Gender-just language teaching and student languaging.

Cite as: Knisely, K. (November, 2022). Gender-just language teaching and student languaging. Presentation at the ACTFL Assembly of Delegates. (Online).

Discussion Questions:

1. Your learning and training. Think about your experiences with language learning, pedagogical training, and ongoing professional development. Have these experiences included attention to gender justice? What did that (in)attention look like? How might these experiences continue to influence your teaching (consciously or subconsciously)?

2. What these findings mean for you. Thinking about the summary of research findings demonstrating the benefits of gender-just language education, how might these findings come to inflect your own pedagogical practice? What do they add to your current thinking about why and how you teach about gender? To how you advocate for those choices? To how you discuss them with students, parents, colleagues, administrators, and others?

3. How do you interpret them? Why do you think teaching towards gender-justice appears to have such wide-ranging potential for bolstering many of our existing goals as language educators (e.g., language development, metalinguistic awareness, intercultural competence, symbolic competence, intersectional thinking, etc.)? How does this connect to the broader social turn in language education research and praxis (including to what Pam Wesely presented today)?

For further consideration (with gratitude to Dr. Meg Malone for these additional questions):

1. Proficiency and accuracy. Knisely points out that the ACTFL Intermediate level includes a great deal of inaccuracy as learners develop proficiency in the language. How do you think accuracy expectations on gender-just can be communicated to learners working at this level in your setting?

2. Findings. Findings show that the class that incorporated gender-just language correlated positively with overall accuracy. Why do you think this outcome was attained? How can this outcome be used to support similar classroom efforts?

3. Replication. Knisely focused on French language in higher education. What are some ways this study could be replicated with additional languages and at different proficiency levels? How might you need to adjust for different languages and course levels?

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