
‘consultation’. The limitation here is that
consultation is an extremely weak form of
worker involvement, with many employers
establishing mechanisms to consult with the
workforce to meet minimum standards, but
more often than not failing to take heed of
suggestions and recommendations arising
from the consultation process.
Within the UK, we also have to be aware
that worker involvement operates within a
continually changing socio-economic
landscape. In particular, the number of
small firms continues to grow unabatedly,
most of which do not have trade union
recognition and may never even have heard
of the Health and Safety (Consultation with
Employees) Regulations 1996. In addition,
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the growing trends of contractorisation and
reliance upon agency, peripatetic and lone
workers, create working environments in
which worker involvement requires a great
deal of thought and careful planning if it is to
be successful.
It may well be that the European Union will
continue to have a strong influence on the
development of legislation promoting
worker involvement. In April 2005, the
national information and consultation
regime commenced operation in parallel
with the European Works Council regime.
The Information and Consultation of
Employee Regulations 2003, which took
effect from 5 th April 2005, have the potential
to be one of the most significant pieces of
employment legislation ever to be
introduced in the UK. The Regulations will
enable employees in an affected business to
require their employer to set up a Works
Council. The employer will then have to
consult with the council on ‘decisions likely
to lead to a substantial change in work
organisation and contractual relations’. Its
scope is therefore very wide and potentially
covers mergers and acquisitions or
outsourcing of activities. Initially, the
Regulations impacted upon all employers
who have 150 or more employees in the UK.
However, employers of 100 or more
employees will be covered in 2007, and 50
or more in 2008. In addition to these
regulations, some employers are required to
inform and consult employee
representatives at a Europe-wide level
through a European Works Council.
However, the number is relatively low for a
number of reasons. Firstly, to be covered by
European Works Council legislation the
employer must have 1,000 or more
employees in Europe and 150 in two or
more European countries. Secondly, the
employer is only required to start
negotiations to establish a European Works
Council if a formal request is received. In
other words, if employees or their
representatives fail to make this request
then negotiations will not be triggered.
In countries such as France and Germany,
mandatory national works councils are
longstanding, with this recent legislation
suggesting that it is only a matter of time
before the UK catches up in this area.
These comments suggest that it will clearly
be a case of ‘watching this space’ for further
developments in worker involvement, along
with potential cases where employers,
under the scope of the aforementioned
legislation, fail to consult with their
employees over health and safety related
matters. Indeed, if the influence of the EU is
anything to go by, it certainly appears that
we will be continually pushed into a more
participative approach to health and safety
decision-making.
Taking into account the benefits of effective
WISH there is a strong case for fundamental
legislative review and reform for law that
lays out higher standards for worker
involvement, specifically in relation to health
and safety at work. However, it is also
important that legislation remains relevant to
the changing world of work, with an
appreciation of the evidence that suggests
that it is the increasing number of small
firms that tend to have more deficient
systems for worker involvement (Walters,
FOCUS Page Page 41

1996). This legislation needs to be backed
up by comprehensive guidance for
organisations genuinely interested in
involving the workforce in all aspects of
health and safety at work.
Why a systems approach?
Taking into account the previously
discussed issues, there are many reasons
why organisations may have difficulty in
attempting to involve workers in health and
safety. So how do organisations go about
promoting WISH? Well, one point that is
glaringly apparent is that compliance with
statutory provisions alone will not engender
the levels of involvement needed to bring
about noticeable improvements in health
and safety performance. If organisations
are to truly reap the rewards of worker
involvement then it requires managing in the
same way as any other organisational
function. Taking this assertion on board, the
WISH Management Model has been
proposed as an adaptation of the HSE’s
familiar framework for successful health and
safety management (HSE, 1997),
advocating a systems approach to
managing WISH.
From the outset, a commitment to worker
involvement should be clarified within a
policy, ideally this should be distinct from
the general safety policy. The WISH policy
should include a management commitment
to involving the workforce in all aspects of
health and safety, from the development of
the safely policy itself, to an ongoing
involvement in risk assessments and the
improvement of safe systems of work. The
WISH policy is pivotal within the systems
approach and once it is in place, attempts
can then be made to organise the workforce
for effective worker involvement. The
organising stage will ensure that the
workforce has the levels of competency
needed to actively contribute to health and
safety at work. It will also involve making
sure that there are adequate mechanisms in
place for communicating information on
worker involvement. These organisational
requirements will be supported by effective
co-operation between all parties and control
over worker involvement practices. Once
the 4 Cs’ of worker involvement are in place,
the organisation will be on the right lines to
fostering a safety culture founded upon
worker involvement.
At the planning and implementation stage,
organisations need to identify where they
are in terms of worker involvement before
looking at the mechanisms needed to
promote greater involvement. It must be
appreciated that there is a clear spectrum of
worker involvement, with the provision of
information perceived as a very loose form
of worker involvement, right up to the polar
extremes of co-determination (Works
Councils) and self-management.
Consultation and participation are both
presented as forms of worker involvement
within the worker involvement spectrum,
with participation argued as a purer form,
permitting the active involvement of
employees at management decision making
level.
The mechanisms for involving the workforce
are wide and varied, however, what is more
important is that organisations look into
finding the balance of mechanisms that
‘best fits’ their organisation.
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These mechanisms can range from the
familiar indirect forms of involvement such
as safety representatives and safety
committees and plant or works councils, to
safety circles, suggestion schemes, job
enrichment and even team working,
including HAZOP studies, where applicable.
Once the workforce becomes actively
involved in health and safety, the next step
is monitoring the impact of this involvement
upon health and safety performance. A
range of active and reactive monitoring
techniques can be utilised to critically
assess whether worker involvement is
having the desired effect. This leads directly
into the final components of auditing and
reviewing the systems in place, with a focus
upon continuous improvement in all areas.
Although is not realistic to suggest that
organisations begin by subscribing to
principles of self-management, what is
needed is a period of experimentation as
organisations attempt to introduce new
systems for involving the workforce before
deciding upon the most suitable techniques.
These attempts should be founded upon
continuous improvement, ultimately striving
towards self-managed teams and the
creation of an organisation that is highly
flexible and resilient to change. This may
appear to the cynic to be a somewhat
idealistic crusade, yet it is only when we
have a truly autonomous and competent
workforce that we will be able to manage
risks in a dynamic fashion.
The future of WISH?
So what does the future hold for WISH?
Well, it is clear that WISH will be a high
priority for many years to come, as a part of
the constant search for new initiatives to
further drive down the rates of accidents
and cases of ill health at work. It must be
remembered that bringing about
improvements in health and safety, and
developing the safety culture within any
organisation, is all about a focus on people,
and without worker involvement and the
ensuing commitment to safety initiatives, it
unlikely that organisations will meet the
tough targets and best value indicators for
the health and safety system set out within
the Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy
(ODPM, 2000).
,
WISH will continue to remain high on the
HSC’s / HSE’s agenda as a part of the
ongoing commitment to behavioural safety
and the soft systems approach. Indeed, the
HSE will undoubtedly continue to build upon
the work established by the Workers Safety
Advisors (WSA) initiative in 2002, which
tested ways of encouraging greater
employee involvement in health and safety.
This was another excellent example of
where partnerships between trade unions,
employers and workers can lead to
improvements in organisations that did not
have trade union recognition. The pilot ran in
four sectors (automotive engineering,
construction, hospitality and the voluntary
sector) and two thirds of the employers
participating in the pilot had less than
twenty-five employees. Changes to the
approach to health and safety were reported
by some three quarters of the employees
FOCUS Page Page 43

who took part in the pilot. Specific changes
made included: joint training for managers,
the production of new and / or revised
policies and procedures, and the
involvement of workers in risk assessments
(HSE CRR 144/2003). Following on from the
success of the pilot, the Workers’ Safety
Adviser Challenge Fund was launched in
2003 with three million pounds of funding
allocated to the initiative, over a three year
period, with the overall aim of promoting
greater employer and employee involvement
in health and safety.
These initiatives are crucial if awareness and
understanding of health and safety at work
is to be developed, yet the fact remains that
more specific and practical guidance is still
needed for organisations who are looking to
actively involve their workers in health and
safety. The statement that ‘an
organisation’s greatest asset are its people’
has become somewhat of a hackneyed
cliché, yet surely it is about time that we
took this advice on board and began to look
at opportunities for engaging the workforce
in health and safety at work.
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References:
HSE (2005) Obstacles preventing worker
involvement in health and safety. HSE
Research Report 296
http://www.hse.gov.uk/workers/involvement
/evidence.htm
Reilly, B., Paci, P. and Holl, P., (1995) Unions,
safety committees and workplace injuries.
British Journal of Industrial Relations
Walters, D. (1996) Trade unions and the
effectiveness of worker representation in
health and safety in Britain. International
Journal of Health Services
HSE (1997) Successful health and safety
management, HSG 65, HSE Books
Revitalising health and safety: Strategy
statement OSCSG0390 (2000)
The Worker Safety Adviser (WSA) Pilot, York
Consulting with Fife College of Further
Education, HSE CRR 144/2003
FOCUS Page Page 45

About the author
Rob Cooling MA, BSc(Hons), BA(Hons), PGCE, CMIOSH is Head of
Health and Safety Training and Consultancy Services at East Coast
Occupational Safety and Health (ECOSH), a commercial subsidiary
of the Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education. Rob is
lead tutor for the NEBOSH Diploma qualification and also works
with NEBOSH as an examiner.
Rob is a chartered safety and health practitioner and has
experience of providing health and safety consultancy services to
a diverse range of sectors, including engineering, manufacturing
and contruction, along with the delivery of bespoke training to the
chemical and petro-chemical industries. He is currently completing
doctoral research into the law and management of worker
involvement in safety and health and has published a number of
articles in recognised safety magazines and journals, including the
Safety and Health Practitioner (SHP).
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Critical Circuits and
Textual Constructs:
Henry James’ 'The
Figure in the Carpet'
Dr. Donna Cox - Course Leader for the English Studies degree programme
at The Grimsby Institute. She considers this short story, published in 1896,
as a vehicle for the elucidation of critical engagement.
This paper will consider Henry James’ short
story ‘The Figure in the Carpet’, published in
1896, as a vehicle for the elucidation of
critical engagement. That a fictional
construct may be used to comment on
critical receptivity and theoretical aspects of
linguistic power is to posit engagement with
facets of linguistic structure as paradigmatic
of interpretative response. The text itself will
be considered to be transmissive of the
rhetorical mechanisms of textual analysis
because the act of criticism is both its
central focus and is inherent to its narrative
presentation. It will be considered that ‘the
figure’ acts as a central point towards which
critical desire directs its agency whilst the
critic is held captive to his interpretative
project, held in a domain of power
imposition within the virtual dimension of
literary criticism. Aesthetic pursuit then
FOCUS Page Page 49

must inherently depend upon an unrelenting
exertion of power which becomes endemic
to its process. In its examination of textual
constructs and the critical circuits we tread
in relation to them, this paper will draw upon
poststructuralist and psychoanalytical
theory to interrogate aspects of critical
practice.
‘The Figure in the Carpet’ presents us with
the quest of an unnamed narrator to unravel
the mystery of the work of Hugh Vereker, an
author he admires. After producing a
commissioned review of Vereker’s new
novel for a journal, he has opportunity to
meet the author who explains that all critical
attention seems to miss his “little point . . .
what shall I call it – the particular thing I’ve
written my books most for” (James: 1896,
15 – emphasis as original). 1 The narrator
becomes intrigued by the elusive “little
point” and becomes embroiled in a critical
pursuit to unveil ‘the particular thing’ to
which the author alludes. His desire is to be
crowned “victor – with the critical laurels”
(32). It is in conversation with Vereker that
the author purports the point of criticism to
be as palpable as a figure in a carpet:
“‘What else in heaven’s name is criticism
supposed to be?’” (17). In his frustrated
questioning of the author, the narrator
ventures “profanely” that ‘the thing’ in the
text might be aligned with “some kind of
game you’re up to with your style,
something you’re after in the language.
Perhaps a preference for the letter P! . . .
Papa, potatoes, prunes - that sort of
thing?’” (19) To the narrator’s list of
‘profane’ suggestions, we might add
another word beginning with ‘the letter P’:
power.
The textual production entitled ‘The Figure
in the Carpet’ is riddled through and through
with configurations of power and this is
overlaid by its intimate connection with
desire as an operative component in the
unravelling of the tale. The “game [it’s] up to
with [its] style” is a correlative of the trickery
at the heart of its subject matter. Its
sentence structures, with their numerous
sub-clauses so reluctant to lay “the subject”
wholly upon the table, tantalize to the last
term. Coercive suspense is written into its
very structuration. This particular short story
grips its subject so tightly that we never
seem to reach its elusive “little point” whilst
simultaneously being invited to miss the
point continually as part of its alluring game.
In its configuration lies its meaning; James’
story is one which inherently dictates how it
is meant to be read as we enter its confines
to negotiate with the iron grasp of its own
enigma. The narrative voice reminds us that
it is captive to its own constructedness:
I had been shut up with my obsession for
ever - my gaolers had gone off with the key.
I find myself quite as vague as a captive in a
dungeon. . . (59)
James’ tale progresses precisely by
withholding its meaning, by not unveiling
‘the thing’ operative at the centre of its
power mechanism. As critics and readers
we dance a figure around the figure in the
carpet with which we are supposed to be
intimately concerned in our critical quest to
uncover the “buried treasure” (23): the
elusive and mysterious object existing as
fascinating fetish point of readerly attentions
and critical intentions.
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‘The thing’ exists as a negative presence in
the text, i.e. ‘the thing’ is what it is not for it
is nowhere present yet is actually identical
with its non-presence, existing only as an
intangible, a de-stablised referent which
crosses the threshold of itself as signified
presence, an “unimaginable truth” (47). The
centrality of ‘the thing’ itself in its fictional
framework is such that the figuring of itself
as intangible is an illogical presence in the
text. In order then to realise the antipresence
of ‘the thing’, the subject, in its
imagined encounter with it, must occupy a
split position which submits to its own
supposition of foresight. This would thereby
posit a readerly position existing as a
ghostly reverberation from the future on the
edges of the interpretative performance. As
reading subjects, we are subject to that
which has not yet occurred, that which does
not yet ‘figure’; we are critically fascinated
by what is held in suspense as a projected
possible presence. This then is what
constitutes “a piece of literary experience”
(51). In a schematics of aesthetic trickery, I
find myself ensnared by an underlying
anxiety of dissolution, longing to “have joy
of the thing I lacked” (61). Writing in a
posited textual present, the narrator states
that,
Pen in hand, this way, I live the time over,
and it brings back the oddest sense of my
having been for months and in spite of
myself a kind of coerced spectator. (48)
In this scenario, the narrator is clearly split
between two scenes: the scene of the
writing present and that of past recollection.
Yet the recollection of the past requires its
habitation as present in the telling of the
story. This present is itself always crossed
through by an anticipatory projection into a
time of full possession of ‘the thing’ through
an imposition of interpretative power,
thereby ensuring critical success. Just as
‘the thing’ haunts the critic, the critic haunts
‘the thing’ in a mutual power dynamic
activated by the interpretative process.
For all its virtual intangibility, ‘the thing’ has
a physicality circumscribed by its marked
place on the page:
‘The thing’s as concrete there as a bird in a
cage, a bait on a hook, a piece of cheese in
a mouse-trap. It’s stuck into every volume
as your foot is stuck into your shoe. It
governs every line, it chooses every word, it
dots every i, it places every comma’ (8).
The characters exist, of course, only as
mechanisms in a fictional machinery limited
in their walk by “every page and line and
letter” for “it was only in such circles we
were all constructed to revolve” (60).
Gwendoline quite literally feels “in italics”
and thinks “in capitals” (32). The eye is
indeed “what the printed page had been
expressly invented to meet”: its marks are
all there is until activated by the reading
process by which a shimmering ‘figure’ may
be conjured up in direct relation to the
power the text wields over us; in its
seductive tricks lies the process of critical
reception, our dialogical engagement
overlaid by shadows of textual power so
that we may experience “‘a pleasure so rare;
the sense of . . . something or other’” (5).
Propelled forward by the synthetic project of
the text, the critical reader enters the virtual
dimensionality of ‘the thing’ as a ‘nothing’
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which is central to the story. The figure
thereby becomes figurative. In the figuring
of ‘the thing’ lies seduction as the subject
engages with rhetorical structure and the
structure acts as a trap into which the
reading body is lured and held captive: sent
to ground by “the chase for which I myself
had sounded the horn” (29). By entering the
virtual dimension of criticism, the critic
becomes engaged in a phantasy in which he
may hold the illusion of full presence. ‘The
thing’ is a sleeper in the flesh of the story, a
lodged foreign body lodged in the ample
Jamesian surrounds. In their ‘Preliminary
Communication’ of 1893 to Studies on
Hysteria, Breuer and Freud refer to the
symptomatic base of hysteria being due to
memory acting as a lodged “foreign body”
which remains active in the working present
(Breuer and Freud: 1991, 57). The present
of the narrative is here wound around with a
superfluity activated from within by the
reading body which, in its critical endeavour,
occupies the unnamed position of
secondary narrator-writer. The reading body
in this text is, of course, split by being both
represented (narrator) and implied (reader).
This split scene of readership, inhabiting a
place in and out of the text, positions the
interpretative act itself as hysterical. If, in
reading, the one and other intrude upon one
another in an imposition of boundary so that
the threshold of the subject is transgressed
in the reading process, the depiction of this
process within the story space itself must
render James’ text doubly split. Iser
theorises the reading process in
phenomenological terms:
If reading removes the subject-object
division that constitutes all perception, it
follows that the reader will be ‘occupied’ by
the thoughts of the author, and these in their
turn will cause the drawing of new
‘boundaries’ . . . ‘division’ takes place within
the reader himself. (Iser: 1988, 226).
In textual exegesis is a radical estrangement
then. We become, to use Kristevan
terminology, ‘strangers to ourselves’. The
subject is ‘subject’ to power, subjected and
subjectified in relation to constructivity
which is not to say that it reaches a stable
point of ‘subject’ or indeed that that state of
being subject is ever identical to itself but is
indeed constantly under threat of eruption.
Butler refers to this in The Psychic Life of
Power as “a reiterated ambivalence at the
heart of agency” (Butler: 1997, 18). In a
reading of power mechanics which is built
upon Freud’s ‘compulsion to repeat’, Butler
states that:
Power is never merely a condition external
or prior to the subject, nor can it be
exclusively identified with the subject. If
conditions of power are to persist, they must
be reiterated; the subject is precisely the site
of such reiteration. . . (Butler: 1997, 16)
In its perpetual performance, a projected
unity is encountered again and again for as
long as a central point of power is
maintained. Such a reading would posit the
existence of a transcendental referent
without which there would be no sense in
signing analytically and in thrall of which the
“critical laurels” are withheld. This links with
Lacan’s concept of the phallus as
transcendental signified and Foucault’s
formulation of resistance as non-anterior to
power (Foucault: 1990, 95). Far from being
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offered for interpretation, the ‘thing’ in
Vereker’s text maintains its position central
to the text by being resistant to any such
readerly acquisition; the thing becomes the
impossible yet necessary object as lynchpin
of all critical machinations. In its elusive
manoeuvres, the text sets up a dynamic of
critical hide-and-seek. Through its very
effacement, it declares what it is ‘about’ in
an elaborate snare it sets for its reader,
alluding to its ‘thing’ at every turn, tempting
with an erotics of flirtation, inviting the
reader to linger on its threshold, catch hold
of it and “pull hard, pull it right out”: a
tantalising text-tease (24). We are “therefore
to be [ ] good boy[s]” - and girls - and “not
try to peep under the curtain before the
show [is] ready: [We] should enjoy it all the
more if [we sit] very still” (47). The story has
the power to hold us captive, we are ‘on a
promise’, “thoroughly to be tantalised” (40),
coerced into turning the page in a physical
encounter with the text as a material and
tangible thing which promises to ‘unveil its
idol’ in front of a “palpitating audience” (49)
but will eventually “lay [itself] bare” only in a
final revelation of negativity. In its black
markings on “every page and line and letter”
lies its engravement. Its continual acts of
deferral are connected with the deathliness
which is the impetus lying behind the
signifying act: it is as a compensation for
loss of ‘the object’ that it is signified. It is in
a quest to critically unravel the secretive
figure that a posited wholeness may be
obtained for subjects radically split through
the signifying act: the reader is held hostage
linguistically to the ‘the thing’ embedded in
the text. In his essay on ‘Differance’,
Derrida refers to the ‘a’ as a silent figure “like
a tomb”, a pyramid in which the letter rises
again through interpretative play (Derrida:
1968, 132). Just as a pyramid holds the
treasure of the dead, Vereker ‘the scribe’
refers to the ‘thing’ held within his text as
“buried treasure” for critical unearthing. He
takes his ‘secret’ beyond life’s limits, his
treasure goes with him beyond the limits of
life: “the sentence had virtually been written.
The writer might go down to his grave” [57].
The quest for to discover the secret of “the
figure” is referred to by the narrator as that
which acts as a “counterpoise to [ ] grief”
[51].
The ‘treasure’ of the text correlates with
Lacan’s objet a as projected phantasy, the
fixated fetish as centre over which ‘I’ may
oscillate endlessly in negotiation with critical
desire. “Ask the writer about the anxiety
that he experiences when faced by the
blank sheet of paper,” says Lacan, “and he
will tell you who is the turd of his phantasy”
(Lacan: 1977, 315 – emphasis as original).
In the retentive procedures of James’ text
and its mechanisms of withholding, it retains
that lodged foreign body; it keeps its filth
within as a stored up “buried treasure” to be
picked over in fantasised privacy. In
Freudian theory, the anal stage of ego
development sees the infant’s ‘treasure’ as
central to formation of subjectivity, the
faecal trajectory by which boundaries are
established. According to Mary Douglas,
“[a]ny structure of ideas is vulnerable at its
margins” (Douglas: 1991, 121). Like Divine
in the John Waters’ film Pink Flamingo, we
might sense “deep dark trouble”: a deep
dark trouble lying beneath the still waters of
aestheticism; a troubling presence existing
under the surface, its subterranean position
providing the guarantor for artistic
FOCUS Page Page 53

production in which we might catch “whiffs”
of the “faint wandering notes of a hidden
music” (31). Keep that thing away from this
thing so that ‘the thing’ may retain its
centrality in the scheme of power
mechanics.
reflexive response to structures of power. 2
Without the threat of dismantling, aesthetic
wholeness has no meaning; “the flame of art
burns most intensely” where it is most in
danger of being extinguished (15). Without
the violent threat of unravelling, the figure in
the carpet will not hold. Without the
Within this scenario, critical reception
becomes a power game of ‘fascination’; the
imposition of critical power, the figure simply
cannot configure
indefinable thing has us in thrall, wasted and
wandering in a romantic quest for ‘unveil the
indefinable’: “literature [is] a game of skill”
(36). ‘The treasure’ is an object of exchange
between subjects, ‘[t]he [m]iddle’ in which
one and other converge in a passionate
encounter, “fire[d] as [we’ve] never been
fired” before (18).
Was the figure in the carpet traceable or
describable only for husbands or wives - for
lovers supremely united? (52)
The linking of united lovers with the heart of
the textual mystery invites a reading of a
position of interpretative jouissance, an
artistic sublime achieved through that which
transcends its circumscribed place in the
scriptible. We, as critics, may be fascinated
by the totem of power wielded by the textual
fasces, spellbound by what Vereker refers to
in his work as the “organ of life” (19). In
coercive structure then, which imprisons the
reader (existing within the text and outside
its boundaries), lies “intoxication” (42) and a
“pleasure so rare” (5) as subject and object
clash in a sexual/textual encounter which
gives a form of “rapture” (3). That there is a
clash between one and other in the act of
interpretation may be co-existent with
liminal challenge as a jubilation in the extratextual
position thus rendered - that is, in a
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Notes
1. All subsequent unattributed page
references are to Henry James, ‘The Figure
in the Carpet’. Embarrassments: The
Figure in the Carpet; Glasses; The Next
Time; The Way it Came. London:
Heinemann, 1896.
Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection.
Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Routledge,
1992.
2. The linking of sublimity and the
aesthetic as an element of intense
pleasure-pain connected with movement in
subjective boundaries is traced through the
Lacanian concept of jouissance and
Lyotard’s concept of the sublime in order to
underscore the power structure of the
aesthetic.
Bibliography
Breuer, Joseph and Sigmund Freud.
Studies on Hysteria. London: Penguin,
1991.
Butler, Judith. The Psychic Life of Power:
Theories in Subjection. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1997.
Derrida, Jacques. ‘Differance’. ‘Speech
and Phenomena’ and Other Essays on
Husserl’s Theory of Signs. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press, 1973. 129-
160.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An
analysis of the concepts of pollution and
taboo. London: Routledge, 1991.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality:
An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley.
London: Penguin, 1990.
Iser, Wolfgang. ‘The reading process: a
phenomenological approach’. Modern
Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David
Lodge. London: Longman, 1988. 212-228.
James, Henry. ‘The Figure in the Carpet’.
Embarrassments: The Figure in the Carpet;
Glasses; The Next Time; The Way it Came.
London: Heinemann, 1896. 3-66.
FOCUS Page Page 55

About the author
Dr. Donna Cox is Course Leader for the English Studies degree
programme at The Grimsby Institute. Academic work is theoretical
in focus and has published in fields of critical and cultural theory
and psychoanalysis.
Specialist teaching areas: Victorian literature, contemporary film
and fiction, gender and literary theory. Research undertaken in
critical theory and the development of psychoanalysis.
Current research interests include dimensions of rhetoric in
relation to critical practice and the performative domain of rap and
hip-hop music.
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Vocational
Excellence in
Seafood Processing
Dr Mike Dillon and Robin Keates - Humber Institute of Food & Fisheries,
Grimsby, UK. Kate Conway, Youngs Bluecrest, Grimsby, UK.
Abstract
The food manufacturing workforce
undertakes operations that are increasingly
complex. This labour intensive sector is
characteristically heavily reliant on the
effectiveness of its human resources to
underpin productivity. The Humber Food
Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) is a
responsive partnership that provides
frontline management with focused
techniques, information and education
customised to business needs. The variety
of support methods on offer includes
training in-factory, ‘digital factory’ training
facilities, internationally adopted software
tools and dedicated workplace delivery.
United Nations Industrial Development
Organisation (UNIDO) software provides a
standardised approach to recording
projects which can maximise return from
capital, plant and machinery, highlighting
performance and reveal potential
improvement areas. The project-based
programmes help key workers and
management to understand the implications
and benefits of selected change, and
encourage full participation and
commitment from these personnel. Projects
FOCUS Page Page 59

are already showing real economic and
quality benefits to the participating
businesses. The CoVE has also been
successful in driving new product
development projects in the Humber region
through the provision of training support in
new-product development and utilisation of
the dedicated new product development
lower than the EU, USA and Japan in terms
of operational effective efficiency. Key areas
for improvement were identified as
changeover times, downtime, output rates,
wastes & skills shortages. These problems
are of particular significance when the
importance of food manufacturing to the
local economy is considered.
centre.
Keywords:
fish, manufacturing, training, improvement,
software
Employment within the ‘Manufacture of
Food Products & Beverages’ sector
constitutes 16.3% of employment in North
East Lincolnshire, 5% in Hull and 5.8% in
Skill gaps in modern fish manufacturing
North Lincolnshire. There is a manufacturing
cluster within the Humber region that
In fish products manufacturing, the work
force undertakes daily operations that have
become increasingly complex. Fish
products manufacturing is a labour intensive
sector and is therefore heavily reliant on the
effectiveness of its human resources to
underpin business productivity. This
weighted reliance on personnel creates a
represents 8.2% of local employment or
over 23 000 jobs. The relative size of the
labour market also has a bearing, with food
commonly identified as a key strategic
sector for support through both the Humber
Sub-Regional Economic Strategy and the
Regional Development Agency’s Cluster
Strategy.
need for higher skilled operatives and
technicians.
The relative deficit of Level 3 (pre-degree)
skills within the food sector points to the
The competitiveness of the UK Food
Manufacturing Industry is currently a major
concern. An International Benchmarking
Study (FDNTO, 1998) found that the UK
food industry is on average nearly 10%
need for training. There is a particular need
for higher level craft and technical skills
provision in order to underpin overall
operational effectiveness and efficiency
within the sector. The food sector, in
We would like to acknowledge our partner institutes who are working with us on these
projects. North Lindsey College are researching and implementing Business improvement
skills programmes and Hull College are leading on Engineering Maintenance. Further the
Learning and Skills Council have actively supported the project financially and
operationally.
Mick Lochran - Assistant Director of Applied Learning, Skills and Technology,
North Lindsey College
Brian Smith - Project Manager, North Lindsey College
Graham Towse - Director of Learning (programmes), Hull College
Dave Dyble - Work Based Learning Co-ordinator, Hull College
Ruth Palmer - Learning and Skills Council, Humber
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contrast to national projections, has shown
growth as the sector consolidates. This
growth has contributed to the tightening in
the labour market and is now manifesting
itself in terms of skill/labour shortages in the
higher order jobs, thereby stimulating a
demand. Moreover, for every job lost, a new
higher order job is created as the sector
moves to higher levels of mechanisation.
These issues are not unique to the Humber
region. Nationally, both policy makers and
industrial spokespersons are raising
concerns over the capacity of the sector
and the need for better qualified entrants
and more highly skilled operational staff in
what is now one of the most competitive
sectors in the country.
The main areas of skills support
requirements within the food manufacturing
sector have been identified in several key
reports. These include the national and
regional Foresight Programmes (Food
Manufacturing), the Food Faraday Initiative,
the Yorkshire and Humber Skills Action Plan,
the Regional Food Cluster Strategy, and
finally local household surveys. The priority
skills shortages/training needs which
emerge from these reports include:
• Production management skills
• Project management skills
• Business improvement skills
• Engineering skills – specifically
multi-skilling
• Product development skills- including
up-skilling chefs
The Centre of Vocational Excellence in Food
Manufacturing
The UK Government has developed the
“Centre of Vocational Excellence” (CoVE)
strategy to drive improvement in up-skilling
target sectors of the work-force at
supervisory level to agreed national
standards. CoVEs now exist in many
different sectors of industry in the UK and
are mostly physically situated in the
geographical region where the client
industry is based.
The CoVE in Food Manufacturing was
initiated in November 2002 in Grimsby in the
Humber region. The CoVE was a joint
initiative of three Humber-based education
institutes - Grimsby College, North Lindsey
College and Hull College. Staff members
were recruited by the beginning of 2003
from these colleges. Each college provides
suitably qualified trainers and assessors to
provide expertise to the local companies
involved in the project.
The main target group for the Humber Food
CoVE are the production workforce and
junior management/line technicians
involved in food processing operations
within the Humber region. Many are line
operatives in a production process typified
by small batch production, subject to linechangeover
issues and shift pattern
production. Team leaders, mechanics/fitters
and technicians are employed in each shift
to maintain productivity. These individuals,
who are charged with maintaining
productivity, constitute the critical target
group to up-skill, both in terms of those
already employed in these roles and those
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who wish to move into them. The CoVE
targets both male and female learners,
those people in employment but unqualified
and the unemployed who wish to progress
to team leader/technician roles within the
industry.
CoVE project set-up
A project-based approach was adopted to
ensure that the new skills gained through
training were applied and potential impacts
on the participating businesses captured.
Training standards provided by the National
Training Organisation were reviewed and
selected. Staff members were trained in
delivery of the National Vocational
Qualification (NVQ) Level 3 modules in Food
and Drink Manufacturing, Engineering and
Business Improvement. The team was also
trained in the use of internationally adopted
software tools for monitoring manufacturing
improvement. A standard approach was
employed for measuring the skill levels and
factory efficiency.
CoVE organisation
level include monitoring progress, financial
review and strategic direction.
Level 2 is the Working Group, which
consists of the Food CoVE Manager, a Coordination
Unit and the Institute partners.
The co-ordination team was provided by the
lead college, which is responsible for the coordination
of the objective assessment
improvement projects within the CoVE
project and also for the dissemination of
benchmarking activities in operational
efficiency. The Food CoVE Manager chairs
this group, gives day-to-day technical
direction, co-ordinates trials of and training
in the IT tools and reports to the Steering
Group. The Institute partners in the Working
Group are individually responsible for
delivering their allocated work packages.
Level 3 consists of the external quality
assurance checks provided by the National
Verification Scheme to ensure that the skills
training delivered by the Food CoVE meets
the approved standards. This is achieved by
inspecting the portfolios of evidence
created by the students in the workplace.
A three level system was employed for the
organisational structure with clear roles and
responsibilities for all the stakeholders.
Level 1 is the Steering Group, which
contains representatives from the users
(industry), suppliers (institutes, private
sector, sector skills council) and donors
(LSC, Regional Development Group). The
executive board of the steering group
includes the Chairman (from industry) and
the Secretary, who is also the Food CoVE
Manager. The key responsibilities at this
CoVE project management and control
The Steering Group exercises control of the
project through regular reports on progress
in line with the project plan. This is
accompanied by continual financial review
and scrutiny of new and proposed assets
and their use. The Secretary briefs the
Steering Group on key issues and the Coordination
Unit also circulates a report. An
exception report is issued when significant
variation arises between actual and planned
delivery. The Steering Group has been key in
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ensuring that the approaches used by the
CoVE are viable
Project delivery mechanisms
A variety of delivery methods were adopted:
also supported the projects.
Project outputs
The project has developed learning
materials in:
• work-based learning in-factory
• training through a new factory unit in
Grimsby (created as both a training and
trading unit)
• a “digital factory” making use of the
software-based tools.
The new factory unit includes a state-of-theart
pasteuriser, a mini plate/blast freezer and
a mini drying unit. This unit is now available
to allow teams to take part in simulated
exercises and thus gain insight into the food
manufacturing environment.
The “digital factory” is drop-in centre where
a range of software tools enable simulated
factory production situations to be studied.
These tools also support the one hundred
factory managers and supervisors from the
region who are studying for work-based
degree programmes.
There was also an investment in fixed and
mobile plant to underpin delivery, which has
created the flexibility to take small-scale
simulated plant into factories.
These delivery methods are practically
biased and suit both small and large plant.
The investment in modern traceability
systems in the Grimsby demonstration plant
and the new product development centre
1. food and Drink Manufacturing
2. engineering Maintenance
3. business Improvement
4. new product Development.
These learning materials have been
contextualised to take account of
production improvement strategies using
overall effective efficiency (OEE) principles
and also the precise needs of the learners
and the food sector.
CoVE implementation
A Manufacturing Club was organised and
linked to several relevant organisations. This
was initially set up at 3 pilot sites within the
region to help provide feedback from
industry on the project and the training
material developed. The headquarters is
located at the Humber Institute of Food and
Fisheries (part of Grimsby Institute) and the
team there is now supporting 160 factory
supervisors working on specific factory
projects.
Learning Materials
Learning materials were developed in
relation to the need to drive improvement in
the overall efficiency and effectiveness
(OEE) of participating companies. The
learning programme was designed to drive
improvement in those factory management
FOCUS Page Page 63

target skills which could improve factory
performance. The work-force was up-skilled
in modern factory management approaches
and engineering related topics such as setup
reduction. This was combined with
raising awareness of market opportunities
through new product development and
explaining how to access new markets by
meeting agreed standards such as the
British Retail Consortium Global Standards.
The qualification units
The qualification units are delivered through
work-based learning using projects based
upon real issues within the participants’
workplace. Every two weeks a workshop is
delivered to the staff on-site where the
educational aspect of the project is
supported with training. This involves
working through the units and relating them
to the individual factory projects. The
trainees are given practical examples and
exercises, which can be studied and applied
to the same elements within their own
organisation. For example, the practical
issues related to setting up and shutting
down the factory are discussed and then
related to any problems within this remit in
their own organisation.
Student project work
Each alternate (non-workshop) week a
mentor/assessor visits the workplace to
assist participants with their portfolios and
projects. During these visits the
assessor/mentor will help the students to
complete a ‘Project Improvement Pack’
(PIP). The PIP has been developed to enable
participants to relate the educational
training they receive through CoVE support
to a specific improvement project within
their workplace. The work-book enables the
team or individual to select a given area of
the factory operation which is not
performing and agree strategies to improve.
The individual or team chooses their project
(with help from the pack), discusses this
with their Line Manager and works on this,
with support, throughout their time with
CoVE. The pack teaches analysis of cause
and effect (assisting in the choice of
project), production performance
measurement, cost benefit analysis, factory
trials, data collection and performance
analysis. This is additional and
complimentary to the qualification training
and is used to help support the
development of their target skill set.
The PIP is used alongside the software tools
and currently includes the following
sections:
• Company Survey
• Key Skills Assessment
• Evaluating the Project
• Measuring Production Performance
• Complete Proposal
• Complete Cost Benefit Analysis
• Undertake Factory Trials
• Project Completion
• Skills Impact
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Software Tools
Produce Plus is a United Nations Industrial
Development Organization (UNIDO)
approved software tool which is sold for
commercial use and is based upon the idea
of continuous improvement. Produce Plus is
employed to centrally manage improvement
projects and also to objectively measure
and quantify the impact of production costs
and performance. It is easy to use, yet
sophisticated, and is aimed at all levels of
management. It monitors and assists
analysis of six key performance indicator
areas:
• Production
• Quality
• Overall Effective Efficiency
• Costs
• Labour Performance
• Industrial Engineering Measurements for
Performance and Efficiency
The tool also makes it possible to compare
current results with previously defined
targets and allows accurate costing of line
manning, total production, individual
products and proposed new products. The
costing takes into account unavoidable
losses, materials, direct and indirect labour
and product families’ allocated overheads.
This function is paramount for monitoring
performance on the factory floor as well as
assisting a company to realise the true costs
of production.
The software thus allows appropriate staff to
monitor key production information and to
utilise all that information in order to have
better control over their activities. It assists
in reviewing the current status of the
business and provides support in making
important operational and strategic
decisions. As well as these important
business benefits, there is the added gain in
the upgrading of employee skills.
Continuing CoVE development and
expansion
The Humber Food CoVE is continuously
evolving in an attempt to provide the most
beneficial support possible to the local Food
Cluster.
In response to industry need a New Product
Development Level 3 NVQ has been created
which is to be launched in September 2004.
There are currently 12 full-time and 4 parttime
candidates who have registered for this
programme. It is supported by the New
Product Development Centre, ‘Jus Juse’,
which opened in October 2003 in Grimsby
to enable participating companies to create,
test, trial and evaluate new products. As well
as state-of-the-art kitchen facilities,
specialist digital systems and rapid on-line
product analysis, ‘Jus Juse’ offers the
opportunity to get real feedback from the
paying general public who try the new
products in the café area. The New Product
Development Centre gives all CoVE
participants (whether undertaking the New
Product Development NVQ or not) the
opportunity to follow the whole
development process from concept to
launch - or just individual steps if required.
FOCUS Page Page 65

The logical pathway follows these steps:
CREATE
Define Customer Needs
Generate Ideas
Agree Target Costs
TEST
Devise specification
Objectively test product
Modify concept
TRIAL
Plan the process
Run trial product
Cost and analyse
EVALUATE
Sensory/consumer feedback
Finished pack tests
Final costing
LAUNCH
Results and Discussion
So far, 160 factory supervisors have been or
are involved in training programmes being
delivered by the CoVE. There are a further
150 individuals who are interested in
commencing the programme shortly.
Previously only a few factories undertook
training at this level as they did not believe it
gave any real benefits to their business
All of the participants have completed or are
currently undertaking project work. The
projects undertaken so far have covered a
wide range of problems and most that have
been completed have demonstrated
commercial gain through improved
efficiency. Table 1 gives information on the
types of projects, a short description of the
work undertaken and an outline of projected
or achieved impact.
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Although some factories were happy to give
commercial estimates of gain, others
preferred to quote reduction in scrap values
or increases in efficiency. The figures quoted
are confirmed by the factory management
prior to them being entered into the table.
Seven factories have been involved with the
projects described involving 40 staff (some
in teams) and 17 specific projects.
Another development outside of project
work was the implementation of a
development strategy to link training to pay
rates by our pilot food company. One of the
desired results of this strategy was to aid in
the recruitment and retention of skilled staff.
To achieve this, the staffing requirement was
split into three operator groups linked to
specific pay rates (reducing the number of
current pay rates): production operative;
skilled production operative; and key
operative. The three operator groups are
defined below along with the training each
group is expected to undertake to achieve
their maximum pay rate.
FOCUS Page Page 67

This pay structure demonstrates a
commitment from the company to provide
training and to up-skill employees to
become skilled operatives in a reasonably
practicable period of time. The structure
also allows for pay grade simplification
coupled with an increase in interchangeable
skills and flexibility across all sites.
It was also recognised that it was
impossible to reshape the operative’s
development structure without first
providing junior and senior management
with the correct skills to carry out their
management positions. A development
structure was created to address these
issues, again at three levels with staff
working towards recognised qualifications
depending on their level of seniority, as
detailed below.
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FOCUS

Conclusions
So far a target group of 1,000 staff from the
pilot factory have completed Level 1 and 2
training this year. The impact on
absenteeism and staff retention has been
significant with staff retention increasing by
approximately 33% and absenteeism also
being significantly reduced.
The factory supervisory projects have been
put in place and the target skill sets have
been improved, e.g. 78% - 90%
achievement on qualifications.
The projects have also had an impact on
business performance – ranging from what
appears to be minor economic impact to
£100,000 per annum net gain.
The table below provides an outline of a
sample improvement project and the
benefits derived from involvement with the
CoVE project.
The feedback from industry has been
favourable and this has increased interest in
the Humber Food CoVE project and the
associated qualifications and support.
Additionally, all team members are positive
about the CoVE approach.
FOCUS Page Page 69

Bibliography
Dillon, M. 2001. Adaptation of a predictive
cost model to determine the cost of control
in identified critical loss areas within the fish
processing chain. Post Harvest Fisheries
programme 1997 to 2001. DFID Project
R6959.
Dillon, M. 2001. Enhance competitiveness
and sustainability of industrial development
in Uganda with particular emphasis on
Agro-Industries and micro and small scale
enterprises. Uganda Integrated Programme
2001. UNIDO Project TF/UGA/00/A03/11-
51.
Dillon, M., Hannah, S., James, T.,
Sanchez, J. and Thompson, M. 2000.
Building Profitable Business - Software
Tools for Changes. IFT Annual Conference.
Dallas, USA. June 2000.
Dillon, M., Hannah, S. and Leeman, C.
2001. Appraisal of UNIDO Data Collection
Protocol and Compatibility with ICE-IT
Software Tool. Mike Dillon Associates Ltd,
UK.
Dillon, M., Hannah, S. and Leeman, C.
2001. Score-IT Benchmarking Protocol and
Example Data Collection Forms. Mike Dillon
Associates Ltd, UK.
Besley, S. and Sokoloff, P. 2003. Policy
Briefing - Foundation Degrees, Meeting the
need for higher level skills. London
Publications Ltd, UK.
Page 70
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About the author
Dr Mike Dillon has over 20 years experience within the food
industry. He has written numerous publications and several books
which have been delivered nationally and internationally. He has
been involved in delivering consultancy to UK organisations and
has provided support for several African and Pakistan fisheries
departments through the United Nations Industrial Development
Organisation and the European Union.
He was the director of the Humber Institute of Food & Fisheries for
two years where he was involved with the development of special
projects including the successful Humber Food Centre of
Vocational Excellence (CoVE). Under his leadership the institute
has developed foundation degrees which include Food
Manufacturing Management, World Class Manufacturing and
Logistics. The institute has successfully delivered training to SMEs
through several special projects with the focus on providing
support to the food industry.
He is currently Vice Principal at The Grimsby Institute, where he is
responsible for the Enterprise and International areas.
Robin Keates, is the Programme Leader for: Foundation Degree in
Manufacturing Management (World-Class Systems); Foundation
Degree in World Class Manufacturing; and the B.Sc.(Hons.)
Manufacturing Management (World-Class Systems). He is also a
lecturer and writer not only for the above, but also for other
Foundation Degrees, Honours Degrees and Postgraduate courses
as well.
He is currently undertaking a Ph.D. in ‘The impact of Human
Resource Strategic decisions, with respect to how this directly
impacts on the productivity of a manufacturing organisation can
have either a positive or a negative effect’ with the Leeds
Metropolitan University.
Currently Robin has presented papers which have shown the
positive contribution of the Foundation Degrees to organisations.
In addition to this, Robin is a Chartered Engineer with a specialist
field of Engineering, Manufacturing and Management.
FOCUS Page Page 71

‘Comics are for
Kids’ - Exploring
the Origins of Bias
Against Sequential
Art in the United
Kingdom
Chris Dows - Course co-ordinator and tutor on the BA (Hons) Professional
Writing programme at The Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher
Education’s East Coast Media centre.
The majority of Britons do not regard comic
books as a serious form of story telling, and
despite the fact that sequential art is
increasingly recognised as an important
narrative medium, equal to prose and
scriptwriting in its sophistication and
influence on popular culture, an inaccurate
and demeaning opinion of sequential art
FOCUS Page Page 73

continues to persist within this country. The
question this paper wishes to address is a
simple one - where did the bias against
comic books in the United Kingdom
originate? Across the world, comic books
offer a rich and varied environment for a
writer and excitingly diverse subject matter
for the reader – a fact acknowledged by a
substantial number of regular consumers
across mainland Europe, Japan and the
United States. In this country however,
sequential art in all of its forms (comic
books, collected trade paperbacks and
graphic novels) continue to be regarded with
disdain and rejected as worthless, yet the
characters and narratives from their pages
continually prove to be hugely popular in
differing media.
As a perfect example of this irony, consider
UK Box-office receipts for comic bookbased
films in the United Kingdom.
Regardless of whether the original text is
recognised as belonging to the
superhero/fantasy genre or less obvious
adaptations of graphic novels (witness the
popularity of ‘Road to Perdition’ (1), ‘From
Hell’ (2) and ‘A History of Violence (3) – most
people had no idea they started life as
panels and speech balloons), many
blockbusters of the last thirty years have
been based on comic book characters, yet
the majority of the British public would never
dream of reading the source material. In
England, ‘comic books are for kids’ and
while some explanation can clearly be
attached to the post-war output from the
British comic book publishers who
exclusively targeted pre-teen and young
teen audiences, it is the intention of this
essay to propose that attitudes to the
medium were formed several centuries ago
through a series of highly influential
historical and cultural events.
In order to contextualise the factors that
shaped modern-day attitudes to sequential
art, one has to travel back to a time when
England shared the same image-based
mass communication as the rest of Europe.
One of the major reasons the United
Kingdom’s attitudes towards comic books
differs to that of mainland Europe
(particularly France and Belgium) is directly
connected to its relationship with religious
iconography and, in particular, the events of
the Reformation. Christian imagery had
been growing in popularity as early as the
eighth and ninth centuries, but the explosion
of Catholicism across Europe and its
subsequent reliance on image-based texts
brought a limited version of sequential art to
the masses (in the form of church paintings,
stained glass windows, frescoes and alterbased
Tryptych that did not include a textual
narrative as contemporary Japanese
medieval paintings did). Theologians and art
critics may argue the function of art was
(and is) to represent the glory of God, but
there is dramatic evidence to refute this
point. Serenus of Marseilles, an Iconoclast
bishop who had actively destroyed all of the
imagery within his diocese some time
towards the end of the sixth century, was
sent the following communication from
Pope St. Gregory the Great (between 590-
604 AD), the man widely regarded to have
been responsible for the doctrine,
organisation and discipline of the Catholic
Church up until the Middle Ages:
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‘Not without reason has antiquity allowed
the stories of saints to be painted in holy
places. And we indeed entirely praise thee
for not allowing them to be adored, but we
blame thee for breaking them. For it is one
thing to adore an image, it is quite another
thing to learn from the appearance of a
picture what we must adore. What books are
to those who can read, that is a picture to
the ignorant who look at it; in a picture even
the unlearned may see what example they
should follow; in a picture they who know no
letters may yet read. Hence, for barbarians
especially a picture takes the place of a
book’
The Veneration of Images, Catholic
Encyclopaedia(4)
Medieval tomb sculpture, Jerpoint Abbey,
Ireland, c.1500 (a)
This clearly indicates that religious
iconography (usually without supporting
text) was being produced with the sole
intention of presenting narratives in a
pictorial form as a substitute for written text,
which was firmly in the hands of the learned
within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
Imagery was the key to both educating and
controlling the masses –the people were
given information orally or through the
presentation of graphic (often sequential)
images across Europe up until and beyond
the Reformation, indicating that most
Europeans would have the ability to
understand the messages being presented
to them by employing deconstructive skills
very similar to those used today in the
reading of a sequential art text. Theorists
such as Andrew Greeley believe that the
contemporary Catholic reader of texts is
quite different to a non-Catholic reader in
that their imaginations are based on
analogies, a ‘metaphorical narrative’ as
defined by Greeley in his book ‘The Catholic
Myth – The Behaviour and Beliefs of
American Catholics’ (5) and directly
represented by symbolic representations
during the administration of the Sacraments
and presentation of religious belief within
the Catholic Church. It is reasonable to
assume that this ‘metaphorical narrative’
has been generated, fostered and
maintained through the use of religious
imagery throughout the centuries – and, in
particular, imagery that shows a series of
events in order to reinforce the teachings of
the Church. This may provide some
reinforcement as to why mainland Europe
continues to enjoy sequential art and
embrace it as an art form, and why the
events of the Reformation are so vital in the
shaping of attitudes towards sequential art
which is irrefutably image-based.
Stained Glass window, Collegiate Church of
St. Nicholas, Gallway, 1320 (b)
FOCUS Page Page 75

From the beginnings of Christianity in the
7 th Century, the Catholic Church invested
enormous amounts of money into its
building programme and the symbolism of
the Church literally towered above
communities across the United Kingdom.
However, with this amount of money and
power came an inevitable corruption – and
in 1517 Martin Luther, a German monk tired
of the abuse and teachings of the Catholic
Church, began the Protestant movement
that would sweep across Europe. It has to
be stated at this juncture that Protestantism
did not destroy Catholicism or eradicate the
use of religious imagery – far from it. In fact,
the later counter-Reformation begun by the
Jesuits in 1534 would address much of the
damage wreaked on the Catholic Church
across mainland Europe and, it has to be
said, Catholicism did not die out in the
United Kingdom at any point (although
openly worshipping as a Catholic at the end
of the sixteenth Century was not one of the
healthiest occupations to follow in this
country). The most important aspect for our
consideration of attitudes to sequential art is
this: in order to eradicate the perceived and
actual power base of the Pope (the
substitution of written text with images),
Henry VIII destroyed or covered over every
vestige of Catholic iconography apparent in
mainland Britain.
Henry VIII attempted to slow the overexuberance
of Archbishop Cranmer and his
followers (6), worse was yet to come in the
form of the assault on Catholic doctrine
between 1547 and 1553 by King Edward. If
Henry VIII started the shift in attitudes
towards pictorial communication in this
country, King Edward completed the change
of religious narrative from image-based to
text-based. Taking the fight against
Catholicism to an even higher level, the
Bible itself was rewritten from Latin to
English in the Book of Common Prayer and
by the middle of the Sixteenth Century
sequential art was removed as a
replacement for reading in this country, and
while Protestants created their own religious
imagery in the form of paintings, the attitude
to iconography was completely different.
Martin Luther himself states:
‘Images, bells, eucharistic vestments,
church ornaments, altar lights, and the like I
regard as things indifferent. Anyone who
wishes may omit them. Images or pictures
taken from the Scriptures and from good
histories, however, I consider very useful yet
indifferent and optional. I have no sympathy
with the iconoclasts.’
Luther’s Works, American Edition,
Fortress, vol.37 p. 371 (7)
Using the Pope’s refusal to annul his
marriage to Catherine of Aragon as a
starting point, King Henry VIII launched a
sweeping and brutal attack on the Catholic
Church that culminated in the destruction of
Churches and Monasteries and the torture
and execution of religious leaders and
followers. While it has been argued that
The Book of Common Prayer, 1596 (c)
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Luther did admit that representational
imagery from the Bible could serve a useful
teaching purpose, but it is this indifference
(taken in extremis by subsequent followers –
including Archbishop Cranmer et al. in
England) that eradicated familiar, traditional
methods of relaying passages from the
Bible to the non-literate majority. Because of
the events of the Reformation, England
crucially moved from an image-based to a
text-based religious culture earlier than the
rest of mainland Europe that began its
Catholic recovery in Spain and particularly
France, where Napoleon’s ‘concordat’ with
the Holy Church of Rome brought
Catholicism back as the state religion.
Similarly, events in Belgium, the
Netherlands, Germany and France allowed
these countries a continuity of image-based
narrative far stronger than ours. The fact
that it remained within the confines of the
Church and the introduction of the printing
press for religious and non-religious works
was developed in mainland Europe is not
important – the majority of these European
cultures were regular Church-goers, so their
exposure to religious iconography
continued unchallenged for a considerable
time to come.
While the English slowly lost their reliance
on sequential art to educate and inform
them, the skills required to read and
understand image-based communications
(in the form of single paintings or
sequentially presented texts) did not
completely disappear. The Reformation did
not destroy our ability to understand Comic
Books and this move to a text-based culture
did not benefit the masses one bit, as it was
not in the interests of the ruling classes to
have an educated workforce. From that
perspective there was very little difference
to the situation maintained by the Catholic
Church, but this removal of iconography did
heavily influence our attitude towards
imagery. The suppression of sequential
visual communication by the State was one
crucial aspect contributing to the unease
and distrust of contemporary British
readers, but this is not the whole story.
There was a later development in imagebased
communication, this time from a
popular culture perspective, that would add
the negative dimension of confusion to the
English perception of comic books – the
invention of the cartoon.
Despite the move away from sequential
works in England due to their connotations
with the Catholic Church, the work of
William Hogarth (1697-1764) would seem to
be an exception to the rule – and suggests
that the visual literacy of his audience was
still relatively high despite the break in
continuity caused by the Reformation. His
hugely popular series of engravings such as
‘The Harlot’s Progress’ and ‘The Rake’s
Progress’ were expressly designed to
convey a narrative in a strict order, and as
such illustrated the appetite for imagebased
sequential entertainment in this
country.
‘Moll as a Prostitute’, Plate 3 of 6 from The
Harlot’s Progress, William Hogarth, 1732 (c)
FOCUS Page Page 77

While Hogarth resisted the increasingly
popular style of caricature, practitioners
such as George Townshend seized on this
exaggerative and simplified form of imagery
because they knew the audience enjoyed its
irreverently direct assault on the
newsworthy people of the day. In his books
Meditations on a Hobby Horse (8), Art and
Illusion (9) and Uses of Images (10),
Gombrich continually refers to the great
metaphorical power of the Cartoon image,
particularly in the hands of such masters as
Gillray and Hogarth. Gombrich notes that
the simplification of the image into line
drawings executes a ‘condensation and
comparison’ of complex ideas into a form
that is instantly understood by its
contemporary audience, so communicates
directly with them. With Hogarth feeling
‘…an increasing dismay and unhappiness at
the deterioration of the social situation with
increase of crime and gin-drinking’
Jack Lindsay, Hogarth – His Art and his
World p.137 (11)
‘Promis’d Horrors of the French Invasion’,
James Gillray, 1796 (e)
During the early and middle part of the
1700’s Hogarth chose to use every tool in
his sophisticated palette (or ‘Cartoonist’s
Armoury’ as Gombrich succinctly puts it in
‘Meditations on a Hobby Horse’ (8)) to
present his feelings on society as broadly as
possible. With his primary theme of choice
(salvation or damnation), Hogarth was using
his art to present the world as he saw it and,
despite the use of humour and satire, urge
caution to a crumbling society.
This popularity would not have been
possible without mass production (and
merciless plagiarism) thanks again to the
evolution of the printing press, a
technological development that led to an
ever-wider range of woodcut and engraved
single-colour images and books being
produced for large-scale consumption. By
the end of the seventeenth century,
simplified line-art representations or
lampoons of public figures began to appear
within Britain - cartooning was born, and
would set a precedent of content for English
audiences that would do much to generate
negative attitudes and misunderstanding
towards the associated medium of
sequential art to the present day.
One of the first applications in the United
Kingdom of the skills of broadsheet artists
was religious propaganda, continuing the
British tradition of using the Church as a
battleground for public control. In 1680,
pictorial attacks on the Government, Church
and Monarchy were commonplace – and
regularly employed speech balloons and
accompanying text beneath them to
reinforce meaning (again, what Scott
McCloud would call an ‘additive relationship
between text and image’ (12)). This device
would be increasingly employed with the
explosion of political cartoons and the
satirical strip from the end of the eighteenth
Century, introducing such notable
practitioners as Thomas Rowlandson (1757-
1815), James Gillray (1757-1815) and
George Cruikshank (1792-1878). It is
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interesting to note that later European
practitioners of satire such as Honore
Daumier (1808-1879) would not employ
speech balloons in their lithographs, but the
nature of cartoons was set in the English
public’s eye – as was their purpose; to
ridicule and satirise, a sometimes vicious
form of entertainment that is still practised
today.
‘A swarm of Bees hiving in the Imperial
Carriage!’, George Cruikshank, 1816 (f)
The rise of graphic satire is a key point in
understanding the formation of attitudes
within the United Kingdom to sequential art,
and concerns the reaction of the audience
to its messages and presentation. While its
exponents had very clear social issues to
address within their use of caricature or
lampooning, and the communicative
mechanics worked highly effectively to
promote an understanding and appreciation
of these messages, did the nature of the
texts damage attitudes towards the entire
medium? Satirical content may be executed
crudely or creatively, but the exclusive and
continual use of this style and tone within
cartoons may have had a cumulative
negative effect on the British readership
over the best part of a century. The intent of
Gillray to accurately reflect the vigorous and
bitter party political fighting, and Hogarth to
tackle the collapse of civilisation through the
Cartoon medium inevitably meant they had
to ‘filter’ their message in order to make it
universally acceptable in order to prevent
possible censorship from the Governments
of the time. There was an informationhungry,
newly educated audience (thanks to
the move towards text-based language)
who would use their relatively expensive
broadsheets for amusement, information
and discussion and for decades the political
Cartoon would have met a significant part of
this need. There is no doubting the success
of the cartoon medium within the United
Kingdom and across the world, but perhaps
the skill and creativity evidenced in the
visual satire of Gillray, Hogarth, Rowlandson
and Cruikshank within cartoons led to a
familiarity that possibly bred an enduring
contempt for all forms of line-art – including
comic books.
The following few decades within the United
Kingdom would do nothing to change this
attitude towards an art form that continued
its development unabated in Mainland
Europe, thanks mainly to the revolutionary
experiments in sequential narrative
undertaken in Switzerland by the
schoolmaster Rodolphe Topffer (1799-
1846). He produced a series of illustrated
books as well as a revolutionary paper on
physiognomics, the methodology of
interpreting human character, intelligence
and virtue through a close scrutiny of
physical appearance and comparisons to
the animal world that would influence artists
up to Wilhelm Busch and beyond. Topffer
fully understood the metaphorical power of
the cartoon image, but further realised the
potential of narrative storytelling through the
medium. Due to his failing eyesight, Topffer
reverted to writing rather than illustrating
and while this was an unfortunate personal
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tragedy, he nevertheless single-handedly
began a divergence in subject matter for the
medium whose significance cannot be
overestimated, leading to the production of
texts involving romantic courtship, a satire
of Faust and even space travel.
Page 1 ‘Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois’,
Rodolphe Topffer, 1827 (g)
The only British equivalent to this
experimentation was the work of Richard
Doyle (1824-1883) who, having ironically left
the satirical Punch magazine because of its
continual hostility to the Catholic Church in
1850, produced ‘The adventures of Brown,
Jones and Robinson’ (13) in 1854 – a series
that relied on sequential narrative and
underpinning textual explanation. It was
narrow in subject matter however, and never
really caught the public’s imagination
despite its satirical nature. This series failure
may in itself support the previous
conclusion that familiarity with this style of
writing may have left its once-amused
audience tired of the satirical content, and
with the rise of Victorian attitudes there was
little place for vulgarity within ‘respectable’
publications aimed at the growing middle
class.
French artist Gustave Dore (1832-1883),
who produced ‘L’Histoire de la Sainte
Russie’ (14), an extraordinary sequence of
477 line drawings presenting the history of
Russia. Employing a number of
revolutionary techniques (silhouette, speed
lines for movement, differing angles and
points of view for the reader), this perhaps
underlines the distance that had already
developed in style, subject matter and
audience interest between mainland Europe
and the United Kingdom – such was the
popularity of Dore’s work, it was still widely
printed in a number of languages in the early
part of the twentieth century. The place of
line art, as single images with multiple
events, certainly flourished in England
during the Victorian period – but it is clear
the content was restricted to satire, comedy
or sensationalized illustrations of the news.
Even the hugely influential ‘Ally Sloper’s Half
Holiday’ (15) published in 1884 and widely
regarded as England’s first Comic Book had
a deliberate vulgarity that, despite its
popularity, must have directly affected the
general attitude towards the medium – and
added to the negativity of attitude towards
the format by the general public.
This widening of interests and tastes
between the United Kingdom and Europe
can be further evidenced by the work of the
Page 24 ‘Histoire pittoresque de la Sainte
Russes’, Gustav Dore, 1854 (h)
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The intention of this study was to investigate
the reasons contributing to the
contemporary bias against sequential art in
the United Kingdom. Whilst further events
during the twentieth century reinforced and
amplified this bias up to the present day, the
conclusion is that attitudes to image-based
narrative were significantly altered during
the events of the Reformation, and
confusion regarding the nature of sequential
art’s purpose and usage was generated by
the development of the political cartoon
during the Eighteenth Century. Increasingly,
media and literary critics are vocalising their
conclusions that sequential art deserves the
same respect as other written media (16), be
it prose, scriptwriting or poetry, but the
magnitude of the historical events that
changed cultural attitudes towards imagebased
storytelling in this country were of
such a scale that their effects are felt even
today. The irony is that, at some stage,
everyone in this country relies upon a
combination of text and imagery presented
in a sequential manner when learning to
read - but perhaps this in itself is a further
significant reason why the British continue
to believe that ‘comics are for kids’.
FOCUS Page Page 81

References
Collins, Max Allen, Road to Perdition.
London:Titan Books, 2002.
Moore, Alan, From Hell. Kitchen Sink Press,
1997.
Locke, Vince, A History of Violence.
London: Titan Books, 2005.
(4) The Catholic Encyclopaedia, The
Veneration of Images
http://www.newadvent.com
accessed March 3 rd 2006
(5) Greeley, Andrew, The Catholic Myth –
The Behaviour and Beliefs of American
Catholics. Prentice Hall & IBD, 1991.
(14) Dore, Gustav, Histoire pittoresque,
dramatique et caricaturale de la sainte
Russie . France: Hermann, 2005.
(15) Ross, Charles, Ally Sloper’s Half
Holiday. Dalziel & Sinkins t/a ‘The
Sloperies’,
1884-1916.
16) Graham-Dixon, Andrew, The Culture
Show – Alan Moore Interview. BBC2
Broadcast
9 th March 2006, 7.30pm.
Bragg, Melvin, The South Bank Show –
Manga. ITV, Broadcast 19 th February
2006, 11.05pm.
(6) Weir, Alison, Henry VIII King and Court.
London: Jonathan Cape, 2001.
(7) Luther, Martin, Luther’s Works -
American Edition. St.Louis,
Concordia/Philadelphia:Fortress Press,
1955 – 1971.
(8) Gombrich, Ernst Hans, Meditations on
a Hobby Horse and other essays on the
theory of art. Edinburgh: Phaidon
Press, 1963.
(9) Gombrich, Ernst Hans, Art and Illusion
– A study in the psychology of pictorial
representation. Edinburgh: Phaidon
Press, 1983.
(10) Gombrich, Ernst Hans, Uses of Images:
Studies in the Social Function of Art
and Visual Communications. Edinburgh:
Phaidon Press, 1999.
(11) Lindsay, Jack, Hogarth – His Art and
his World. London: Hart-Davis,
MacGibbon, 1977.
(12) McCloud, Scott, Understanding
Comics – The Invisible Art.
HarperCollins, 1994.
(13) Doyle, Richard, The Adventures of
Brown, Jones and Robinson. Punch
(var.), 1854.
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About the author
Chris Dows is course co-ordinator and tutor on the BA (Hons)
Professional Writing programme at East Coast Media, and has
been a lecturer at the Grimsby Institute for ten years. He is
currently undertaking a PhD in English and Creative Writing with
the University of Lancaster, studying the bias against comic books
in the United Kingdom and comparing the creative process behind
the production of Sequential Art scripts to other members of the
textual matrix. Over the last twelve years, his professionally
published work has ranged from gothic horror books to high
profile children’s titles, and he currently writes for a number of Star
Trek magazines and graphic novels in the United Kingdom and
United States.
FOCUS Page Page 83

Error Analysis
and Interlanguage
By Meng Zhang - Associate Professor of English Education and Head of the
Foreign Language Department at Zhengzhou Teachers College in
Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China.
Abstract:
This paper is concerned with a brief
discussion on both Error Analysis Theory
and Interlanguage Theory. According to the
author, Error Analysis Theory based on the
analysis of the learners’ errors made in their
learning process, and Interlanguage Theory
based on the analysis of the features of
learner language, are of crucial significance
and implications to both English learning
and teaching. Yet there still exist some
problems with the description of the
learner's errors. On the basis of the
discussion concerning learner language, the
author considers what attitude we should
take towards the learners’ errors and puts
forward some possible suggestions for
remedial teaching.
Key Words:
error analysis; interlanguage; learner
language
The significance of learners’ errors and
justifications of error analysis
Learners’ errors were of no significance at
all in the pre-scientific era when language
teachers concentrated their efforts on the
learning of the correct forms of the target
FOCUS Page Page 85

language by the learners. It came of no avail
to make much fuss about errors as the belief
generally held at that time among teachers
and linguists was that it was teaching
methodology that should be improved if
learners made errors. It was considered that
Bad teaching probably gave rise to errors by
learners, and if the teaching methodology
improved to perfection, errors would be
avoided and the learners would be enabled
to learn that pure and accurate form of the
target language. Another attitude towards
learners’ errors was that errors were simply
inevitable in the learning process and what
counted most was to design some means to
deal with such errors. Accordingly, there
would be no need to identify the sources of
errors or the possibility of giving learners’
errors their own right as a system. At the
time when contrastive analysis prevailed in
the field of applied linguistics and learners’
errors were identified as the interference of
the mother tongue of the learner with the
target language they were learning.
According to the Contrastive Analysis
Hypothesis, errors probably arise where
there are great differences between the
learner’s mother tongue or any previously
acquired language and the language he or
she is trying to acquire. The errors
themselves are interference or intrusion of
the mother tongue and they have to be
overcome in the learner’s progressive
learning until they are completely
eradicated. Such negative attitudes towards
learners’ errors are not inconsistent with the
behavioristic perception. The behavioristic
notion of language learning is that of
formation of correct habits from the
reinforcement of the certain plausible
response to stimulus, in the light of which
“errors were predicted to be the result of the
persistence of existing mother tongue
habits in the new language” (Corder,
1981,10). Such persisting habits harm the
very learning process, namely, the habit
formation process, and should be
eliminated immediately to prevent their
formation in the new language. The
tendency for immediate error correction is
strong in the teaching practice of
audiolingualism. It was not until the late
sixties that people began to gain a new
insight into learners’ errors. Strong evidence
from researches in psycholinguistics has
shown that the learners’ errors are regular in
their patterns and rule-governed. Studying
of learners’ errors could throw some light on
how learners process language input as the
errors themselves could be to some extent
representative of the learners’ intake,
namely, how much the learners have learnt
and how much they have yet to learn.
Therefore, the justification of error analysis
could be made for two orientations: first,
pedagogical justification, it provides
opportunity for a systematic means of
eradication; second, theoretical justification,
it is part of the systematic study of the
learners’ language (Corder; 1981).
According to Corder, learners’ errors are
significant in three different ways. First, for
teachers, the learners’ errors could tell them
how far towards the goal the learner has
progressed and, consequently, what
remains for him to learn. Secondly, for
researchers the errors provide evidence of
how language is learnt or acquired and what
strategies or procedures the learner is
employing in his discovery of language.
Thirdly for, learners, committing errors is a
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way the learner has of testing his
hypotheses about the nature of language he
is learning (Corder; 1981). In modern
language teaching and learning, there has
been a shift of focus from the preoccupation
with teaching (particularly explicit grammar
teaching) to identification of the learners’
communicative needs in language learning.
The concept of learner-centeredness has
gained its momentum in the overall
language teaching and learning. In light of
the new tendency, an adequate
understanding of what processes, in which
the learners engage themselves for the task
of learning a second or foreign language, are
attributable to the very fulfillment of that
learning tasks by the learners are of crucial
significance to decision making concerning
development of teaching materials as input
and providing conditions that are facilitative
of the learning. In the Chomskyan notion of
language acquisition, the second language
learners experience the same process of
formulating hypotheses about the target
language they are learning. Errors by the
learners in the language production are that
the learner reveals his underlying knowledge
of the newly acquired language. However,
while what is going on in the learner’s
psyche when he or she tries to produce
sentences basing on his or her own
grammar is hard to observe, his or her
language production (or performance) could
provide observable data for illuminating that
innate competence in the learner. If we
acknowledge that learners’ errors are
systematic and that the learner’s language is
independent of either the mother tongue or
the target language, then it would be
justifiable to say that the study of errors by
learners as well as the learner’s language is
of great value to the understanding of
language learning and even of language
itself.
Defining errors: variety of foci
When applied linguists come to tackle
errors, practical problems arise as defining
errors is not in any sense easier than
defining learning. Selinker (1972) simply
discarded the concept of “errors” by
viewing the language used by the learners
as a whole language system, for which he
coined the term ‘interlanguage’, implying
that such language is a continuum on the
one end of which there is the mother tongue
or any previously acquired language and on
the other there is the target language. The
interlanguage shares the characteristics of
two social dialects of the languages.
Language A
Interlanguage
Target
Language
For the sources of this language system
Selinker identified four possible areas of
transfer that might shape the structure of
interlanguage: transfer of one’s native
language or other languages the learner has
already acquired, transfer of training,
transfer of communication, and transfer of
strategy. Nemser coined the term
‘approximative system’ for the language the
learner is using, implying that the learner is
engaged in a progressive process in the
direction of the target language. Corder
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would regard the learner’s language as a
dialect (or idiosyncratic dialect) which is
based on the ‘transitive competence’ of the
learner. He used the term due to two
considerations: firstly, “any spontaneous
speech intended by the speaker to
communicate is meaningful, in the sense
that it is systematic, regular, describable in
terms of a set of rules”. Secondly,
“sentences of that language are
insomorphous with some of the sentences
of his target language, and have the same
interpretation” (Corder; 1981). According to
Corder, “two languages which share some
rules of grammar are dialects”; the
differences between an idiolect and
idiosyncratic dialect would be that an
idiolect “possesses rules drawn from
overlapping social dialects but does not
possess any rules which are not rules of any
one of these dialects”.
Set of rules
Set of rules of
of language B
language A
For idiosyncratic dialect, “some of the rules
required to account for the dialect are not
numbers of the set of rules of any social
dialect; they are peculiar to the language of
that speaker” (Corder; 1981). A learner’s
language is not the only type of idiosyncratic
dialect; according to Corder there are also
deliberately deviant, such as poetic texts,
for which the author is supposed to know
the rules of the language but chooses not to
obey them; pathologically deviant, such as
the language of aphasics who are supposed
to know the rules of the language before
symptoms of their diseases take effect ; and
infant learning his mother tongue. For errors
themselves, Corder believed distinction
must be made between the deviancy from
the learner’s language, which Corder called
performance errors or mistakes and are
accessible to automatic self-correction and
should not count as errors, and those which
“reveal his underlying knowledge of the
language to date” and are not likely to be
self-corrected by the learner himself since
they are systematic and regular. However, if
we think that the learner’s language is
systematic and has its own grammar and
rules, we have to admit that whatever the
learner utters when he or she tries to
communicate in his or her language is legal
and genuine in terms of his or her
interlanguage. Every utterance he or she
produces is grammatical and perfect except
for some performance mistakes or slips of
tongue or pen. Moreover, even if we try to
identify errors in the utterances by the
learner, the criterion applicable would still be
very vague, by the fact that the
determination of an error should be based
on the situational context of the specific
utterance. A well-formed sentence may still
be erroneous or inappropriate in the
context. Corder (1981) argued that whatever
the surface form or apparent
appropriateness of a learner’s utterances,
none are utterances in the target language.
In other words, he is not speaking the target
language at any time, but a language of his
own, a unique idiolect, which no doubt
shares many features of the target language.
The only solution proposed by Corder is that
“every utterancy of the learner must be
regarded as an acceptable utterance in his
transitional dialect. That is to say, every
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sentence has to be analyzed in error
analysis process. Then the major task of the
linguist is to recognize the structures or
constructs that are not in accordance with
the rules of the target language and
reconstruct them to provide some
explanations.
The process of error analysis
According to Corder, error analysis can be
roughly divided into three stages:
recognition of idiosyncracy, accounting for a
learner’s idiosyncratic dialect, and
explanation. Corder has also pointed out
that in the process of error analysis,
concentration only on superficially ill-formed
sentences (overtly idiosyncratic) is not
enough. Those that are well-formed but
inappropriate relating to the context must
also be dealt with. Such sentences Corder
called “covertly idiosyncratic” cannot be
interpreted ‘normally’ in context. Both
overtly idiosyncratic and covertly
idiosyncratic sentences have to be
analyzed. The three processes in describing
the learner’s language are regularization,
standardization, and de-contextualization.
The process of regularization is an attempt
to restructure “an utterance in order to
eliminate the sorts of results of the
adventitious failures of performance already
referred to under the heading of slips of the
tongues”. And standardization would be to
“restructure the speaker’s utterances to
remove the systematic variation between
utterances from different individuals due to
personal and sociocultural factors.” Decontextualization
is the process of
“interpreting the speaker’s message or
intentions” (Corder:33).The most important
stage here is explanation. It is
psycholinguistic, as it tries to explain how
and why the learner’s language is what it is.
Corder justified the third stage that “we
cannot make any principles used by his
idiosyncratic sentences to improve teaching
unless we understand how and why they
occur”.(Corder: 24)
One explanation is that the idiosyncratic
dialect is the result of interference the
mother tongue. And such interference
poses hindrance to learner’s acquiring the
habits of the second language. In this
perception, the idiosyncratic sentences are
but “evidence that the correct automatic
habits of the target language and not yet
been acquired” (Corder:25).Then it is only a
matter of methodological improvement for
the final eradication of all the errors (the
habits in the second language). The other
explanation, according to Corder, is that
“language learning is some sort of dataprocessing
and hypothesis-forming activity
of a cognitive sort”. And the learners make
false hypotheses about the rules of the
target language in their language
production. Then the efforts should be made
towards enabling the learner to “reformulate
a hypothesis more in accordance with the
facts of the target language (Hockett 1948,
quoted by Corder:25). According to this
view, learner’s errors are not negative
hindering forces, rather, they are inevitable
and necessary parts of the second language
learning. Therefore, if we can have an
adequate description of the idiosyncratic
dialect and provide plausible explanations,
we would be able to provide facilitative
conditions for the learners to formulate
hypotheses about the rules of the target
language.
FOCUS Page Page 89

Varieties of errors: acceptability and
appropriateness
A1
Acceptable
B1
Appropriate
In the learner’s idiosyncratic dialect, one
sentence could be well formed, in terms of
the target language-based criterion, but
denies appropriate interpretation in the
context. Here the problems of
appropriateness arise when we try to decide
which sentence or phrase is idiosyncratic
and which one is not. Generally, there are
two kinds of appropriateness. First, the
learner’s utterance must be of the truth
value concerning its referential relationship,
indicating that the referring expression used
in the utterance must have its real referent in
his or her real life. This is what Corder called
referential appropriateness. For example
when a second year college student says “I
found a part-time job in the corporation this
summer vocation”, the utterance is wellformed
and syntactically perfect. But the
referring expression ‘the corporation’ might
be inappropriately used to refer to a small
shop on the campus. It is referentially
inappropriate. Second, the learner has to be
able to select the appropriate style or
register of language for the social situation,
hence social appropriateness. When a
learner approaches a foreigner on the street
greeting “can you speak English”, he
produces an utterance that is socially
inappropriate. Accordingly, a sentence can
be acceptable but inappropriate or
unacceptable but appropriate. Listed below
are the possible varieties of the idiosyncratic
sentences for interpretation:
A2
B2
Unacceptable Inappropriate
1) A1 and B1: free from errors
(non-idiosyncratic)
2) A2 and B2: erroneous
3) A2 and B1: erroneous
4) A2 and B2: erroneous
For any sentence of the idiosyncratic
dialect, plausible interpretation in terms of
the target language has to be applied.
According to Corder, there are four
possibilities for an interpretation: 1) wellformed
sentence and plausible
interpretation; 2) well-formed sentence but
incorrect interpretation; 3) acceptable
utterance but ambiguous, that is ,
accessible to two possible interpretations;
and 4) well-formed but uninterpretable
sentences. In the restructuring process,
correct interpretation is possible to be made
in accordance with the learner’s intention in
the first case. For the second case, some
incorrect interpretation can be made of the
erroneous sentence by the learner.
Sometimes the first interpretation based on
one’s intuition could be irrelevant to the
context in which the sentence is placed. To
solve this problem, Corder proposed that a
longer context or larger range of context has
to be taken into account in making out the
learner’s intended meaning. In the third
case, the overtly erroneous sentence is
accessible to two possible interpretations.
The decision on the genuine one has to be
based on the reference to the mother
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tongue of the learner. The implication for the
discussion above would be that “the wellformedness
or otherwise of a learner’s
utterance is not the only criterion for
establishing the presence of errors”, and
“what is crucial is whether the normal target
language interpretation of his utterance is
appropriate or not in the context” (Corder:
44). For the interpretation of the learner’s
idiosyncratic dialect, a teacher is in a good
position to perform the task when he or she
has the following advantages: 1) he or she
has a good understanding of the learning
situation of the students and can easily
relate the learners’ utterances or sentences
to the actual context 2) he or she is the
native speaker of the learner’s mother
tongue and is therefore capable of
interpreting the learners’ intended meaning
in terms of the mother tongue 3) he or she
was once, and may still be the speaker of
the idiosyncratic dialect, namely, he has the
similar experiences of formulating
hypotheses about the rules of the target
language. So a teacher who is non-native
speaker of the target language but shares
the mother tongue of the learners is in a
better position than the native speaker of
the target language when tracing the errors
in the learner’s interlanguage.
Problems with EA
There still exist a lot of problems with the
description of the learner’s errors. The
elusive nature of the learner’s language, the
variations of errors, and the mother tongue
influence all complicate the description.
Following are the major problems:
a. Interlanguage is changing
As the learning process is the process of
formulating hypotheses about the rules of
the target language, the learner would
constantly test his or her hypotheses and try
to revise them to be more in accordance
with the target language. So in the strict
sense, it is quite impossible to have a
sectional or horizontal study of the learner’s
language. While a longitudinal study is more
feasible, arbitrary decisions have to be
made sometimes as to when some features
disappear and new features arise on the
continuum. Even for well-formed and
appropriate sentences by the learners we
still have a right to doubt that they genuinely
represent the underlying knowledge of the
learners, as such utterances or sentences
might be simply an imitation of the readymade
set expression or formula. Corder
gave the example of the learner’s use of the
greeting “how do you do”, of which the wellformedness
and appropriateness does not
guarantee that the learner has really
mastered the use of the verb ‘do’. However,
the changeable nature of interlanguage
does not affect interlanguage as a
systematic and independent language in its
own right. As Corder argued, “that his
language is changing all the time, that his
rules are constantly undergoing revision is of
course, true and rarely complicates the
problem of description but does not
invalidate the concept of “ a learner’s
language” (Corder: 56).
b. Only textual data is not enough
Corder has identified two basic constraints,
external constraint and internal constraint,
FOCUS Page Page 91

for the textual data to be inadequately
representative sample of the learner’s
language. By external constraints Corder
indicated the fact that textual data is not
spontaneous language produced by the
learner under the pressure of natural
communicative needs. Moreover, there are
such artificial constraints as topic
restriction, time constraint, and threats of
failure. By internal constraint, Corder meant
that “the learner himself will place limitations
upon the data we work with, by selecting
those aspects of knowledge which he has
most confidence in” (Corder: 60). That is to
say, the learner would not reveal sufficient
data about his underlying knowledge of his
language. From the textual data, we seem to
get only what the learner believes he knows
rather than what he really knows. However,
in a foreign language learning context,
elicitation of data of spontaneous language
production is very difficult to achieve, simply
because the learners are seldom engaged in
a real communication in the target language.
We can hardly get a whole corpus of the
learners’ spontaneous speech production
when they only have fragmentary and
occasional performance.
c. Language transfer versus universality of
interlanguage
On the one hand, we have identified that
most of the learners’ errors can be traced to
the influence of their mother tongue and
acknowledged that language transfer plays
crucial role in interlanguage. On the other,
strong evidence has shown that there are a
lot of similarities in the interlanguage of
learners with various cultural and linguistic
backgrounds. Such similarities seem to
prove the hypothesis that all sorts of second
language learners follow the same
sequence of learning and their prior
knowledge of their mother tongue comes no
avail to the acquisition of the new language.
However, modern cognitive learning
theories have formulated that the very
success of learning is determined by how
much the learner has already known about
the subjects. And the learning process is the
process of incorporating the new items into
the already existent cognitive structure(
Ausubel 1963). When a learner has already
had sophisticated knowledge about one
language system, it is hard to imagine for
him not to exploit the advantage of prior
knowledge in the second language learning.
Corder has the justification that “it appears
then that the nature of the interlanguage
grammar a learner creates for himself is to a
considerable extent determined by the
knowledge of language the learner already
possesses and how elaborate and
sophisticated that knowledge is ”( Corder:
74). But it is true at the same time that such
factors as age, settings, and motivation
would play significant roles in second
language learning. The younger the
learners, the more communicating oriented,
and the more informal the setting, the more
similar the structural properties of their
interlanguage systems will be. As Corder
has pointed out, “the maximum degree of
similarity between approximative systems of
learners will be found in the case of young
learners of any language, whatever their
mother tongue in the earliest stages of
learning a particular language in an informal
setting, and per contra that the maximum
differences in the approximative system of
learners will be found among adult learners
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of different mother tongues learning
different target languages in formal settings”
(Corder: 77). In the Chinese learning
situation, we would probably place our
learners on the other end of the scale: they
are adult, learning English for academic
purposes, and have highly formal
instructional settings. So much can be
expected of the features that are unique to
the Chinese learners of English. And we can
base most of our interpretations of their
sentences on the mother tongue translation,
as it is the case in actuality.
interpretations in locating the possible
sources of the learners’ errors, steady
progress could be made when the
methodology is improved and variables are
held in control.
Conclusion
As the learner’s language is systematic and
describable, error analysis provides access
to the observable data from which
inferences can be made about the learner’s
underlying knowledge about his or her
language. As a methodology error analysis
has implications both for practical purposes
and psycholinguistic orientation. It serves to
help the teacher to gain insight into the
learner’s learning process and provide more
facilitative conditions that can promote the
process. Mere error correction, particularly
the immediate correction in class, may
distort the learner’s hypothesis formulation
and delay the learning process. More solid
evidence could be obtained when the data
is elicited from a large corpus of the textual
materials, in which irrelevant performance
mistakes can be more easily deleted on the
basis of probability method and regularity
can be more easily captured. Moreover, the
corpus can be enhanced by integrating
materials from the learner’s oral production
for evidence of spontaneous speech. Even
though caution has to be made about our
References:
Ausubel, David A. (1963). Cognitive
structure and the facilitation of meaningful
verbal learning. Journal of Teacher
Education 14:217-21
Corder, S. Pit. (1981). Error Analysis and
Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Selinker,1972. "Interlanguage". International
Review of Applied Lingustics 10 Corder,
S. Pit.(1973). Introducing Applied
Linguistics, Penguin: Educational
FOCUS Page Page 93

About the author
Professor Meng Zhang was born in 1955 and graduated in 1982
from the Foreign Language Faculty English Department at the
Henan Normal University in China. She is currently an Associate
Professor of English Education and Head of the Foreign Language
Department at Zhengzhou Teachers College in Zhengzhou City,
Henan Province, China.
E-mail:dream55630@hotmail.com
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