The Antiracist World Language Classroom

by Krishauna Hines-Gaither, Cécile Accilien

How can you incorporate antiracist practices into specific subject areas? This essential book finally answers that question and offers a clear roadmap for introducing antiracism into the world language classroom. Drawing on foundational and cutting-edge knowledge of antiracism, authors Hines-Gaither and Accilien address the following what does antiracism look like in the world language classroom; why is it vital to implement antiracist practices relevant to your classroom or school; and how can you enact antiracist pedagogies and practices that enrich and benefit your classroom or school? Aligned with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages standards, the book is filled with hands-on antiracist activities, strategies, and lesson plans. The book covers all necessary topics, including designing antiracist units of study, teaching across proficiency levels, advocacy and collaboration in the community, and how to facilitate self- reflection to become an active antiracist educator. The tools, prompts, and resources in this book are essential for any world language teacher, department chair, or school leader.

238 pages, Paperback

Published July 29, 2022

Reviews

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is often said that to confront racism in society it is not enough to be "not racist," race neutral, or "colorblind," but how can we become antiracist world language educators?

This book explores this question from a theoretical and a practical standpoint to help instructors build antiracist units, lesson plans, and professional collaborations outside of the classroom. It addresses the overwhelming whiteness of professional language organizations and the urgency with they must diversify their ranks in order to achieve greater inclusion and equity, but it also calls in all world language educators to do the work of antiracism in our classrooms and shows us how.

In my own work, I would like to investigate "the gap that currently exists in the absence of direct communication between language proficiency and antiracism and/or social justice proficiency" (191). I share the authors' conviction that antiracism has a positive impact on student learning and outcomes, but this book is hopefully not the end but just the beginning of an emerging field that studies the relationship between antiracism and second language acquisition.

If I could describe this book with just one word, it would be "empowering." Many world language educators might ideally like to address race and racism in their classrooms, but they might avoid doing so for fear of getting it wrong. This book gives teachers the tools we need to begin embracing change and building antiracist world language classrooms.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of gold nugget strategies, takeaways, and new learnings for me that I intend to share with my department. It sparked lots of ideas for both big and small changes we can implement immediately and I closed the book feeling energized to create some new lessons. However, where the book really fell apart for me was with regards to novice level instruction and examples. Far too often, the default was that novice students could do the activity in English, OR the specific tasks and lesson ideas listed for novices were actually well beyond what novice learners are capable of doing. In the last chapter, the authors basically said that the work was too important to be bogged down by ACTFLs 90%+ target language recommendation if you're teaching at the novice level. This was really disappointing to me, as the vast majority of our language learners in the US are in the novice range, and that range often lasts multiple years at the secondary level. I FIRMLY believe that antiracist teaching is crucial, AND I think it can be done at the novice level using 90%TL. I bought the book knowing that our department needs and wants resources and tools for antiracist teaching, and I wish the authors (who work at the university level) had asked some novice-level experts to contribute lesson ideas and examples (because there are many, some of whom are quoted in the book). That said, it's still definitely worth a read and I hope it gets into the hands of many more language teachers.

[Drianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saving you some time reading this: The authors basically DO think you should set aside the 90% TL use goal at the Novice level in order to explicitly teach for antiracism (and at higher proficiency levels if needed). I have to say, that wasn't really the take I was expecting.

Other than that, the book is sort of uneven - some examples of French/Spanish/German specific lessons or unit plans about race, which, okay; a lot of generic advice and frameworks (SO MANY references to other people's books etc.); not heavy on specifics. Not exactly the book I was hoping for, but it could be fine as a starting place for study particularly for WL teachers who are not already thinking about antiracism*.

*The authors distinguish between social justice (as in the Learning for Justice standards) and antiracism, instead of seeing antiracism as a subset of SJ - which surprised me.