SRIS Newsletter - August 2020 (Plain Text Version)

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In this issue:
LEADERSHIP UPDATES
•  LETTER FROM THE CHAIRS
•  LETTER FROM THE EDITORS
ARTICLES
•  FACILITATING ART/REFLECTION FOR ESOL/ESL WITH LARGE GROUPS: INSIDE AN IMMIGRANT FAMILY DETENTION CENTER
•  CRITICAL AUTOETHNOGRAPHY IN TESOL: A BRIEF OVERVIEW
•  SOCIAL JUSTICE PEDAGOGY: CROSSING THE BORDERS OF SELF AND LANGUAGE-TEACHER IDENTITY
•  FROM HELL TO HEAVEN? WE ARE HUMANITY, NOT A COUNTRY
REPORT FROM THE FIELD
•  TEAM BROWNSVILLE'S ESCUELITA DE LA BANQUETA: ESOL/ESL FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS IN MATAMOROS, MEXICO
RESOURCES
•  INTEGRATING CIVIC ENGAGEMENT THROUGH EXTENSIVE READING IN AN EFL CONTEXT: SOME RECOMMENDATIONS
CALL TO ACTION
•  HOW CAN TESOL HELP TO REDUCE HEALTH DISPARITIES?
ABOUT THIS COMMUNITY
•  CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: REFLECTIONS AND LESSONS ON DISRUPTION

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Trisha Dowling and John Turnbull

Trisha Dowling

John Turnbull

In composing the call for submissions for this edition of the SRIS Newsletter on “Critical Stories as Social Justice,” outgoing editors Ethan Trinh and Luis Javier Pentón Herrera said they had been inspired by stories of multilingualism from around the world. The aim was “to celebrate these individuals’ courage, brilliance, and excellence while honoring their critical journeys and stories.” Certainly, part of the attraction of teaching English as an additional language is to witness as learners, beautiful in their diversity, add to an already formidable translanguaging repertoire by sharing stories in a novel linguistic code. If we pay attention to the phrase “critical stories,” we are led to notice, in the tradition of critical scholarship or critical pedagogy, how such stories connect to a wide spectrum of questions related to power, agency, materiality, resistance, and change (see Price, 2004, p. 3).

We present seven submissions that play with such questions and that help us consider how story, originating among learners, scholars, and transmitters of the English language and from the arts, health sciences, ethnography, peace work, and critical praxis, shapes both individual identity and movements toward justice and more equitable relationships in community.

The first four submissions take us from an immigrant detention center in Texas (Helen Boursier, “Facilitating Art/Reflection for ESOL/ESL with Large Groups”) to Colombia, where Yecid Ortega conducts anthropological fieldwork and asks, in an artful blending of student stories, what it means “to be human in a posthumanist era” (“From Hell to Heaven? We Are Humanity, Not a Country”). Authors Bedrettin Yazan (“Critical Autoethnography in TESOL”) and Abir Ward (“Social Justice Pedagogy”) ask how self-reflective storytelling affect the researcher’s and instructor’s task and identities.

In separate sections, Boursier offers a timely report on stories emerging from one English-teaching field site in Matamoros, Mexico, among those suffering from restrictive U.S. policy against asylum seekers in the borderlands (“Team Brownsville’s Escuelita de la Banqueta”). Instructors looking for extensive reading to help bring stories of social justice into the classroom will benefit from Tung Vu and Canh Truong’s extensive list of resources (“Integrating Civic Engagement through Extensive Reading in an EFL Context”). Finally, in a call to action, Emily Feuerherm brings attention to narratives of disparity in health care amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

As new newsletter editors, we welcome your comments on these contributions and these issues (email srisnewslettertesol@gmail.com) as we act to track such dynamic conversations and serve the Social Responsibility Interest Section and broader membership of the TESOL International Association.

References

Price, P. L. (2004). Dry place: Landscapes of belonging and exclusion. University of Minnesota Press.