Classrooms are a place for learning, not for play. Teachers teach; students learn.

Actually, Professor Alison Phipps disagrees.

Alison gave an impassioned talk titled “Decolonising Multilingualism: Opacity; Justice; Joy” at Decolonising Language Studies Symposium II—a forum where scholars from a range of disciplines discuss how to decolonise the curriculum in language studies and beyond.

This post is the second part of a series where we summarise speakers’ main ideas from the symposium, which was organised by Dr Jelena Ćalić and Dr Eszter Tarsoly on behalf of PROLang.

Alison, who is Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies at the University of Glasgow, focused on how learning new languages can be an opportunity for expressions of joy and vulnerability – if classrooms and research settings were rethought to support such emotions.

Put on a show in a new language  

On a course Alison once taught on German popular culture, she told the students that they would have to put on a play at the end of the course in German.

Students, whether studying Marx or feminist theory, eagerly prepared for the final performance through learning how to embody characters from German novels and films.

The pleasure of embodying a character and of coming together to create something was not just highly motivating, but also “great fun.” As Alison tells the story:

“They would raid all the charity shops… and they would dress up, and then they would come and perform. What I discovered they were doing through performing in the language, with the theoretical concepts, dressing up, wearing the lipstick, putting the hair up, all that adrenaline — it meant that they were taking it really seriously, they were wrapping it around, they were clothing their studies.

They were caring for [their studies] in a way that we rarely ask our students to care for their studies… It was a much wider human sense of the work.”

The students did so well that the external examiner suggested that some research should be conducted into the reasons behind their grades. In their oral exams, students talked excitedly about how much fun it was to perform and how regular rehearsal helped to structure their language learning through repetition. Some would even launch into snippets of their performances. Alison sums the experience up as follows:

“It was participatory. The whole class shared it. They really felt it was their work overall.”

Make a fool of yourself  

Another one of Alison’s stories described her volunteer work at a detention centre, where she was recruited to help translate for people housed for deportation.

To her dismay, she realised that “though I was a professor of languages… my languages were useless.” She was “way too fluent in too many colonial languages and European languages… and here I was, sitting in front of people who spoke Pashtu, who spoke Arabic…”

Instead of translating or teaching, Alison found herself becoming a student instead:

“The young guys would teach me to speak their languages and they would be helpless with laughter, because here is a professor of languages who didn’t even know their language existed, and in that moment, there was an equalising… The dignity of language was restored to a group of people utterly stripped of their dignity, and they were laughing at me. I was the learner, and I was stumbling.”

Alison says that part of the work of decolonisation is to “centre the understanding and knowledges of the communities that you are with, and this is a fundamental decolonising move.”

She adds:

“All the things I’d learned about ethnography, and language learning, and performance… is that all of them require you to make a fool of yourself. All of them require you to know nothing. All of them require you to make many, many, many mistakes. A central concept in ethnography is naïveté, the ethnographic naivety: you do not know, you are not an expert, you decentre yourself.

It’s a move that’s vital to interculturality. We are required to decentre ourselves in any intercultural framework to be able to understand from the perspective of others, and so I realised that this decentring might also be useful in the [detention] centre.”

Recognise that language is a gift

Alison recounts other stories, working in places like Ghana or the Gaza Strip where she felt — through experiences of incompetence and inarticulation — how we rely on others to speak for us, or to teach us how to speak.

She says that part of the work of decolonising the curriculum is:

“The attempt by one human being to have a go, to render themselves vulnerable, to laugh at themselves and be laughed at, to stumble through that pronunciation and to be in a place where a new set of relationships might be made and made collectively…

Because there isn’t a word I speak that I haven’t been given by other people, and if I expand that to the context of language learning and language education, then that, my friends, is how I believe we […] find what might be found when we improvise and make things together.”

Alison rounds up her talk by speaking about how she wants to create spaces that are “responsive to dignity, that are fun, and that will allow us collectively to hold that bowl of tears in ways which are safe and ethical and expand a space for joy.”

Alison’s talk was followed by Victoria Odeniyi’s reflections on the challenges and opportunities of embedding research findings into institutional practice: how a university might say things like, “not now, the staff might become confused”, or “this doesn’t align with university policy and standards”, and how we might react to that in turn.

Want to read about Victoria’s presentation? Keep an eye out for the third part of our blog post series, featuring summaries of speakers’ key points, by subscribing to our blog (link on the right) or following us on Twitter.

Watch Alison Phipps’s full talk here.

You can also read an earlier post in the blog series here:

• Let’s re-centre multilingual communities in our classrooms and research: a summary of Prof. Li Wei’s talk

This symposium was organised by Dr Jelena Ćalić and Dr Eszter Tarsoly on behalf of the PROLang (Policy, Research and Outreach for Language-based area studies) Research Group in collaboration with UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, with the support of CHE’s Education Enhancement Grant. This post was written by Kellynn Wee.

How can we decolonise the curriculum in higher education?

As educators, we often hear this call – and many of us rise to respond to it as a crucial part of our research and practice. Yet spaces where we can share our experience and practices with each other are rare, especially across disciplines.

On 25 October 2023, a symposium on Decolonising Language Studies, organised by Dr Jelena Ćalić and Dr Eszter Tarsoly on behalf of PROLang, sought to address this gap by inviting a prominent group of researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds, including linguistics, cultural studies, social sciences and politics, to respond to questions such as:

• How can we bring the study of minoritised groups, linguistic citizenship and transcultural becoming to the fore in language education?
• How can participatory initiatives translate into policy and be better embedded into institutional settings?
• How committed are institutions and researchers to progressive agendas, both in our research scope and our methodology?
• How can we better include community members as co-authors and fellow researchers in our work?

In this blog post series showcasing the symposium’s key takeaways, here’s our summary of Professor Li Wei’s take on the topic.

Prof. Li Wei is the Director and Dean of the Institute of Education (UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society), and he gave a talk that focused on how sociolinguistists and applied linguists can engage in decolonising the curriculum.

Centring participatory practices

Li Wei argues that the social responsibilities of linguists should include not only the analysis of linguistic structures but also the pursuit of social justice through investigating and understanding the interplay of language practices and the social worlds of speakers. As he puts it:

“We are observing participants trying to make sense of their world in a real-life situation. By trying to make sense of them trying to make sense of their lives, we are participating in their social world as well. That is quite an important point: their social world becomes part of ours, and ours becomes part of theirs.”

By simply embarking on a research project, researchers have an influence on (and a responsibility for) the people with whom they work. The process of research should not objectify the communities we study—and researchers should not position themselves at a distance.

This is particularly salient in an era of mobility and superdiversity: as Li Wei puts it, “We see our responsibility as participating in a social debate over the value of multilingualism and over the consequences of a community coming together.”

Acknowledging subjectivity in knowledge production 

Researchers should revisit the tenet that analysis must be objective, contained, and distant. Analysis is not a mere presentation of objective facts existing “out there”. As Li Wei says:

“We are presenting our analysis of what we have observed, which is necessarily subjective, because we all come into our analyses from our own trajectories and backgrounds and ideologies — and we should not be afraid to say that this is my own understanding, this is my interpretation, and to open it up to challenges as well.”

Instead, researchers should be open and explicit about their socio-cultural, political, ideological stance when they present their interpretation and analysis, and, as Li Wei suggests, “invite the reader to participate in our analysis as a social act.”

Rethinking multilingualism as a strength

Can we move beyond merely ‘allowing’ different languages to be used in the classroom?

Li Wei suggests that we should think of different languages not just as additive, but as constitutive, in a shift towards a translanguaging stance:

“The stance we want to move towards is a perspective that views multilingual language learners’ linguistic practices and their racial/ethnic identities together. It’s all integrated, together with the sociolinguistic realities of the community and the educational demands of the school.”

When we label a group of speakers’ practices as “foreign” or “second language” or having “English as an additional language”, it has serious educational consequences in schools, as these names and categories carry specific socio-political connotations beyond simple linguistic labels.

Through approaching teaching as co-learning, we can reset power relations within the classroom and challenge dominant language ideologies.

Additionally, students learn in many different languages beyond the classroom. Li Wei says:

“We tend not to pay any attention to the source of the information they get, or what language they are actually doing the learning in outside the lecture theatre. How can we incorporate that knowledge that is gained through different languages and different cultural contexts into the teaching and learning in the university?”

Li Wei’s talk was followed by Alison Phipps’s presentation on outside-of-the-box learning practices such as how students can get good marks through raiding charity shops, why researchers should make fools of themselves, and how to hold a bowl of tears.

If you’re intrigued, keep an eye out for the second part of our blog post series, featuring summaries of speakers’ key points, by subscribing to our blog (link on the right!) or follow us on Twitter.

Want to listen to Prof. Li Wei’s full talk, titled “Participatory Linguistics in the Translanguaging Framework: Towards decolonising linguistics and language education”? Click here to check it out.

This symposium was organised by Dr Jelena Ćalić and Dr Eszter Tarsoly on behalf of the PROLang (Policy, Research and Outreach for Language-based area studies) Research Group in collaboration with UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, with the support of CHE’s Education Enhancement Grant. This post was written by Kellynn Wee.

Interview with Joana Jacob Ramalho, Lecturer (Teaching), SELCS, UCL.

CHE: Hi Joana, a BIG congratulations on being awarded a Student Choice Award for Exceptional Feedback at the annual UCL Education Awards. Feedback is an area of education that is receiving increasing attention from our students – they expect feedback to be detailed and timely, and they rightly expect feedback will help them improve their academic performance. So, naturally, we would love to learn more about how you do it. But first, tell us about what you teach and how you would describe yourself as an educator.

Joana: I teach Gothic Literature, Spanish Film, Musical Satire, Intermedial Comparison, Lusophone culture and Portuguese language. As an educator, my goal is to guide students to reach their potential, which sounds cliché (I know!), but in fact requires training, experience, patience and, above all, creativity. It means constantly tailoring your modules and materials to your students’ different learning styles, combining inclusive techniques that cater for diversity. I want my students to be curious and remain curious throughout their studies (if not their lives!). I feel it is my duty to empower them to ask questions and be comfortable when addressing their concerns. I teach them about culture, politics, history, the arts, and work with topics that are relevant to them – even when they do not immediately realise why. I help them gain transferable skills they might need for further study and future employment, but they also help me make me a better educator. The students are not empty vessels, waiting to receive knowledge; learning is a dialogue, a conversation.

CHE: What methods or strategies do you use for providing feedback?

Joana: I use a combination of numerical, qualitative (written and oral), and peer feedback to teach mostly small to medium groups (~22 students). Whenever possible, feedback should strive to offer students the possibility to develop their ideas or reorient them, suggesting either complementary or alternative avenues. To accomplish this, some form of qualitative feedback should always accompany a numerical mark, whether that means written feedback or a brief chat where the student can ask questions. On the advice of a colleague from ARENA, I have recently introduced peer feedback into my teaching and the students have welcomed it enthusiastically. In language modules, the students experience, in pairs, what it is like to mark and grade a composition or translation. In content modules, there is a peer-to-peer discussion (with minor input from the tutor) in the seminar half of each lecture.

My department encourages formative feedback and I find it essential to guide students in their learning, while giving us a chance to check in with them and adapt our pedagogical strategies (PhD supervision, for instance, is all about formative feedback). A mix of in-class and at-home tasks has worked best for my students. Moodle offers a wide range of activities, from fora to quizzes and interactive videos, that have become familiar tools in my modules. The type of formative tasks varies, but overall these consist in exam-type assignments for language modules and essay plans, sequence analyses, close readings and annotated tables of contents for film and literature modules.

As for summative assessment, I tend to overdo it on the feedback front… I want students to benefit from the same high-quality guidance I enjoyed when I was a student at UCL and I write… a lot, often managing to mark only one essay a day. This is of course not ideal or ultimately sustainable if I want to still have time to do research! In the last couple of years, I have therefore developed templates for each of my modules that allow me to continue offering comprehensive feedback without spending so much time on marking.

Another way to implement change is to develop a staff-student partnership. I led a ChangeMakers project on feedback and assessment in 2020-21, which resulted in a new set of marking criteria designed with a group of first and second-year undergraduates. The project team emphasised how this initiative made them feel like they were actively contributing to the restructuring of the curriculum.

Whichever strategies or methods I use, timeliness is a core aspect of giving feedback. I want my students to be able to read through the comments and have time to act on them. In the first week of term, I explain when and what type of feedback the students can expect. As an example, my film and comparative literature students know they will have the opportunity to submit an essay plan. I set the submission deadline towards the end of term, to give students the chance to write about any of the texts mentioned in the essay questions. An earlier deadline would mean excluding some of those texts or having the students prepare a plan on a topic or text we have not yet explored, which would be counterproductive. Importantly, I make it a point of always handing back the plans before the end of term, so that students can come to me with any questions. This means marking dozens of plans for different modules in the space of a week, but it is one of the aspects the students feel most grateful about. Returning feedback in a timely fashion is key.

CHE: Why do you think students respond so well to your way of providing feedback?

Joana: The students tell me they understand what they have done well and how to improve. They stress the fact that I use in-text comments along with a detailed overall commentary especially helpful. I cover a little bit of everything in the in-text comments, from formatting issues and written expression to reasoning, validity of arguments and structure. I created a series of labels on turnitin for this purpose, which I can reuse and add further comments to. Positive feedback is important as well, so I have lots of labels ranging from ‘good’ to ‘great’ and ‘praise’.

In addition, I provide examples of how to address the issues I flag. For instance, instead of simply pointing out that students should ‘expand’ or ‘engage with the quotation’, I offer a precise suggestion on how to do that. My goal is not only to help students get a higher grade, but help them to think. When I advise them to add more nuance or avoid rushing from one argument to the next without properly supporting their point, my hope is that this exercise encourages them to reflect and use their critical judgement as they engage with the world around them, questioning that which might appear a given, and refrain from jumping to conclusions without checking the facts.

CHE: Where and how did you learn to provide effective feedback?

Joana: With my parents and at UCL. My parents are both teachers and much loved by their students. They unfailingly go above and beyond their duties, staying longer after class and using different approaches to feedback that cater to a diverse range of students. I’ve got a lot of tips from them over the years.

During my Master’s in Film Studies at UCL, the feedback I received was extraordinary. By that I mean, it was detailed and build me up. I remember receiving my first assignment (a formative 500-word sequence analysis) and all I could see was red. Almost every sentence was underlined and accompanied by a single word scribbled on the margins: expand, detail, rephrase, restructure, good, source?, etc. It was a turning point for me as a student and (little did I know at the time) as an educator. The initial shock quickly subsided, as I realised I now knew exactly how to improve. I still keep that piece of paper!

Another aspect my students comment on is my availability to chat with them and provide additional feedback in a more informal setting (outside the classroom). That is also something I learned as a UCL student. My lecturers, the Film Studies programme director, the Head of the Spanish & Latin American Studies department and, in particular, my Master’s and PhD supervisors always seemed to have time for me. Their generosity was central to shape my pedagogy.

Giving good feedback has been a learning curve. Trying to figure out what works for which students on which platforms is a process of trial and error. In my 15 years working at UCL, the sustained sharing of teaching practices within SELCS-CMII has been crucial: the impromptu brainstorming sessions in the corridors of Foster Court, feedback workshops, second marking, doctoral co-supervision, and programme and Language Coordination meetings have introduced me to innovative methods and creative strategies to produce effective feedback.

CHE: Has your idea of what effective feedback is changed over the course of your career?

Joana: The idea itself has not changed, but the methods and strategies have certainly evolved! My feedback has become more comprehensive and more targeted. In my year-long language modules, I can tailor my comments to each individual student’s needs, which is a privilege of small-group teaching. As for content modules, I have learned to focus on specific areas, depending on whether I am marking undergraduate or postgraduate work.

CHE: What are your top 3 tips for effective feedback?

Joana: Detail – Relevance – Timeliness

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and expertise with us, Joana.