Introducing (A)gender Into Foreign/Second Language Education

• In Event: Teaching, Affirming, and Recognizing Trans and Gender-Creative Youth: A Queer Literacy Framework

Abstract

Purpose:
Many language teachers may question why they should queer the curriculum when they were hired to teach a language. It is, however, the ethical duty of every teacher to provide a safe, positive learning environment for all students (Author B, 2010), irrespective of the content one teaches. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how, through short readings and art-based activities, second and foreign language middle and high school teachers can use language to introduce the concept of (a)gender.

Perspective/Theoretical Framework:
One of the challenges that language teachers face is that learners lack the vocabulary, linguistic skills or knowledge to express their ideas about gender creativity. We maintain that combining art-based projects with the use of language, we are able to help learners produce an insightful description that words just cannot always convey (Knowles & Cole, 2008). Additionally, Author A’s (in press) QLF and its application to classroom practice can help to ensure that school is a safe, embracing milieu for every child or adolescent, regardless of the subject matter one teaches. This type of environment comes from a commitment of the language teacher to engage learners with not only the development of their linguistic skills, but to connect that curriculum to all aspects of the lives of the students, including their (a)gender identity.

Methods:
This work took place over two consecutive class sessions in a first-semester freshman second language writing course at a small liberal arts college in rural Japan. Each of the two days, students were given a short reading that addresses issues related to (a)gender identity (see Bryant, 2013; Lockette, 2009). The students first read the piece on their own, then engaged in a classroom discussion, followed by drawing or coloring anything that depicted their understanding of the topic.

Data:
The data collected were artistic representations of the two stories read in class, along with the written text that they wrote to accompany their drawings. Data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis where we looked for themes that emerged as we analyzed the data, starting with the drawings and looking for corroboration in the written text.
Results
We found that students focused on a variety of themes that were salient to them: acceptance, doing what makes us happy, the role of adults in addressing bullying, and the dark notion that nothing can stop bullying. Not every student fully embraced the goals of the lesson, resulting in themes of perpetuating the gender binary and the roles constructed around them and blaming the victim (i.e., if one doesn’t conform, one is going to be bullied).

Significance:

It is possible to develop language lessons that incorporate many of the principles for queering literacy and most important, to support our students in recognizing that there are people who trans*cend gendernormativity. By selecting queer readings and centralizing challenges to gendernormativity in the lessons, this paper illustrate examples about how students can develop different perspectives about (a)gender. This paper demonstrates how (a)gender identity intersects with culture, language, and other aspects of humanity.

Authors

• Paul Chamness Miller, Akita International University

• Hidehiro Endo, Akita International University