Alright, let’s face it – teaching English can sometimes feel like running a marathon, as every student brings their own set of needs, interests and backgrounds. Keeping everyone engaged with the materials at hand is an immense undertaking. How in the world can students identify with a fixed set of cultural references that only resonate with but a few of your learners? Keep in mind that they’re also grappling with grammar, unfamiliar vocabulary, and resonating with the demands of the lesson at a specific level of language competency; let alone their cultural roots, the diverse traditions, and linguistic intricacies of their mother tongue.
But there’s more to it than that! Should we not mention their Special Educational Needs (SEN)? A student with dyslexia or an autistic learner is many a time sidelined due to the curriculum which the educator is obliged to adhere to. Yes, ‘obliged’ is the word I used as many educational settings turn a blind eye to such ‘details’ and heedlessly cater to the coursebook at hand. Now, don’t get me wrong. Education has indeed made wonderful strides and the notion of ‘Inclusive Education’ has progressed far beyond that of an idea, as it has encompassed proven academic approaches tailored to the universal needs of our learners.
Applying inclusive materials isn’t just about ticking a box on our inclusivity list. It’s about recognizing the fact that our classrooms are filled with diverse individuals who have had their fair share of struggles, incredible stories, and above all, the strength to prevail. It would seem that a student who had to abandon his country due to hostile escalations will have a completely different perspective on life than others. If the student in question is also dyslexic – yes, this is a case of ‘intersectionality’ - and has no bearing of the indigenous tongue, we the educators shouldn’t sit idly by and pray that he’ll miraculously adapt to our lesson. On the contrary, it is of the utmost importance that the lesson be enriched with the proper materials to assimilate the learner into the educational mechanism. Enter: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
CDA prompts the educator to look beyond the superficial meanings of our textbooks.
CDA, you say? How does that work? Well, for starters, you can flip through the pages of your book at hand and ask yourself…
“Who does this text cater to?”
“Why are all families portrayed living in these enormous, fully furnished homes with an abundance of commodities and toys?”
“How come all the doctors are portrayed as men and the nurses as women?”
“Why do we only teach our students the traditional family dynamic and disregard single-parent families or same sex partners?”
I won’t even get into the stereotypical “the father is the bread winner and the mother is the housewife trope.” To add insult to injury, we proudly boast our globalized society, when in reality, we still deem specific western cultures and their representations as the norm.
“The font size is too small for the learner to read? Not my problem!” The designer shamefully thought, completely disregarding learners with SEN.
“Why add another visual here or an audio recording there? It costs too much!” exclaimed the woeful editor whose budget constraints have gotten the best of him.
Once you figure out all the shortcomings within the textbook, you might wonder, ‘now what?’ Have no fear my disgruntled colleagues! Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is here to ameliorate your anxieties!
UDL is a modern methodology which instills the educator with the means to enrich the curriculum.
UDL can be thought of as a toolbox for ‘adjusting’ your lessons to cater to the needs of all students. Have your students been struggling to identify with the main characters of a book, who are most often than not represented as well-off suburban families of western societies? Are the dishes and feasts presented completely alien to the learner? Are the fonts excessively disorientating to the point that a dyslexic student will agonize when reading the book’s texts?
How about tailoring a video which depicts another representation of teenagers’ lives across the globe? It could incorporate the local dishes and traditions of immigrant students’ cultures, making all learners feel included, while at the same time broadening everyone’s horizons and worldviews.
AI text-to-speech would work wonders for students who struggle to focus on demanding, sometimes lengthy texts which are printed on colorful, yet distracting visuals.
Incorporating multimodal resources from podcasts to TikToks, will most certainly keep the lesson relatable and accessible to our tech-savvy students. Even the simplest of tasks can be altered so as not to discourage students who are less well off than the characters portrayed in their books. Why write an article about “A Weekend in Paris,” when it could instead focus on a recent school trip to a museum? It may come as a surprise to some of you, but many families lack the basic necessities to enjoy privileges such as travelling.
Ah, the joys of taking the lesson into your own hands! Both students and educators alike would reap the benefits of inducting inclusive materials. By adapting the principals of UDL and CDA, we might all revel in a wholistic educational approach, one which goes far beyond the typical “affect” is a verb and “effect” is a noun (trust me, I have the same issues with my students).
Imagine a world where every single learner would leave their classrooms with a smile on their faces, knowing their teachers invested their precious time in ensuring that they learned something new; something they would cherish and would benefit their potential for growth and personal development. I do believe such an endeavor is most undoubtedly worth our time. Don’t you?
