So I went to my first lecture today, and one of the things that immediately became a topic of conversation was how we could all adjust to navigating learning on online spaces, which is now the new norm. Touching and being physically close to one another now is an adage to a time that feels far far away (but in reality is only 10 months prior to where I’m sat right now). I did, however, have a useful conversation with three fellow PG Cert students who have already experienced teaching within these restrictions, and I got some great advice from them about how to tackle issues faced when working with students in virtual spaces.
1. Become friends with the emoji – Those little pictures can really help out with expressing emotions and thoughts.
2. Be aware of the pacing and rhythm of your speech – For those who don’t use English as their fast language, it helps to speak clearly and slowly.
3. Be aware of translating colloquialisms and idioms so everyone understands the conversation and is included – Being more conscious of the type of language you’re using enables you to be inclusive and is an important part of creating a safe learning space.
4. Share language resources that students might find helpful – Students can use assistive technology to translate lectures or have them read aloud via software available through UAL and other websites.
Great tips, right? It was good to know that there are ways to stride through the quagmire of teaching via a screen, and it left me feeling like, ‘I got this’ 🙂
Not bad for a first day.
Amended entry: 24/02/2021
Since writing the above, I’ve attended a number of tutorial group sessions and cohort meetings that have further enhanced my understanding of exactly how intimidating online digital spaces can be to maneuver for students who have to grapple with difficulties regarding language, and it’s use. A lot of the advice I was given dealt with how to overcome problems with communicating online, and this led to me thinking about the differences between certain forms of language (academic, informal, colloquial, regional), it’s use in the learning environment, and the university’s role in decolonising it’s linguistic learning resources.
As a learning institution the ‘university’ is guilty of upholding systems and pedagogic values that are classist, sexist and racist. One of the tools used to accomplish this is language. The university, at its best, is a space that is resplendent with diversity, allowing its students and lecturers alike to utilise its libraries, workshops and learning resources, encouraging open and rigorous critical discussion. However, certain forms of language are prioritised within these spaces, while others are omitted from the classroom. For example, academic texts can be at fault for using language and theories that are exclusionary and require a huge amount of effort to decipher, let alone process and utilise as a form of useful knowledge. As Jean-Paul Sartre explains in his book ‘What Is Literature?’:
“the literary object has no other substance than the reader’s subjectivity; Raskolnikov’s waiting is my waiting which I lend him….his hatred of the police magistrate who question him is my hatred, which has been solicited and wheedled out of me by signs….Thus, the writer appeals to the reader’s freedom to collaborate in the production of his work.”
But, what if there are limits to the signs that are used to encourage this freedom. What if the subjective position you are asked to take is based upon deep rooted ideologies that hold unconscious biases, and therefore makes language an inaccessible space, that for many, is intimidating and used to prioritise and uplift some, whilst refusing the needs of others.
This is something that frequently has a disproportionate effect on BAME and international students. The feminist Adrienne Rich encountered this problem and tackled it head on when teaching inner city youths in New York. Confessing that she often had to restructure her lessons and the learning material she’d intended to use, in order to make her classes relevant and inclusive of the experiences her students had, Rich demonstrated how important it is to realise the limitations students can encounter when language is a barrier that prevents people from accessing or relating to the provided material. Accepting the truth of Sartre’s perspective, Rich reflects in her essay Teaching Language in Open Admissions, ‘But what if it is these very signs, or ones like them, that have been used to limit the reader’s freedom or to convince the reader of his or her unworthiness to “collaborate in the production of the work”? ” Understanding the urgency of this problem Rich asked the question, “Is standard English simply a weapon of colonisation.” It’s clear that instead of freeing the reader, language can fall into the realm of limiting and excluding those who do not see themselves in its territories. We can see, therefore, how vital it is for teachers, and those that run the university, to consciously engage with finding material that reflects diverse and accurate representations of language as it is used today as well as historically. Another example of this is evident below.
This video is of a song by MIKE, a rapper from New York. The song is a sound recording of archive material, and in it, an educator works with a young black female, helping her to read a text which has been written with different forms of the English language.
This video demonstrates the progress made with a student in her studies when she is given the oppurtunity to utilise language that is relevant to her (standard English) as opposed to the old English that the poem was originally written in, and it reinforces the work that Rich did with her students in New York. In acknowledging the positionality of students, you are able to provide them with material that is useful and impactful to them and this then has the potential to positively shape the way they engage with their experience of studying, and their relationship to language. The educator in the video proudly declares the validity of the “speech of the black culture of America,” stating that it “be recognised as a genuine dialect of English”. Considerations such as these help us understand the importance of acknowledging the evolution of language, and how that must be reflected in the teaching methods and source material used in educational settings such as the university.
Although, there are examples of how it may be difficult for all students to fully embrace the poetry of language that dialects, colloquialisms and idioms offer.
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein writes,
‘The silent adjustments to understand colloquial language are enormously complicated’.
This statement, a bold declaration of just how difficult it is to accomplish a conversation of equal footing between two people if one doesn’t fully understand the language of the other, demonstrates that it is a nuanced and difficult process to express oneself to another when using language that paints pictures, and requires an understanding of contexts which the recipient might not be familiar with.
In his book ‘Humiliation’ Wayne Koestenbaum details the bleak reality of unsuccessful encounters with language,
‘Think of the silent adjustments, and the subliminal toll they take on our equanimity, that we must make merely to understand how to behave in front of other people. And think of the humiliation undergone if these silent adjustments are not made.’
I referenced Koestenbaum here because this quote encapsulates how important it is that students engage with one another, and are engaged with by staff, in a way that acknowledges the work that must be done by both parties to create a conversation that is inclusive and addresses the needs of the other, when and if there is a barrier.
For example, I’m from Essex, and I use certain abbreviations and colloquialisms that someone from another part of Britain might not understand. If you then consider how this problem becomes a double fold issue when English isn’t necessarily a student’s first language, it is clear that when I’m in teaching situations, I have to be mindful to explain any phrases or regional colloquialisms I use, so that everybody is on the same page.
All in all, I think that it’s important to use language in a way that allows everybody to interpret and understand what is being shared in a way that isn’t exclusionary. I will apply this principle in the lectures/workshops/tutorials/crits that students attend, in the hope that everyone will be able to participate in a way that encourages them as artists and individuals.