Recordings are now available here!

 Description

ELT itself can be regarded as a microcosm of the global village at large, whereby whiteness and heteronormativity–amongst other power structures–are positioned in the centre of decision-making in everything from materials to organisational practices to conference themes. One-off or occasional statements, talks, or strands at events are something, but our/their ‘inclusion’ defines us/them as peripheral to the main conversation. Through this month long event, TDSIG and GISIG will use our platforms to put RACE and QUEERNESS at the centre of the discussion. We will bring together and amplify the voices of ELT folx who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of colour, and/or LGBTQIA and allies who support us/them. This event is for everyone, not simply TDSIG or GISIG members.

 What’s involved?

OUR COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE MONTH
Contribute by sharing original or linked articles, blog posts, video, podcast episodes, and comments on socials to illuminate and examine race and queerness in ELT. More info coming in November!

LIVE WEB CONFERENCE
Every keynote, talk, panel discussion, and breakout engagement focuses solely on race, LGBTQIA, or intersections of the two within ELT.

 Call for speakers

Our live web conference on 5-6 December will include a variety of sessions types, from keynotes to concurrent talks to breakout session forums and more! We invite you to participate as a speaker at this event. Certain speakers will be offered a keynote slot for a £100 honorarium. Your proposal can focus on RACE, QUEERNESS, or BOTH. Click “Submit a proposal” to do so.

OUR CALL HAS NOW CLOSED.
We thank everyone who is interested in speaking at our event. Speakers have been contacted.

 

 Money and proceeds

The 2-day live event includes some finances. GISIG and TDSIG each will provide £150 towards keynote honoraria. In addition, we will kindly ask you to donate what you can and feel is appropriate to attend the sessions, though there will be zero obligation to pay anything to attend. We understand everyone is coming from different circumstances. We are also approaching specific organisations for sponsorship as an active role in the event.

What will we do with any donations for the live web conference?

All donations and sponsorship money we receive for the live event will be split into two bins:

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If you have a suggestion for a highly relevant charity, please suggest it here. During the live event, we will vote on which to donate to. If you are interested in sponsoring this event, please contact [email protected] for more details.

We have chosen Gofundme as the platform to collect donations because of its low fees. If you’d like to make a donation of any amount, please do so below. NOTE: After you donate using the link below, you’ll get a receipt saying that the charity is IATEFL, but that’s just because we had to set up the campaign as the organiser. We promise to allocate 75% to the chosen charity as we promised we would! Thank you so much for your support!

UPDATE: Thanks to your suggestions, the votes from participants at the live event, and everyone’s generosity in donations, we have been able to donate 303GBP to Casa Um, a shelter in São Paulo – Brazil for LGBTQIA+ youth! Find out more about the work they do by clicking on their logo. Casa 1 - Casa Um, an LGBTQIA+ youth shelter in Sao Paolo, Brazil

 

 Live Web Conference (5-6 Dec) Programme

Our schedule of talks is now live here!

We have two carnival tents (i.e. Zoom rooms) for both days: Tent A & Tent B. Click blue links on the schedule to enter tents. NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED.🙂 Recordings will be available to IATEFL members after the event.

We have 21 amazing, powerful speakers across the two days. Allow us to introduce our three keynote speakers!

JPB Gerald (@JPBGerald) is an adult educator and a student at CUNY – Hunter College in New York City, pursuing an EdD in Instructional Leadership. His research focus is the intersection between language teaching, race, and whiteness. He lives with his wife, dog, and very young son, who may appear during the conference. jpbgerald.com

Elizabeth Coleman (@es_coleman) – With more than a decade in practice, Elizabeth Coleman is an enthusiastic and motivated educator with a special interest in working on diversifying classroom practice through the analysis of intersectional identities and methods of inclusion. She arrived in ELT via a background in gender and environmental activism. https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-s-coleman/

Sharon Jarvis is a Métis who has been an educator for over 15 years in ELT and is currently teaching at UBC. Her areas of concentration while studying at University of British Columbia were in adult education and learning, Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies, educational psychology and special education.

 Recordings

If you are a TDSIG or GISIG member, you can find links to all of the talks in the IATEFL website members’ area.

 Community Partners

We are proudly working together with a few organisations who offered to help and have unique offerings and expertises to share.

 Community of Practice Month (Nov 2020)

All throughout this month, we’re interested in building both our community’s expertise and dialgoue. Both TDSIG and GISIG encourage all of us reading this and interested to share how race and queerness impacts us in our profession. To do so:

  1. GISIG is hosting their series “Global Issues Month, so look out for them on socials and their website.
  2. TDSIG will use our socials by asking you to respond to sentence prompts, responses to burning Qs, short experience videos or paragraphs, a #SIGtweetmeet chat on Nov 10 at 5PM UK on Twitter, and few other surprises. As we get your contributions, we will collate many together here! So please watch out for ways to contribute throughout this month, especially through our social media platforms.
  3. At any time, we’d love for you to share links to open-access articles, blog posts, videos or what have you in the COMMENTS below on this page!

Thank you so much for helping centre this discussion! 🌈🖤🤎

#SIGtweetmeet on Race & Queerness in ELT
On Tuesday, November 10, we came together for our #SIGtweetmeet chat on Twitter. Together, we explored three guiding questions, as well as a number of very meaningful tangents. Here are a few tweets related to them. Click to go to Twitter or search for #SIGtweetmeet to see all.

24 Comments

  1. Xavier Muñoz

    Here’s a promising webinar “LGBTQIA+ Topics in Adult Basic Education (ABE) Spaces” by Literacy Minnesota on November 12 from 6:30-8:30 PM CST.

    Description:
    What do welcoming spaces in adult education look like? How can we make sure LGBTQIA+ learners, volunteers and professionals feel they belong? In this session, ABE professionals in the LGBTQIA+ community will invite participants to reflect on and discuss topics of gender and sexuality in ESL/ABE classrooms and instruction. Participants will brainstorm how to include more queer representation in adult education curricula, program environments and materials. Presenters will provide lesson examples for teaching gender-inclusive language. It is our intention to create a space where participants are welcome but not required to share aspects of their identity or experiences related to the topic.

    LGBTQIA+ representation has, in my opinion, been largely absent in U.S. adult education since I joined the field 8 years ago, so I’m thrilled that this webinar is being offered.

    Details and registration here – https://www.literacymn.org/lgbtqia-topics-in-abe-spaces-webinar-advanced-registration-required

    #IssuesMonth2020

    Reply
  2. Bill Templer

    1. Campaigners call for teaching Black History in the UK schools https://youtu.be/j-5-DWYcAT0 What about where you teach? Do students in the Balkans learn much about a widespread ethnic minority there, the Roma? Many are from subaltern economic backgrounds. Racism against the Roma is quite fierce in many countries in Eastern Europe, worse than 30 years ago.

    2. Black British history you’re not taught in the schools https://youtu.be/Rgrou4Ohy68 What are the main points for students here?

    3. “Riots,” Racism, and the Police: Students Explore a Century of Police Conduct and Racial Violence
    A lesson you can download from Zinn Education Project (ZEP) in the US: https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/riots-racism-and-the-police/

    4. ZEP materials on LGBTQ: https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/?cond%5B0%5D=themes_str:LGBTQ
    Such as Beyond Tolerance: A Resource Guide for Addressing LGTBQI Issues in Schools Teaching Guide. Published by New York Collective of Radical Educators. 2010. A curricular resource guide on Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual, Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTQI) for educators.
    https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/beyond-tolerance-lgtbqi-resource-guide/

    See also: Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality Teaching Guide. Edited by Annika Butler-Wall, Kim Cosier, Rachel Harper, Jeff Sapp, Jody Sokolower, and Melissa Bollow Tempel. 2016. Rethinking Schools. A collection of essays on how to create a nurturing classroom at different grade levels, curriculum, teachers coming out, organizing beyond classroom walls, and integrating LGBTQ+ content into teacher education programs and ongoing teacher education.
    https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/rethinking-sexism-gender-and-sexuality/

    Reply
  3. Bill Templer

    (1) RACISM
    “Teaching should be political. How to talk about race in the classroom” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/bringing-politics-into-the-classroom/616934/ This by Clint Smith, a staff writer in the US at The Atlantic.

    Britain needs to understand its slave history, Rachel Shabi speaking on ‘The Pledge’ on Sky News 14 months ago. https://youtu.be/nU0qOXcEQ7E In a related talk on socioeconomic inequality, Rachel on The Pledge speaks on ‘Social mobility is failing, we need social justice’ https://youtu.be/xnkf-5IKHNI

    (2) LGBT
    On toxic masculinity and language: ‘Boys will be boys’ https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/say-no-to-boys-will-be-boys

    Re toolkit for “being there for non-binary youth”: https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2016/toolkit-for-being-there-for-nonbinary-youth

    Maajid Nawaz on The Pledge raising the issue of sexuality as a spectrum: https://youtu.be/TIwG8eDtS-s Good video for provoking discussion.

    (3) MORE MALE TEACHERS NEEDED?
    I also think the question of more male teachers as ‘role models’ in primary and lower secondary education is a topic largely avoided, and should be discussed, its impacts more openly researched. Of course it remains a ‘sensitive’ issue. Yet the extreme feminization of primary education staffing has deleterious fallout for some boys, esp. those from fatherless families. That is broadly recognized in the Black community stateside.
    In Britain, men make up just 15% of teachers at nursery and primary and schools and only a third of secondary school teachers are men, although some 90% of head teachers (school directors) in Britain are men, a huge imbalance. Significantly, statistics indicate that in the UK only 2.7% of male teachers are Black. These are facts. What about where you live and work?

    ‘THE PLEDGE’ ON THE NEED FOR MORE MALE TEACHERS
    Listen to June Sarpong speaking on ‘The Pledge’ on Sky News, Oct 2018: https://youtu.be/jP-lo2psUXA She is a well-known Black feminist in the UK and advocates: ‘setting targets for more men in our school.’ Listen also Afua Hirsch in this 9- min. discussion, in response to June. And the men on the Pledge panel are in large-scale agreement on this issue in their response, esp. Maajid Nawaz. Hear also LeBron James speaking there in a clip. Michelle Dewberry disagrees somewhat with Afua and Maajid. In our own field of EFL, there are almost no males teaching at lower grades in a great many countries. I think all our colleagues in TEFL and other fields should listen to and discuss this extract from The Pledge, very germane to being an educator.

    In some countries these days, there almost no males are teaching EFL or training EFL teachers at any level, including in university English departments — often due to comparatively low salaries, low status for educators, Bulgaria 2020 a good example of that. This phenomenon is intensifying in some corners. During socialism there were many male teachers of EFL in Bulgaria at all post-primary levels, since the status of teachers in the society was markedly greater — and their fair & equitable salaries were guaranteed within the non-capitalist socialist political economy. Now that has largely vanished, gone with the free-market wind.

    Reply
  4. Bill Templer

    *** The site Teaching tolerance is very relevant to the issues of this present Issues Month and upcoming Web carnival: https://www.tolerance.org/ Read “The Burden of Critical Active Conscience” https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/the-burden-of-critical-active-conscience by a colleague based in Chicago.

    *** The Black Educators’ Conference of the NEU in Great Britain will take place virtually 19-21 November See: https://neu.org.uk/event/black-educators-conference-2020 [The NEU uses Black in a political context to encompass “all members who self-identify as Black, Asian and any other minority ethnic groups who do not identify themselves as white”]

    *** The first ever virtual NEU LGBT+ Educators’ conference will take place on Saturday 28 November 2020. https://neu.org.uk/event/lgbt-educators-conference-2020 “There will be keynote speakers, motions debate and interactive workshops to aid in strengthening networks and building a powerful and intersectional LGBT+ movement. This conference is for NEU members who identify as LGBT+”

    Reply
    • Tyson Seburn

      I came across this Youtube channel quite some time ago, but it’s now that I saw one of their teachers featured in Episode 1 of the Brazilian show ‘A Queen is Born’ on Netflix and surprised to see it.

      Reply
  5. Brom Hrezogevenia

    Garnet’s podcast, ELTtime, had a recent episode about racial bias in ELT. This is the description:

    “In the final episode of season 1 of ELTtime, our Senior Editor, Chris, speaks to Zarina Subhan about experiencing racial bias in ELT. They dive into discussions about different kinds of privilege, what it’s like to be judged by the colour of your skin before your teaching ability, and how the representation of race in ELT coursebooks and other materials can be improved.”

    https://www.garneteducation.com/podcast/racial-biases-in-elt-with-zarina-subhan/

    Reply
  6. Bill Templer

    Pledge to Participate in the Black Lives Matter at School “Year of Purpose”
    by Black Lives Matter at School https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/year-of-purpose/

    Find out more about this BLM YEAR OF PURPOSE and how it could be related to and drawn on in your own teaching environment. READ THIS WHOLE ARTICLE

    Extract: “The Uprising for Black lives has prompted the Black Lives Matter at School movement to expand its proposed activities to a ‘Year of Purpose,’ (https://www.blacklivesmatteratschool.com/year-of-purpose.html ) in addition to the annual Week of Action held during the first week of February. The centerpiece of the Year of Purpose is asking educators to reflect on their own work in relationship to anti-racist pedagogy and abolitionist practice, persistently challenging themselves to center Black lives in their classrooms. In addition, educators will be asked to participate in intentional days of action (below) throughout the school year uplifting different intersectional themes vital to making Black lives matter in schools, communities, and beyond.

    The learning environments we aspire to create reflect a deep understanding of the experiences of Black children, families, and communities, as well as our own ongoing work of critical self-reflection and personal transformation. Are we creating humanizing communities that respond to the concerns of our students? Are we committed to leveling up our expectations for Black students?”

    Reply
  7. Bill Templer

    Transgender Liberation: A movement whose time is now!
    This an article that appeared in Workers World, a weekly paper of the Workers World Party in the US. The WWP is a longstanding Marxist party, and here the article stresses the need for dealing with transgender inclusivity, centering especially on the plight of Black trans women. It combines the concerns for racism and queerness from a Marxist perspective. Published on Nov. 20, Transgender Day of Remembrance. Some excerpts below.

    ==> Read the whole brief article: : https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52616/

    Transgender Liberation: A movement whose time is now!

    Nov. 20 – Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. As of today, 2020 is the deadliest year on record for transgender violence in the U.S. Over 30 murders of transgender people have been recorded in the country, with 350 murders recorded worldwide. Since 2008, at least 3,600 transgender people have been murdered worldwide. (tinyurl.com/y5a2kcdq)

    Of these killings, 98 percent were committed against transgender women and trans feminine people, primarily Black trans women and other trans women of color. Transgender sex workers were 62 percent of the people who died.
    Those figures do not count the countless trans people who died “in the closet,” not having publicly revealed their identity, or those whose deaths were covered up by hateful family members. The figures do not count the countless trans people who have died by suicide, died due to inadequate healthcare and/or constant mistreatment, or died unhoused on the streets.

    Capitalist war on trans and gender non-conforming people […]
    The struggle for transgender liberation is part of the class struggle. Trans people are part of the working class and the oppressed. At various intersections, one will find Black trans women, who face the highest amount of violence of any other demographic, as well as Brown trans people, Indigenous Two-Spirit/trans people, undocumented trans people, disabled trans people, HIV+ trans people, incarcerated trans people, trans sex workers, homeless trans people, and, of course, trans workers of all kinds. […] To win revolutionary socialism means to struggle for solidarity between and among oppressed people and workers. So it is mandatory that the transgender liberation struggle within the U.S. – and the LGBTQ2S+ struggle as a whole – unite with other struggles: […]

    Reply
    • Bill Templer

      This article “Transgender liberation: A movement whose time is now!” is now on pp.2-3 of the weekly WORKERS WORLD, Vol. 62, No. 48, 26 Nov. https://www.workers.org/wp-content/uploads/ww2020nov26web.pdf A Marxist US-based journal published weekly that you can get cost-free if you like, take a look.

      Reply
  8. Bill Templer

    A strong new organization is the Black Alliance for Peace https://blackallianceforpeace.com Worth exploring. Students can discuss some of its ‘principles of unity’ (https://blackallianceforpeace.com/principles-of-unity ), including:

    SELF-DETERMINATION
    BAP supports people’s struggles for national liberation and self-determination, with a special focus on the struggles of Black peoples and nation-states in the “Americas.”

    ANTI-IMPERIALISM
    BAP takes a resolute anti-colonial, anti-imperialist position that links the international role of the U.S. empire to the domestic war against poor people and working-class Black people in the United States.

    WORKING-CLASS FOUNDATION
    BAP identifies the Black working class as the main social force of any reconstituted Black Liberation project.

    INTERSECTIONALITY
    “People(s)-centered human rights” as defined as emanating from bottom-up mass struggle and informed by a Black, revolutionary, feminist intersectional framework will be the basis for analysis and actions.

    ANTI-PATRIARCHY
    All members, on an organizational and individual level, must be committed to ending patriarchy and all forms of male domination in either internal organizational practice or external/public political positions.

    DECOLONIZATION
    Members of this Alliance see the U.S. state as the ongoing institutional expression of settler-colonialism and are committed to an authentic process of decolonization in every sense of that term.

    PRISONER SUPPORT
    BAP is committed to working against all forms of state and domestic repression, including the issues of political prisoners and prisoners of war in the United States.

    BAP also stresses the need to demilitarize the US and the world, central to its vision: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/demilitarize-the-united-states-and-the-world

    Reply
  9. Gabriela & Paola

    Hello from Argentina! We are Gabriela & Paola, teachers of English, teacher educators, and Comprehensive Sexuality Education advocators.

    Here we share the links to three very interesting (and necessary) chats we had in the last months. We talked with Joshua Paiz on Queering ELT, John Gray on inclusive education vs Queer pedagogy and, finally, with Tyson Seburn on LGBTQIA2 representation, teacher identity and debates..

    https://youtu.be/SvgmUTeVJFQ – Joshua Paiz

    https://youtu.be/QQCLczbmyPE – John Gray

    https://youtu.be/BZE3MNaX1s0 – Tyson Seburn

    You can visit our Instagram/facebook accounts and YouTube Channel: ESI in English.

    Thank you for the space to share our work!

    Reply
  10. Bill Templer

    As Americans in the US celebrate Thanksgiving Day Thursday 26 November, Native Americans in the US mark a NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING, POINTING TO THE HISTORICAL COLONIZATION AND THEFT OF THEIR LANDS, THEIR RACIALIZATION, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THEIR SOCIETIES, LIKEWISE IN CANADA.

    UAINE National Day of Mourning observed by Native Americans on Thanksgiving Day, protesting the historical occupation and theft of their aboriginal lands: http://www.uaine.org/?fbclid=IwAR1C3l1X5fXQ2MW17Q6kZ-iJO8veLmE5eAfaDT8oeRfUNKnhraE8CjWO2uk

    You can watch the protest livestreaming from Plymouth, MA, beginning at 5 pm UK time, noon Eastern Standard Time (see the above link). >Since 1970, Native Americans and our supporters have gathered at noon on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on the US thanksgiving holiday. Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers. Thanksgiving day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and the relentless assault on Native culture. Participants in National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today. It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience.<

    Reply
    • Bill Templer

      Decolonizing Thanksgiving And Supporting Indigenous Peoples https://popularresistance.org/decolonizing-thanksgiving/ by Margaret Flowers
      The article begins:

      >This week, as some people in the United States celebrated the mythical ‘Thanksgiving’ dinner, Indigenous Peoples held a National Day of Mourning and continued their resistance to defend the land and water. As Native American, Matt Remle, writes: Despite colonial efforts to exterminate, terminate, relocate, and assimilate Indigenous populations, Native communities continue to resist efforts to both desecrate Unci Maka and strip Native peoples of their languages, spirituality and communities.”
      Settler colonialism continues to this day in the United States and around the world as do resistance efforts to reclaim what has been lost, including land, access to sacred sites, clean water, culture and sovereignty. Remle makes the point that non-Indigenous people benefit from this resistance. Around the world, Indigenous people are leading the way to end exploitation and build a better future for all of us.

      WELL WORTH READING THE REST.

      Reply
  11. Bill Templer

    >Race and Revolution – Will Britain Change?< A one-hr special program with panel discussion and audience participation (some 47 on Zoom) online about attitudes toward race and discrimination in the UK. Will 2020 be a year when things finally begin to move toward real change? Worth watching, or perhaps using with students in excerpts. Here the full video recording: https://youtu.be/WWRffZCiigA

    Reply
  12. Bill Templer

    Teaching Anti-Racist Lessons from Open Minds to Equality
    Remotely Two Lessons Drawn from the Book

    What a challenging time it is for social justice educators. We do our best to deal with the pandemic, often by teaching remotely. We try to educate our students to better understand the history and dynamics of structural racism — most visible now in police violence, health care, the criminal justice system — and the outpouring of resistance to it. These are complicated ideas and necessitate careful and challenging teaching to address news that can be frightening and confusing to students.

    Open Minds to Equality (4th edition, 2014) is a valuable resource for addressing these challenges. It provides a sequential series of learning activities to educate students about racism and other forms of discrimination so they can respond with understanding and critical perspectives to current manifestations of white supremacy and be more able to act for change in developmentally appropriate ways.

    Below are two lessons from Open Minds to Equality , adapted for remote learning, that can address such students’ concerns and feelings. While lessons in the book are developmentally appropriate for students from grades 4-8, the ones highlighted here are particularly appropriate for grades 6-8. If these activities are too advanced for your students, earlier lessons in the book provide more basic understandings.
    We hope two lessons will pique your interest. If you don’t already have Open Minds to Equality, we encourage you get it as a resource for your ongoing teaching as we continue to teach so that Black Lives Matter.

    See the full pdf on the two lessons here: http://rethinkingschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Teaching-Anti-Racist-Lessons-from-OMTE-Remotely-FINAL.pdf

    — A LEGACY OF RACISM
    — DIFFERENT KINDS OF BIAS: DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES

    Here on the book: OPEN MINDS TO EQUALITY https://rethinkingschools.org/books/open-minds-to-equality-4th-edition/

    Reply

We'd love to hear your feedback or share your resources below.