Language instructors are often underprepared to address accessibility concerns for disabled language learners. In fact, my own underpreparedness for this type of inclusion in my English language teaching career is what ultimately pushed this longtime teacher to return to research and pursue a Ph.D. I passed my dissertation proposal, and my study is almost underway. …
Continue reading "Dissertating: Language Instructors’ Preparedness for Accessibility"
It's official! I am wrapping up the development of a course I have designed and will teach this summer for MSU's Master of Arts in Foreign Language Teaching program: Individual Differences and Accessibility in Foreign Language Teaching. Since I have long believed that disability nests naturally under an umbrella of Individual Differences discourse within second …
I know I talk (and write) a lot about ableism in academia, and in language learning specifically. It's important that I do, because it's really there and it's a real problem. One year ago, I wrote about how "best practices" in language teaching can erect barriers to accessible learning. I stand by what I wrote …
I have a real question. What’s the relationship between class attendance and success in the learning outcomes of a course? Why does attendance really matter that much? Do we really have to control it to the degree we think we need to? Instead of failing (or reducing a grade for) students on the basis of …
Continue reading "A real question: attendance in language learning"
I was recently asked to participate in a panel on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Academic Writing on Michigan State University campus. In my talking points, I drew some connections to the challenges of machine translation for language educators in the late 2000s. Google translate was born in 2006, and as early as 2008, I was …
Sometimes unintentional ableism bubbles up in the shape of myths that society tells us about what a learning experience needs to feel like for students across the board. One hesitation I hear often from educators is their concern about fairness to other students when considering what accommodations are "reasonable" for their disabled students in the …
I was recently interviewed by Dr. Betsy Lavolette, associate professor in the Department of English at Kyoto Sangyo University, in her endeavor to collect some information on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in Language Centers in the United States. Dr. Lavolette has done an outstanding job highlighting some of the things language center folks …
Continue reading "How are US Language Centers Approaching DEI?"
I'm happy to announce that the Michigan State University Office of Faculty and Academic Staff Development has chosen to sponsor the Learning Community that my colleague Adam Gacs and I proposed for 2022-23. This year, we'll be exploring accessibility and disability-inclusion when it comes to language teaching and learning in various learning environments (in person, …
I just completed a pilot program that I'm particularly proud of: the first iteration of a DEI Graduate Certificate conceived of by graduate students in Human Development and Family Studies (Melissa Yzaguirre and Gianna Gasaburo!) and underwritten by the MSU Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant. This certificate program challenged graduate …
I just learned that I was selected to be an Inclusive Pedagogy Fellow (IPF) for the academic year 2022-2023! (The Inclusive Pedagogy Fellows Program is a subcommittee of the College Inclusive Practices Committee). For a couple of years now, I have been developing disparate pedagogical elements related to the teaching of accessibility for additional language …
