I recently facilitated a session on accessibility and disability inclusion in LCTL assessment for the National LCTL (less commonly taught languages) Resource Center's Professional learning community. I was discussing the importance and helpfulness of embracing multimodality in teaching strategies including assessments, when one participant asked a question specific to her language teaching context that I …
Continue reading "Inclusion in LCTL instruction takes some extra thought"
I got this question recently from an editor: What do you think about the term "blind" to describe the process of anonymizing a manuscript for review? Here's a little window into my thought process behind my answer to this question. The first thing to consider is what blind and visually impaired people feel about this, …
I received this question recently, and I thought you might like a peek into my thought process: If a student has weak eyesight and can't read letters well, which means the student hardly writes, how should a teacher evaluate the skills? Well, I’d need more information to offer meaningful advice. I have several curiosities about …
Not long ago, a student wrote to their language program at my institution sharing that their language study helped them with certain aspects of their dyslexia. Essentially, they noted that their dyslexia makes it hard for them to read and write and having to learn a second set of linguistic rules to follow "made it …
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What is it about language learning (and teaching) that makes it particularly difficult to learn for students with certain disabilities? Here's the short version: We language educators sometimes have a rather rigid notion of what active participation in language classes must look like. That speaking component of proficiency is very important to us and communicative …
Last month, I mentioned that as part of my dissertation study I'll be asking Big Ten language instructors what their programs and institutions can do to better support them in their accessibility and inclusion efforts (see August 15, 2023 blog entry). This month, I'm writing to those language instructors directly, who may feel very alone …
Continue reading "Accessible teaching – don’t panic; start small"
While I believe each of us has some personal, ethical responsibility to do better and recognize ableism when we see it (including the unintentional kind, which is everywhere), my primary focus has never been on blaming individuals. Not all educators are willfully perpetuating ableism. It's also true that individual instructors are not always fully autonomous …
I recently used a pretty weird metaphor in a community organizing meeting when I was explaining to a staunch advocate of law enforcement that we shouldn't invite police officers to our community events since we want to be inclusive and welcoming to our immediate neighbors. I likened this concept to a dining scenario that we …
We can learn to talk about inaccessibility and ableism without fragility. When we are told that something in our course or program is inaccessible, it's not meant as a personal affront. We may feel embarrassment or shame about the room for improvement in our course design, but what’s most important is how we keep our …
The language we (language instructors, researchers, testers, etc.) use to describe language learners of marginalized identities matters a great deal. My colleague Robert Randez and I recently collaborated on a piece for a critically needed special issue of Language Testing to, in part, illustrate for applied linguists the importance of making purposeful and informed language …
Caitlin Cornell 