The Decolonizing Language Education Collective (DLEC) aims to hold four discussion meetings every term (the terms follow the Cambridge calendar: Michaelmas, Lent, and Easter). For each meeting, we have a set of questions provided to facilitate discussion and reflection. The questions are formulated based on the reading materials assigned for each meeting. All reading materials are put together by members of the collective prior to the start of the term (please check "Resources" for some examples of the reading materials).
January 27, 2021
How do you interpret Marley's "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds"?
What does "decolonise" mean to you?
How do the keywords in Mignolo's (2018) chapter - modernity / coloniality / decoloniality - influence the way you conceptualise language, teach languages, and do language research?
February 10, 2021
Phipps (2019) offers a range of entry points for us to decolonize multilingualism. Have you tried practicing some of these in your own research? Has doing so changed the way you look at your research topic? What other entry points would you add to Phipps' manifesto?
How are languages presented, categorised, and racialised in your country (or any context you are familiar with or learning about)? How does the concept of “languaging” change the way you think about language?
February 27, 2021
In the final paragraph of Decolonizing Foreign, Second, Heritage and First languages, García's (2019) writes "Decolonizing languages might not be feasible in the present climate, but decolonizing our knowledge about languages and the language education programs that exist might destabilise the support that many language education programs enjoy today, exposing them for their role in restricting opportunity for minoritised learners instead of expanding it" (p. 166). How do you understand the "us" in "our knowledge"? Do you think it is possible to move discourses about decoloniality beyond the academic space? If yes, what would that look like?
In the final paragraph of ELT and Colonialism, Pennycook (2007) listed a number of dilemmas that researchers and educators need to confront when dealing with the postcolonial problem of English. What are your thoughts on some of the questions shared by Pennycook (see below)?
How can we teach English and teach about English teaching in a way that both acknowledges the colonial and neo-colonial implications of ELT yet also allows for an understanding of the possibilities of change, resistance, and appropriation?
Is it possible to teach English in such a way that we can emphasize its post-colonial possibilities without ignoring its neo-colonial limitations?
Is it a contradiction to try to teach English or teach about English teaching in a way that promotes appropriation? Can we teach in order to be resisted?
March 10, 2021
In the article, Macron Wants a French Empire Built on Language, the opening question reads: "Can France’s president redeem a language of colonialism to project global power today?" Do you think it is possible for a language of colonialism (e.g., French, English, Mandarin Chinese) to "redeem" its colonial past? If yes, how?
What does it mean to rebrand a colonial language as a language of “creativity" and "diversity”? What affordances and constraints does this framing entail?
What would a decolonial way of doing language policy and language testing look like?
April 28, 2021
After reading Tuck and Yang's (2012) article, were there particular emotions that stirred within you? What were they?
What does “colonisation” and “decolonisation” mean to you in your specific context? Have your thoughts changed after reading this article?
What does understanding decolonisation NOT as a metaphor entail? What kind of conversations, activities, and research does this understanding include and exclude?
Who may be the target audience that Tuck and Yang are speaking to?
May 12, 2021
The two articles this week address possibilities of implementing decolonial research practices. Have you experienced epistemological racism in academia? In which ways have you experienced them?
What changes are needed so that multilingualism and lived experiences are better represented in research and language education policy?
May 26, 2021
1. How has your identity influenced your active positioning in the field of language education (as a teacher and/or a researcher)? 2. How do the issues addressed in the Black linguistics article relate to your specific context? 3. Is an antiracist and decolonizing applied linguistics and language education possible? And if so, how?
June 9, 2021
1. In what ways do the articles resonate with or diverge from your experiences of teaching/teacher education (e.g., having received teacher training, having been involved in teacher training, being a teacher)? 2. Teacher education is an "impossible but necessary project". Is teacher education for the complex context you are/will be facing possible? 3. How can language teaching be decolonised in reference to teacher education processes? 4. What are the implications for us as educators and/or researchers?
October 13, 2021
1. Which of the theses from Maldonado-Torres's work resonated/surprised you most, and how does it relate to your work/ field? 2. Within your respective contexts (as practitioners, academics, researchers, students etc.), how do you engage in acts of subversion, resistant movements, and decolonial moments?
October 27, 2021
1. Using day to day examples or previous experiences, how do you interpret the concepts of translanguaging and idiolects as defined in the article, Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics? 2. The "attempt to sort language practices into those deemed academic and those deemed non-academic is fundamentally flawed". How do you relate the concept of "academic language" to abyssal thinking? 3. How can we implement the recommendations made by the two articles in our work/studies?
November 10, 2021
1. Within your contexts as practitioners/ language education researchers, how are oppression, obscuration and ideology naturalized/manifested?What characteristics do you recognize from a punitive language education learner’s system? 2. What kinds of practices have you engaged in that have encouraged dialogue?Has art been incorporated into your pedagogy/research? What have been the outcomes? 3. What questions emerged from reading these articles?