Queering the English Language Classroom; A Practical Guide for Teachers; Paiz

Joshua M. Paiz [+–]

George Washington University

Joshua M. Paiz is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the English for Academic Purposes Program at George Washington University.

Queering the English Language Classroom provides English language teachers with practical advice for creating queer inclusive educational spaces. It keeps theoretical discussion to a minimum, focusing instead on how to apply advances in LGBTQ+ research in TESOL and applied linguistics to the classroom.

This book highlights how heteronormative classrooms can silence sexually diverse student populations and halt language learning and acquisition processes, and provides research-grounded recommendations for how to challenge normative views of language and culture. In doing so, it advances a queer inquiry pedagogical approach that will help students to see how identity, including sexual identity, is implicated in systems of power and values. It discusses strategies for selecting inclusive curricular content and for troubling mainstream, commercial materials. It also contains advice to teachers on how to handle student and institutional resistance to creating queer inclusive spaces, with a particular note on how to respond to questions in contexts where engaging with LGBTQ+ content can become a fraught exercise.

Queering the English Language Classroom offers an invaluable guide to English language teachers, from pre-/early-service to late-career.

Prelims

Preface [+–] ix-xv

Queering the English Language Classroom provides English language teachers with practical advice for creating queer inclusive educational spaces. It keeps theoretical discussion to a minimum, focusing instead on how to apply advances in LGBTQ+ research in TESOL and applied linguistics to the classroom. This book highlights how heteronormative classrooms can silence sexually diverse student populations and halt language learning and acquisition processes, and provides research-grounded recommendations for how to challenge normative views of language and culture. In doing so, it advances a queer inquiry pedagogical approach that will help students to see how identity—including sexual identity—is implicated in systems of power and values. It discusses strategies for selecting inclusive curricular content and for troubling mainstream, commercial materials. It also contains advice to teachers on how to handle student and institutional resistance to creating queer inclusive spaces, with a particular note on how to respond to ‘frigid’ contexts where engaging with LGBTQ+ content can become a fraught exercise. Queering the English Language Classroom offers an invaluable guide to English language teachers, from pre-/early-service to late-career.

List of Abbreviations [+–] xvi

Chapter 1

What is Queering and Why Should We All Do It? [+–] 1-29

Chapter one provides a practitioner-friendly introduction to queer theory in the fields of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) and applied linguistics. It then establishes the need to queer the English language classroom in a way that creates an educational space that is inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) students. This chapter concludes by operationalizing the term ‘queer’ as a verb. This definitional work is geared towards providing educators with a tool-for-thought to queer their practice by creating classroom spaces that engage with dominant social discourses in such a way that the discursive construction of all identities is made salient for students. Moreover, this work allows educators to help students problematize and resist these discourses by making space for non-heteronormative sexual identities (viz., queer inquiry).

Chapter 2

Queer Inquiry as Pedagogy [+–] 31-58

This chapter applies recent advances in LGBTQ+ studies in TESOL/applied linguistics to update and extend Cynthia Nelson’s notion of queer inquiry as introduced in chapter one. It then provides educators with practical recommendations for how to construct a queer inquiry-based pedagogy that fits their contextual needs (e.g., national and institutional). This chapter includes both guiding questions for educators who have just begun considering queering their practice, and critical reflective questions for educators who have already started queering their classroom spaces.

Chapter 3

Troubling Normative Classroom Spaces [+–] 59-81

This chapter highlights how using a queer inquiry-based pedagogy troubles normative spaces and the identity options that they create for students. It begins by revisiting some of the significant issues created by heteronormative classrooms. It then outlines ways that the educator can model the troubling of and resistance to those normative discourses. It focuses on developing LGBTQ+-inclusive lesson plans and assignments, favoring the localize approach favored by Robert O’Mochaim. This approach advocates for embedding efforts to queer the language classroom in the local context, as it this provides students with a more accessible route into engagement with LGBTQ+ topics.

Chapter 4

Troubling Normative Curricular Materials [+–] 83-104

Chapter four begins by discussing how many mainstream curricular materials (e.g., textbooks, media, etc.) present students with heteronormative views of the world. It will then highlight for the reader how this heteronormativity can create issues in the language learning classroom. It will then present how to purposefully queer existing curricular materials so that students can begin to explore both linguistic and cultural issues related to LGBTQ+ identity options in the local context. This chapter also returns to the work of Robert O’Mochiaim, Greg Curran, and Thorsten Merse to provide educators with a practical framework for developing their own, locally relevant materials to help queer the language classroom.

Chapter 5

Gauging Reactions & Addressing Challenges [+–] 105-122

This chapter expands on current queer and LGBTQ+ work in fields allied with English language teaching (ELT) by addressing the need to integrate queer perspectives into the classroom critically. This chapter provides educators with a holistic guide to assessing students’ varied reactions to the queered educational space, with an eye towards using guided reflections to help teachers reflexively plan future sessions that deal with LGBTQ+ content/themes. Additionally, this chapter will present recommendations for how to address institutional, parental, and student issues in queering the language classroom.

Chapter 6

Goals and Outcomes of the Queered Classroom Space [+–] 123-133

The final full chapter of this book discusses possible goals and outcomes for the queered language learning space. It will also provide the educator with reflective prompts to think of how to (a) fit queer practices into their current courses’ goals and outcomes and (b) how to develop locally relevant goals and outcomes that address students’ lived experiences.

Chapter 7

Conclusion [+–] 135-141

The conclusion summarized the previous chapters. It also reminds readers why queering the language classroom is an important thing to do. It will conclude by discussing future directions for this line of work, both in the classroom and in the discipline.

Afterword

A Special Note on Frigid Contexts [+–] 143-145

The afterward offers a final word on dealing with LGBTQ+ issues in so-called frigid climates. That is, how do we meaningfully address queer issues in religious schools, or in national contexts view queers lives as aberrant? This final note is being included because much of the queer work in TESOL, ELT, and applied linguistics fails to take this matter into account fully.

End Matter

Notes [+–] 147-148

References [+–] 149-166

Index [+–] 167-177

Reviews

Joshua Paiz’s monograph Queering the English Language Classroom makes him a pioneer in this important, timely, developing field. The book extends concern with gay/lesbian issues in ELT to queer (actually LGBTQ+) matters more widely, and in particular, to transgender matters. Further, the book locates this even more broadly in a concern for what might be called critical pedagogic enquiry. It is as near-comprehensive as a short monograph can be, covering the philosophy and sexual/social politics behind queering the English language classroom, professional (including curricular) implications, inclusive materials, and contextually-shaped associated classroom strategies. Crucially it is, as the subtitle claims, ‘a practical guide for teachers’, and Paiz writes—very accessibly—from a long professional experience of being a gay, cis male educator in the world of second and foreign language education. Accordingly, the book is grounded and pragmatic. This is not an evangelical book, but one that sets out to promote respectful debate. Importantly, the book is not only for teachers of students who identify as LGBTQ+ or for LGBTQ+ language learners themselves, but also for ‘non-LGBTQ+ language learners to be better able to interact respectfully with LGBTQ+ individuals’ (p. xi).
ELT Journal

Overall, this book provides a practical guide of ways to implement a queered classroom, from conception to action to feedback. It addresses concerns that both new and experienced educators might have within a TESOL context and provides a springboard to begin the process of creating a queered teaching pedagogy. The book is not a one-size-fits-all-contexts approach, but it does not claim to be so. Rather, it presents ideas and questions for individual educators to use in order to begin the process of creating a queered classroom that is tailored to their particular context. Paíz has created a practical guide that would work well within teacher education programmes as preparation and introduction on how to approach the topic, enabling the field of queer TESOL to continue to expand and grow from a practical approach.
Journal of Language and Sexuality

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Queering the English Language Classroom

A Practical Guide for Teachers

Joshua M. Paiz [+–]

George Washington University

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