This is from the introduction to my new book, Equity in the Language Classroom:
Now that the wool has been pulled from our eyes, most language teachers in the post-George Floyd era now readily acknowledge the importance of bringing greater amounts of equity and inclusion into our comprehensible input-based language classrooms.
But language classrooms based on traditional language teaching (the textbook, memorized word lists, verb spellings, semantic sets, etc.) never have and never will house the potential for any kind of equity and inclusion.
Traditional language classrooms are all about supporting and honoring the few. We all know that. How are we going to change? How are we going to turn the big container ship called traditional language instruction around in the middle of the ocean so that we finally address the equity/ inclusion piece?
Certainly, traditional language classrooms harbour no hope of bringing teacher and students together as a community, which is one of the keys to solving the current equity/ inclusion puzzle in language classrooms in the U.S.
The problem that we address in this book is, “How can we make all of our students winners in our language classes, instead of just the few?”
