Acceso usuarios
Kashif Raza
, Hongxia Shan
Digital and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)-enabled technologies are increasingly embedded in adult immigrant English language education, yet the policies governing their pedagogical, ethical, and equity implications remain uneven and weakly articulated. This study examines how digital and GenAI-mediated language teaching is governed in practice within Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) programs in Metro Vancouver. Drawing on an environmental scan and document analysis, a survey of LINC instructors, and in-depth interviews, the study adopts a qualitatively driven sequential exploratory mixed-methods approach to examine how instructors interpret, negotiate, and enact technology use in the absence of explicit policy guidance. Using shadow language policy as the conceptual lens, the paper shows that governance operates not primarily through formal policy texts, but through unwritten, informal, and practice-based decisions that regulate participation, legitimacy, and learning outcomes. Instructors function as frontline policy actors, reconciling competing logics of employability, assessment accountability, care, and access through everyday pedagogical choices. Findings further reveal how digital platforms and GenAI tools reinforce an English-dominant instructional orientation by positioning English as the primary medium of integration and treating multilingual repertoires as conditional supports rather than valued resources. The study extends poststructuralist language policy scholarship by demonstrating how governance-through-omission and technological defaults shape digital language education, with implications for equity, accountability, and policy design in immigrant settlement contexts.
