Speakers: Dr. Anwar Ahmed, Dr. Carl Ruest, Serikbolsyn Tastanbek
Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Time: 1:00PM to 2:30PM
Location: Ponderosa Commons North, Multipurpose Room (PCN 2012)
Seminar title:
What constitutes oppression in language (teacher) education, and how can we take an anti-oppressive stance?
The overarching question that guides all three talks in this seminar is: What constitutes oppression in language (teacher) education, and how can we take an anti-oppressive stance? This question warrants our attention because the nature of oppression is complex, and it changes with time and space. Therefore, we need to interrogate the dynamic processes of oppression shaped by changing patterns of social relations. Such interrogation will help us develop an anti-oppressive stance responsive to specific temporal and spatial contexts. In the first presentation, Anwar Ahmed will discuss whether and under what conditions research publication becomes an oppressive practice, especially for language teachers’ professional learning. In the second presentation, Carl Ruest will focus on the marginalization of racialized teacher candidates/teachers of French in Canada. In the final presentation, Serikbolsyn Tastanbek will illustrate how developing critical language awareness and translanguaging pedagogy can help educators take an anti-oppressive stance in Qazaqstan.
Abstracts:
Can research publication be an oppressive practice?
Anwar Ahmed
In the contemporary time of extraordinary speed and volume of research publication, there are possibly multiple stakeholders playing various and alternating roles of the oppressor and the oppressed. For example, equating good academic work with productivity and valorizing peak productivity can be “extractive and exploitative—of individual writers, one another, and the larger scholarly ecosystem” (Ahern-Dodson & Dufour, 2023, p. 24). When researchers are “terrorized” by number, index and impact factor, can research contribute to the improvement of practice? Instead of blaming ourselves (as researchers), in this talk I would like to turn the spotlight on publishers’ profit motive and how it is disturbing the scholarly ecosystem of English language teaching around the world. More specifically, I will focus on how English language teachers’ engagement with research – as a form of professional learning – is being negatively impacted by the publishing industry’s oppressive practices.
Reference:
Ahern-Dodson, J., & Dufour, M. (2023). The productivity trap: Why we need a new model of faculty writing support. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 55(1), 24-30.
doi: 10.1080/00091383.2023.2151800
Bio: Anwar Ahmed (he/him) is an assistant professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at UBC. His current research focuses on second language writing, second language teacher education, and how various anti-oppressive approaches can be utilized in these areas.
Racial representation in teachers as one (of the) means for anti-oppressive action in French education
Carl Ruest
French education in Canada, with its long-standing tradition of Francentrism and of Québecentrism, is grounded in Whiteness and is in dire need of diversifying its representations to realize the full potential of the tenets of equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization. Many obstacles prevent such realization: pervasive ideologies (e.g., linguistic purity, native speakerism, elitism), sociohistorical status of French in Canada, and availability of resources, to name a few. One of these obstacles is the lack of racial representation of teachers in French as a Second Language (FSL) programs.
Although no specific data seem to exist on FSL teachers, racialized teachers are underrepresented in the teaching profession in general at the Canadian level (Statistics Canada, 2023). Better racial representation amongst teachers in FSL programs could contribute to greater success of racialized students (Gethersen et al., 2021) and, potentially, to greater diversity amongst FSL students, which is lacking now (Toronto District School Board, 2015). However, barriers do exist for people who are racialized and who want to enter the teaching profession (Marom, 2023; Ramjattan, 2019).
In this talk, I will outline a proposed study that aims to uncover these barriers. Using Critical Race Theory, the study will inquire, through interviews, about the experiences of racialized UBC Teacher Candidates in French specialisation during their Teacher Education program, particularly during their classroom field experiences. It is hoped that the study will highlight systemic barriers that prevent recruitment, certification, retention and integration of these candidates in the profession.
References:
Gershenson, S., Hansen, M. J., & Lindsay, C. A. (2021). Teacher diversity and student success: Why racial representation matters in the classroom (Vol. 8). Harvard Education Press.
Marom, L. (2023). The Subtle Work of Whiteness in Canadian Teacher Education. In S. Krause, M. Proyer, & G. Kremsner (Eds.), The Making of Teachers in the Age of Migration (pp. 185-202). Bloomsbury Academic.
Ramjattan, V. A. (2019). Racist nativist microaggressions and the professional resistance of racialized English language teachers in Toronto. Race Ethnicity and Education, 22(3), 374-390.
Statistics Canada. (2023). A portrait of educational attainment and occupational outcomes among racialized populations in 2021. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/as-sa/98-200-X/2021011/98-200-X2021011-eng.cfm
Toronto District School Board (2015). Research brief on the characteristics of students in the French as a second language programs at the Toronto District School Board. www.tdsb.on.ca/Portals/research/docs/reports/ResearchBrief-CharacteristicsofStudentsinFSLProgramsatTDSB.pdf
Bio: Carl Ruest (il/he) is a settler-scholar and Assistant Professor of Teaching in French Education and French Teacher Education. His scholarship in French Teacher Education aims to support French educators to adopt an intercultural orientation to teaching French, which promotes the acknowledgment of the learners’ identities and of their own, and a deep, thoughtful and critical engagement with the world.
Developing critical language awareness and translanguaging stance in Qazaqstan
Serikbolsyn Tastanbek
“Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building” (Freire, 1993, p. 65).
As a TESL educator in Qazaqstan, I was complicit in perpetuating hegemonic language ideologies by attempting to “resemble the oppressors” (Freire, 1993, p. 62) through the promotion of native speaker ideals and “standard” English perspectives. In this presentation, I will share how developing critical language awareness and adopting a translanguaging stance may contribute to the reflective participation of the oppressed in efforts to liberate themselves from hegemonic language ideologies. To illustrate the enactment of critical language awareness and a translanguaging stance, I will draw on two studies: 1) my ongoing collaborative inquiry with two Qazaqstani IB teachers, with whom I’m working remotely; and 2) my completed practitioner inquiry as an EAP instructor in Qazaqstan (Tastanbek, 2024).
References:
Paulo, F. (1993). Pedagogy of the Opressed. Bloomsbury.
Tastanbek, S. (2024). Translanguaging pedagogy in EAP writing: A multilingual Qazaq instructor’s perspective. Journal of Second Language Writing, 63, 101075.
Bio: Serikbolsyn Tastanbek (he/him) is a PhD student in TESL, GRA and GTA at UBC, and a member of the AAAL 2024 conference team. His scholarship focuses on critical multilingual pedagogies, and concepts of translanguaging, language ideologies, and identities in the context of critical applied linguistics and TESOL. Some of his work appears in TESOL Quarterly and the Journal of Second Language Writing.