Socially and Culturally Responsive Language Teaching

What is it about?

In recent years, language education has witnessed efforts to create more inclusive learning environments for learners to experience diversity, otherness, and life experiences often ignored in curricula, textbooks, and classroom discourse. Nevertheless, there still seems to be an urgent need to update and queer the teaching and learning of languages. This chapter presents a teaching proposal for queering language education which is articulated upon two approaches to language teaching: Socially and Culturally Responsive Language Teaching, which promotes the use of accessible cultural references and up-to-date social topics to enhance students’ communicative competence and soft skills; and English for Social Purposes and Cooperation, specifically concerned with English and aimed at the development of social as well as cultural empathy and responsibility among language learners. Ultimately, the proposal seeks to promote a more inclusive teaching of English (and potentially other languages) and the creation of a safer learning environment for students.

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