Gender‐just language teaching and linguistic competence development

Abstract

Within a broad turn toward identity‐focused pedagogies, educators are increasingly recognizing the critical impetus to engage with gender in expansive and inclusive ways. However, challenges persist. Often inadequate supports are exacerbated by a lack of empirical investigations into whether and how gender‐just language teaching may contribute to student learning. Thus, very little is known about how this ethical imperative interfaces with linguistic outcomes. To respond, this study analyzed linguistic accuracy and complexity in assignment data from 112 US undergraduate students enrolled in one of three iterations of an intermediate French course, which varied in whether and when gender‐just pedagogies were introduced. Results indicated that gender‐just language pedagogies contribute to significantly lower overall mean error rates but do not have a statistically significant relationship with mean length of utterance. Implications are discussed, including the clear benefit of an early‐and‐often approach to gender justice in the language classroom.

Gender‐justice beyond inclusion: How trans knowledges and linguistic practices can and should be re‐shaping language education

“…As an additional example, Mx. (an honorific that serves as an alternative to Mr. or Mrs.) has been observed in French, alongside avoidance strategies and other lexical items such as mondame (an alternative to monsieur or madame; see Conrod, 2022a;Knisely, 2022d).…”

Gender neutral and non-binary language practices in the Spanish language classroom: Tensions between disciplinary and societal changes

“…Therefore, in addition to ensuring that we explicitly introduce available options for all of our students to be able to express their identities in the language of study (see, for example, Duarte et al, 2022), our learning objectives, resources and assessment practices should also reflect alignment with liberatory praxis of inclusion (see, Knisely, 2022b, for specific strategies applied in an intermediate French language course). It is also important to consider how to "proactively plan for and respond to resistance" (Knisely, 2022a). Indeed, resistance to such pedagogical practices can be experienced both inside and outside the classroom, in disciplinary and institutional contexts, but also, and perhaps most importantly, it can also be experienced by learners as they interact with members of the given language speaking community.…”

“…In these spaces, learners can be explicitly and implicitly equipped to agentively negotiate their -potentially fluid, context-sensitive -languaging choices to talk about themselves and others, and to be able to advocate for themselves and others in the process. This may entail integration of examples of non-binary languaging practices and discussion of strategies to avoid and negotiate misgendering in the language of study (Knisely, 2022a). These may be considered emerging pedagogical practices, and may look different across educational contexts, and even from one semester to the next.…”

Exploring avenues of implementation for gender justice in French language teaching

“…Knisely's position paper is a valuable reminder to us as language educators to continually question how we conceptualize language, centering trans knowledges and linguistic practices and effecting a paradigm shift away from language‐as‐noun, about which we teach, to language‐as‐verb, in which we participate alongside our students. Using frameworks like trans‐affirming queer inquiry‐based pedagogies (TAQIBPs; Knisely & Paiz, 2021) and drawing on educational resources such as those available through Knisely's (2022) gender‐just language education project are valuable and impactful steps we can take to center trans knowledges and linguacultures in our teaching.…”