Abstract
In recent years, the place of sexuality and gender identity in the ESOL classroom has been the subject of much debate among UK-based ESOL practitioners. This has partly been prompted by changes in the UK legal context: the 2010 Equality Act identifies a variety of settings, including education, where discrimination, harassment or victimisation on the basis of nine protected characteristics is explicitly forbidden; these protected characteristics include sexual orientation, gender identity and marriage status. This chapter reflects on the co-development of the resource ‘Engaging with LGBT and Migrant Equalities: Activities for the ESOL Classroom’, which aimed to address the dearth of LGBT representations in commercial ELT material. Its development was informed by conversations with Scotland-based ESOL practitioners about their practice and about how the resource might build on and fit into current delivery. The chapter considers the resonance and limitations of the resource, and the potential questions these raise for critical LGBT-friendly pedagogies.
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Notes
- 1.
Politics, Alcohol, Religion, Sex, Narcotics, Isms (such as communism, atheism), Pork (Aldridge-Morris 2016).
- 2.
https://queeringesol.wordpress.com/, last accessed 4/3/2019.
- 3.
The project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant no. 77380/1).
- 4.
www.intimatemigrations.net, last accessed 4/3/2019.
- 5.
- 6.
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
- 7.
https://www.lgbtyouth.org.uk/media/1511/lgbt-charter-brochure.pdf, last accessed 20.12.2018.
- 8.
A Scotland-wide organisation whose mission is to provide ‘quality youth work to LGBTI young people that promotes their health and wellbeing, and to be a valued and influential partner in LGBTI equality and human rights’ https://www.lgbtyouth.org.uk/about-us/.
- 9.
Originally founded in 1971 as a race equality organisation, WSREC currently works on all the protected characteristics named in the 2010 Equality Act (https://www.wsrec.co.uk/about-us/).
- 10.
A Scotland-wide ‘Ethnic Minorities led umbrella body supporting the development of the Ethnic Minorities Voluntary Sector in Scotland’ (https://bemis.org.uk/).
- 11.
These included: LGBT organisations; migrant and race equality/Minority Ethnic organisations; equality and diversity officers, including representatives of the Scottish Government Equality Unit and Glasgow and Edinburgh City Councils; representatives from Further Education colleges; Police Scotland; sexual health charities; women’s and violence against women organisations.
- 12.
The team also included Minna Liinpää and Jenny Speirs. Minna worked as a part-time researcher on the project, while Jenny created several images for the resources.
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Stella, F., MacDougall, J. (2021). Reflections on the Co-development of ESOL Teaching Material Exploring LGBT Lives. In: Pakuła, Ł. (eds) Linguistic Perspectives on Sexuality in Education. Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64030-9_13
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