Movement and loss: progression in tertiary education for migrant students.

This article is about progression in further and higher education for migrants to the United Kingdom who are users of non-standard varieties of English. The focus is on the struggles of Tobi, a first-generation migrant Nigerian student. Tobi's story describes the local barriers he must navigate in order to gain access to the courses he wishes to follow, both at the college where he is studying and at the local university to which he wishes to progress. These barriers include mastery of academic English and assessments of literacy. The contrast is drawn out between Tobi's aspirations to progress 'up' along an educational trajectory, and his actual experience of moving 'downwards'. Widening participation and the stratification of higher education are seen in relation to other processes and structures that impact on Tobi's experience: migration, social class and capital, language and language ideologies, and academic literacy. Tobi's trajectory also exemplifies the tension between his own language use and the variety of English he is expected to orient towards. We end the paper with a discussion of models of academic literacy, which may provide a starting point for addressing the pedagogic challenges faced by Tobi and his teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]