To the Educator

Dear English Language Teacher,

I am so honored and humbled to be able to offer up some resources in the work of anti-racism and decolonization in the field of English language teaching, to be able to contribute in a small way to the larger work. This work is inherently a collective effort. And it is in each one of us taking on this charge that change happens.

As you begin reviewing this resource, I would like to make space for you to know me as the author of this text, beyond my name and position title, as your fellow human being. And so, I have included a narrative introduction as a way of telling my story and building a bridge of connection. Please note, I´ve included this narrative introduction in Chapter 1 as a sample for students to work with.

Me llamo Inés (My name is Inés). I want you to know me beyond my title, my job, my name. I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The street name sticks to my mind like glue, a familiar sound with a rhyme and pattern that speaks of home. I couldn’t tell you how to find the street or what highway to take (we moved away when I was just 8 years old), but I can tell you the sing-song feeling of the name of la calle de Yapeyu.

My family moved from Argentina to a tiny town of Ayolas, in Paraguay, where we had to close the gates in front of our house before bed to keep the cows out of our yard. I would like to tell you about the downpouring rain of beetles, falling from the trees because of the Amazonian heat in that little town. And how those few years there formed me.

I would like to tell you about the day we got off an airplane that brought us to LA, where my mother’s side of our family, Mexican-American from Jalisco, welcomed us with open arms. Fierce and loving people I did not know yet. My tía fitting us in her pickup truck (was it all of us in one car? No recuerdo), and me staring up and out at the tall buildings, throngs of cars and sprawling freeways.

I want you to know about my living in my abuelos’ house, the grey stone burro that lived in the rock lawn of their front yard, greeting you as you walked up the steep steps, one ear missing but still cheerful. The quesadillas and chocolate milk I would have with my abuela at the kitchen counter, as me and my sisters talked about our school day.

The way my name would feel as it found its awkward way out of my white teacher’s tongue. AYE-NEZ. Pain, Immediate. Every first day of school. I could tell you about learning to challenge that pain and the spaces that caused it as I got older. It was a long journey of hiding, learning, forming so that I was neither yelling or whispering myself. Our LA life, so sudden, so magical, and so painful all at once.

I would like you to know me. My immigrant story because they are pieces of memory that make up my being. They are culture and identity, they are stories that we tell and retell and relive. They are me.

When we unpack the narratives that brought us to who we are today, we begin the work of growing with and caring about human kind. We come to understand our intersections. We see a system that does not serve us: and we become informed, aware, and active in that conversation. We make a path for liberation possible, liberation for ourselves, for our students, for our schools.

To be fully present in the whole-body work of anti-racist teaching practices, in order to be able to move within that framework, we, as educators, really need to start with ourselves, our positionality, our experience walking through the world. We have to unpack how we navigate a system that holds the “white body” (as *Resmaa Menakem so aptly puts it) at the center of a false narrative of success. The lie of this is embedded in all of us.

In my own personal growth in creating this resource, I am having to dig deeper into the various and complex parts of my own identity. When I make space for this inner dialogue, my sense of awareness becomes heightened, it takes longer, the process is slower and more intentional, I practice at it, and know I will fail. I try again, and I certainly learn.

My hope is that we, as educators, never stop practicing this awareness, and that the inner work brings us to action in all facets of our lives, in our respective spheres of power and in our experiences of oppression.

Below, I´ve put together some resources and reflection tasks for the educator on identity and its impact on our lives and in our teaching. If at all possible, I would strongly encourage a chance to talk with fellow educators about your reflections, building a culture of collectivism, growth and trust that will fuel the good work of teaching and living in an actively anti-racist way.

Identity Work for the Educator

“Lotus Flower” by TimAlosi.com is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Part A: Warm-up Questions

Reflect on the following questions to begin thinking about the parts of your identity.

1. How do you identify? What are some key parts of your identity that come to mind with this question?
2. Have you come across the term “intersectionality”? What do you know about the term?
3. Review some of the media resources listed below. As you do so, consider the following guiding question: How can learning more about intersectionality and identity as well as its impact on our lives, support your own work and growth as an English language teacher?

Identity Resources: 

• Resource 1: Video: Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality?
• Resource 2: TED Talk/Video: The urgency of intersectionality
• Resource 3: Article: Teaching at the Intersections by Monita K. Bell
• Resource 4: Podcast: Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence – Resmaa Menakem
• Resource 5: Article: The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture

Part B: Reflection Activity

Having reviewed some of the resources above (and possibly finding additional resources to inspire this conversation), take a moment to reflect on the pieces of your own identity and intersections using either or both of the templates provided. See what works best for you.

Consider the following aspects of identity to help guide you: race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, ability, religious or spiritual affiliation, citizenship, age, socio-economic class, education, etc.

As you move through this activity, consider how this practice can support your work in the classroom context or with colleagues in the field.

Template 1  (see PDF file embedded here) 

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Template 2 (see chart below) from Social Justice in English Language Teaching – p.157 – CH. 12 Understanding Privilege

Part C: Post-Activity Discussion Questions

With a partner or in a small group, discuss what you wrote down regarding the different pieces of your identities. You may choose to use the following questions to guide the conversation:

1. Which identities do you think about every day? Which do you not think about often?
2. Which parts of your identity impact the way you see the world? Which parts of your identity impact the way you are seen by the world?
3. How do these identities play into your role as a language teacher? What do you bring to the classroom with you within the context of your identities and intersections?
4. Do you have an opportunity to find out more about your students’ identities and intersections at the start of a quarter or term?
5. What type of dialogues exist in the start of the term to make room for this type of introduction to one another? What could that look like?

Concluding Notes

The inner work of unpacking our identities and how they play out in our lives is a constant process of listening, reflecting, and growing. It is about naming how we either benefit from systemic oppression or suffer from systemic oppression. There is no neutrality.

Often, when I find myself reacting strongly to something, when I feel triggered, it is a signal to me that there is something I need to unpack. It takes time, patience, honesty and humility to go there, to go where things are nebulous, muddy, and uncomfortable, to the heart of things. Often, it is in this space where we grow most.

In the end, we all suffer when we contribute to and perpetuate a system that does not serve all. I would invite you, dear colleague, to consider how you might continue learning and growing in the work of identity with me, with your fellow English language colleagues. We have so much more to go. We have so much more to change about what and how we teach. We have to tear down a foundation of white supremacy and colonialism in ELT to be able to build up something we can feel proud to be a part of, to be anti-racist English language teachers.

During my own journey, and when I have felt the most vulnerable and overwhelmed by the realities of systemic oppression, I have clung to the following guidance given by Erin Jones, a brilliant fellow educator and Washingtonian who I had the honor of hearing speak to students, faculty, and staff at Whatcom Community College in the spring of 2020. In her virtual key note, I had asked a question to the note of feeling overwhelmed at the changes that needed (need) to happen at our campuses, in a time of racial reckoning during a world-wide pandemic, during the uprisings against an oppressive system in the U.S., and while at the same time, witnessing the strength and resilience of the Black Lives Matter movement in the midst of it all, I asked: How do I start impacting change? Where do I start? What do we (educators) focus on first? To this she said (and I’m paraphrasing here): unpack your story, think about who you are serving, who is silent, who is not being served. Then take actions to change the system.

This book has been a part of my pandemic journey with a goal of building English language learner resources, gathering up what I have learned about anti-racist, culturally responsive, and decolonization approaches. I know that I have not nearly met this goal in this single resource and that there is so much more to do. I am simply starting on the collective path and am so humbled to join fellow colleagues in the work of rewriting the myths and false narratives of our field. This goes well beyond one specific discipline. It is a call to all educators and all institutions to choose love in action, to choose change.

This OER text includes the following:

• an introduction to creating a collectivist culture to support learning
• models and activities about multiple ways of organizing ideas in an essay.
• short readings and discussion highlighting the work of community organizers, activists, and social justice movements
• writing prompts that ask learners to synthesize, reflect on, and connect to the topics
• projects inviting learners to apply the content to their community environment
• additional resources offering multiple modalities for further learning including videos, articles, and podcasts
• a contrastive and multilingual approach to exploring grammar patterns to support writing

The chapters can be used in whichever order you and your students prefer and are by no means exhaustive or complete. I envision fellow educators continuing to add more OER texts for English Language Learning, Together, we can continue to lift up the power of the collective within an anti-racist and decolonization framework. Use what is helpful for your classroom needs.

In addition, please refer to the Appendix of this OER text for further reading on decolonizing English language teaching. Lastly, do not hesitate to reach out to me with your questions, comments, and ideas for future collaborations. I am so looking forward to building community with you in the work and movement of change.

Sincerely,

Inés Poblet (she, her, ella), M.A. TESOL

inescristinapoblet@gmail.com

Inés Poblet (she, her, ella) is an Associate Professor in the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) program at Whatcom Community College which resides on the traditional land of the Coast Salish Peoples. Her passion for language teaching comes from her own experience as an immigrant from Buenos Aires, Argentina and from her Mexican-American heritage. Her bilingual identity has fostered her interest in code-switching, code-meshing, and the learning experiences of “systemically non-dominant” learners (Jenkins, 1995-present). Her research interests include sociolinguistics, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the decolonization of English Language Teaching.