What Does Decolonize Your Curriculum Mean for World Language?

Thanks for joining me for this important class. I’ll be building out this blog post after the conference Practical & Comprehensible (July 19-21st) when I do my full presentation on Decolonize your Curriculum starter ideas for both French and Spanish teachers. Until then, I hope these starter resources to help define what decolonization of both our thought processes as teachers and the way we interact with our community can mean for you.

As world language teachers, we have a uniquely pivotal role as teachers of colonial languages. It’s crucial to examine how we portray and interact with colonial systems we both fight against and unintentionally uphold through our roles as educators.

Here you’ll find the introductory class on Decolonize Your Curriculum: What that Means and How to Start to help you:

1. Define this idea – What does decolonize your curriculum mean and why is it important for you and your students?
2. What it means specifically for Spanish and French teachers as we perpetuate colonial languages
3. What some first steps could be to decolonize our curriculums and teaching methods.
4. Encouragement – (It’s for real a journey.)

Resources and Links Mentioned in Class:

• Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain – Zaretta Hammond * affiliate link to Bookshop, a bookstore that celebrates and supports independent bookstores. Also available on Amazon
• Decolonization and Indigenization – 1st Article from University of BC
• What Decolonization Is, and What It Means to Me by Tina Curiel-Allen
• NCTE Blog – Decolonizing the Classroom by Michael Seward
• University of Portland – Decolonize your Syllabus

Related Post: Culturally Responsive Teaching in World Language