If you haven’t read Part 1 (setting up assignments together) or Part 2 (explicit connections between disciplines), please do so now.
In this last post of the series, I will discuss the results of this collaboration of assignments with our first-year History professor. In particular, I will address the following:
- Issues arising from the ARC Notes side of the assignment
- My views on how it contributed to improved academic reading and writing
- Responses from students about its affordances and learnings
- Where tightening may occur with the History lecture notes assignment going forward
Continue reading »
If you haven’t yet read Part 1, please do so now.
In this post, I aim to examine how the History course professor, my colleague, and now very good friend, Dr. Alexandra Guerson, and I collaborated more specifically, with regard to how our assignments connect to each other, as well as the affordances we have from working together than alone. Alexandra also discusses this here about her assignments.
Connecting explicitly to the content course
Another consideration in building my assignment was how to connect this to the History course beyond simply scaffolding how to read texts for the most meaning. We do not use the same texts as the History course anymore because we found that the types of sources used there were not wholly appropriate for language learning purposes (some are very long; others are written very long ago, etc.) and we did not want to encroach much into History content as the place to discuss historical concepts with most accuracy is inside the History course itself with its instructors.
Continue reading »
Use of debates about LGBTQ+ in ELT materials
Earlier this month I gave a talk entitled The ongoing struggle for LGBTQ inclusivity in ELT at a local conference. I talked about the absence of LGBTQ community in ELT course materials, portrayal when included, reasons and attitudes that contribute to both, and examples of some widely-available resources. The goal was to raise awareness of these areas, and consider how materials design can in some cases unintentionally exclude LGBTQ+ members of the classroom. The premise to the talk included the assumption that those attending were:
One participant at this talk asked me something along these lines: Isn’t discussing gay marriage (or I suppose any of these things) a valid debate to have with students from countries where everything LGBTQ is illegal? Shouldn’t we allow them to discuss their ideas in the safe environment of the language learning classroom?
Continue reading »