Editor’s note: This post is the fifth (and final) in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. Read the rest here.

In this post, I share about how I use a piece of literature that’s almost 100 years old in order to frame a discussion about historical and present-day issues of race and identity. I hope this post helps you as you imagine how you might move from comprehension to critical reflection in your own classes using a variety of resources.

The text is “Negro bembón” (“Thick-lipped Black Man”), published by Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén as part of the collection Motivos de son (1930).

The presentation linked below explains the progression of activities that I follow to introduce the poem and engage students with comprehension and reflection activities.

Although the process differs slightly for each resource or topic, I do try to include each of the following components when introducing a text:

• preparation (essential questions, standards, and can-do statements)
• personal connection
• historical context
• comprehension activities
• linguistic analysis
• thematic analysis
• intertextuality
• connections to justice movements

The text conversation below (shared with the permission of the student) presents one example of how students may connect with the content in unexpected ways. Here, the student reflects on how the poem and related activities helped her to connect to the experiences of some of her family members, including her Black husband and Black stepson.

Student: The reason why I was so reluctant [to take a Spanish class] is because every single Spanish teacher I’ve had in the past just wants you to memorize a bunch of vocabulary words and I feel like they don’t really teach but you incorporate soo [sic] many different things it’s impossible for a student to not learn. Also on my fathers side of the family we have some Mexicans that are married into our family and I’ve got some mixed race Mexican cousins and I showed them the poem from module 2 and they loved it. They loved how respectful and inclusive your class is.

Me: That’s so wonderful! I’m glad they liked the poem. I definitely try to be intentional about including multiple perspectives from a variety of Spanish-speaking people … so I’m always appreciative when people notice. Thanks again!

Student: Well I had to get them to explain the poem and to be honest I felt kind of bad because we discussed all the issues and problems they’ve faced because they’re mixed with Black and Mexican and it was shocking and eye opening and I appreciate that kind of knowledge and awakening. And I’ll admit race wasn’t a conversation that I really had growing up because my family wasn’t racist. We just weren’t raised like that, But I never knew about the race issues in America and especially in the south until I met my husband. He’s Black but he’s an immigrant. He was born and raised in Jamaica so he’s very dark skinned and the looks we receive when we go out in a public [place] is just crazy sometimes especially from white people. And then to read that poem was just heart breaking.

Me: I can imagine! I’m glad that what we’re studying in class helped spark or continue other conversations. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and reflections with me. I enjoy hearing about the different connections students make to the content.

Student: No I should be thanking you instead and it definitely did open my eyes and force me to think about my past experiences. And it’s nerve racking to me because I’ve also got my step son which my husbands son and I’ve a lot of funny looks whenever he calls me mom out in public. I’ve raised him since he was 3 months old so he knows me as his mother but sometimes white people will stare at me whenever he calls me mama and I answer to him. So after completing module 2 it was a rude awakening but it was a needed awakening! So again thank you very much and I hope you enjoy your night Professor.

So, what are your thoughts? Has this presentation changed or enhanced the way that you incorporate literature (or other texts) as a way to promote critical language study? What other strategies have been successful in your own classes?

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L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.

Editor’s note: This post is the fourth in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. Read the rest here.

I have been teaching Spanish for nearly 20 years. In all of those years, the language departments in which I worked used textbooks to support instruction, in some way or another. While some texts have been better than others, a common thread among all the texts is a lack of representation when it comes to historically (and currently) marginalized groups, such as Black Latinx populations and members of Latinx LGBT+ communities. For example, in all the textbooks I’ve ever used, not even once can I recall even seeing a trans person, much less a critical examination of the various elements and intersections of that identity.

This lack of representation warps students’ views about what a language class should be. For example, consider the student reflection below (from my third-semester university-level Spanish class):

“The topics regarding things such as LGBTQ have nothing to do with Spanish culture and I feel that topics like that should remain reserved for ethics classes. I would have loved to know more instead about Spanish food, dances, architecture, etc.”

The comment above reflects the expectations and experiences of many of our students. If “culture” is understood to be “things” like food, dances, and architecture (as opposed to lived experiences of diverse communities), we create fictitious, imagined worlds in which certain identities do not exist in the speech communities of the languages that we study. More dangerously, we reinforce stereotypes that students may have about the people and cultures studied—and in some cases even introduce new stereotypes! As evidenced by the student’s reflection, we see how jarring and unexpected it can be when certain marginalized identities are simply brought into the conversation. And really, representation alone (simply seeing and hearing marginalized voices) is the absolute lowest bar; if we stop at mere representation, then it amounts to nothing more than tokenism. I like to think of representation as the first step on the path to true diversity—the kind of diversity that is embedded into the power structures of our institutions.

On the topic of how we go about diversifying our curriculum, my colleague Uju Anya and I (2019) wrote:

To set the stage for this discussion, we call on the analogy of Bishop (1990), in which she posits that a diverse curriculum should be a window, a mirror, and a sliding glass door—a window through which students examine and learn from the perspectives of others, a mirror showing students their own experiences and cultures validated, and a sliding glass door through which students are able to enter into and experience the lives and perspectives of others. We would also add that a diverse curriculum should be the lens through which students apply a critical perspective to what they are studying. A diverse and meaningfully representative curriculum does not happen naturally. We must be intentional about finding and incorporating authentic resources that represent non-dominant target language and learner communities and cultural narratives (e.g., non-white, non-heterosexual, non-cisgender, non-male, non-middle/upper class, non-Eurocentric, non-English) so that these voices may be amplified in our courses and, more importantly, so that our world and social realities can be more accurately and more completely represented. (p. 26)

Even if we follow the guidelines listed above, our students (and we ourselves) may feel like we’re not doing “enough” if our justice-oriented learning doesn’t lead to tangible action and engagement outside of the classroom. I think sometimes we get caught up in assuming that students must engage in activism outside of the classroom in order for it to “count” as justice-oriented pedagogies.

So, my advice is this; don’t get overwhelmed. The goal isn’t to solve or eradicate injustice in the course of a single lesson or unit or to have students immediately marching in the streets or writing letters to politicians. Students don’t have to go out and immediately change the world. In fact, I would argue that such an approach is dangerous because it reinforces the saviorism narrative that students, armed with their newly discovered critical awareness, must now place the onus on themselves to go out into the world and single-handedly enact justice. Instead, we want to push students to first consider perspectives with which they may not be familiar and then determine how they might align themselves as allies in liberation work already being carried out in those communities.

The Social Justice Standards from the Learning for Justice organization provide a helpful framework for understanding the action/activism element of justice-oriented learning. Here are a couple of the standards that might guide our work as we think about how to move students toward action.

Students will make principled decisions about when and how to take a stand against bias and injustice in their everyday lives and will do so despite negative peer or group pressure.

Students will plan and carry out collective action against bias and injustice in the world and will evaluate what strategies are most effective.

You’ll notice that in the standards above, part of the process of “taking action” involves decision-making, planning, evaluation, and reflection. While action can and should be an important element of justice-oriented learning, it’s important to remember that action takes different forms and involves different steps. Activities that call students to critically reflect and engage in their own perspective-shifting are also a form of activism.

So, how do we do this in the classroom? The answer is to start small. If you are not able to immediately engage students in action-oriented activism in their own and others’ communities, consider engaging students in the experiences below as initial steps. Depending on the proficiency level of the students, these activities may be completed in the language studied and/or in the student’s native language.

• Respond to prompts, activities, and assignments in which they reflect on their own perspective shifting
• Describe and evaluate the impact of historical and contemporary social justice movements in various communities of the language studied
• Brainstorm how they might increase critical awareness of a social justice issue in their own communities
• Identify contemporary activism campaigns in the communities of the language studied and outline how they might align themselves with such efforts

What other “small steps” have you found to be successful with including representation, inclusion, and activism in your classes?

References:

Anya, U., & Randolph, L. J., Jr. (2019). Diversifying language educators and learners. The Language Educator, 14(4), 23-27.

Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives, 1(3), ix-xi.

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L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.

Editor’s note: This post is the third in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. Read the rest here.

“Yet we don’t get our hands too dirty…We don’t usually listen to stories of escaping war and finding refuge and racism in a new land, despite the fact that these events occur in settings where so many of the languages taught in classrooms around the world are spoken” (Ennser-Kananen, 2016, p.557).

I get it. People don’t like conflict. People don’t like discomfort. I don’t like conflict or discomfort either, and I typically avoid those types of situations whenever possible. I like for things to be predictable and for conversations to lead to closure rather than chaos. But alas, critical and justice-oriented pedagogies rarely afford us such luxuries.

Over the past several years, I have given dozens of talks on how to incorporate critical and justice-oriented pedagogies in the language classroom. One of the biggest pushbacks I get is from teachers who are hesitant to tackle potentially polemic topics due to negative consequences that might arise. These teachers are not alone in their hesitance. In a study conducted by Wassell et al. (2019), language teachers identified the following challenges to the teaching of social justice:

• Fear of potential backlash
• Lack of supportive colleagues
• Pushback from students
• Lack of developmentally & linguistically appropriate curricular resources

Instructors are not alone. Students, too, may have reservations when it comes to these types of discussions. For example, consider the following comment from one of my early course evaluations: “[We had] very politically charged conversations with little room to feel comfortable sharing an opinion different from the majority.”

Even though sometimes I think that teachers can be overly cautious and may (unintentionally) exaggerate the amount of pushback they will receive, the truth is those concerns are valid, and I have even experienced pushback in my own classes. Also, the fact that I’m a Black man who teaches Spanish to overwhelmingly White student populations gives me more reasons to be a little reticent. For example, on many occasions I’ve been accused of pushing a racial agenda and unnecessarily inserting race into the classroom. So, I do understand the tendency to shy away from controversial, uncomfortable topics and have been tempted to do so myself. Yes, it may be irresponsible from a justice-oriented pedagogical perspective, but at least it protects my mental health! Nonetheless, I persist in this work, because I truly believe in its transformative potential, and I do think that there are some concrete strategies that instructors can employ to create a supportive (yet still messy and unpredictable) environment to address these issues. In this post, I highlight some of those strategies, many of which are based on an article I co-authored with Stacey Margarita Johnson (2015).

• Use small, consistent groups. This allows students to develop more intimate relationships throughout the course, which fosters a classroom climate that might lead to more vulnerable sharing and richer dialogues. In addition, it helps guide students to trust each other’s good intentions, promotes positive feelings of belonging, and creates a greater sense of community as students overcome challenges together. This is especially important in online classes, where team building can be an inherent challenge. In my online classes, I typically divide large classes into smaller groups of 6-8 students. Students complete almost all collaborative activities (e.g., discussion boards, conversations, annotated readings) with that same group of 6-8 students throughout the entire course.
• Incorporate several low/no-stakes, community-building activities (brain breaks, games, icebreakers, etc.) throughout the course. One of my early mistakes as a teacher was that I incorporated icebreaker-style activities at the beginning of the term, but I didn’t do it enough once we finished the preliminary unit. The result was that although I had established a fun, inclusive, light-hearted classroom climate at the beginning, as the semester continued students eventually became stagnant in nurturing and expanding those relationships. I quickly realized the importance of intentionally including low/no-stakes community-building activities throughout the entirety of the course and not just at the beginning of the course or each unit. These activities aid in lowering the students’ affective filters and building the types of relationships that are necessary for students to engage collaboratively in the study of critical topics.
• Establish guidelines for healthy dialogue and disagreement. Explicitly explain and model for students how they should engage in conversations in which there will likely be differences of opinion. A good preliminary activity might be to post a potentially controversial opinion and then as a class brainstorm ways that students might respond or engage if they heard that opinion. Glen Singleton’s (2014) courageous conversation framework also offers helpful suggestions for centering the discussion around controversial topics: 1) stay engaged, 2) speak your truth, 3) experience discomfort, and 4) expect and accept non-closure.
• Be as proactive as possible. Before introducing these topics, instructors must plan and reflect as much as possible. This is necessary not only to provide the linguistic and contextual support that students will need but also to anticipate possible ways that the conversation may become derailed. In those situations, it helps to have a planned course of action for redirecting the conversation when necessary and providing support for students during the process. Of course, it’s impossible to predict everything that students will say, but some intentional planning and preparation beforehand will help the instructor to respond more thoughtfully when unexpected moments arise. Chapter 6 (“Critical Moments”) of Glynn, Wesely, and Wassell’s (2018) Words and Actions: Teaching Languages Through the Lens of Social Justice provides additional guidance and resources for ways that instructors can prepare for these critical moments.

References:

Ennser-Kananen, J. (2016). A pedagogy of pain: New directions for world language education. Modern Language Journal, 100(2), 556-564.

Glynn, C., Wesely, P., & Wassell, B. (2018). Words and actions: Teaching languages through the lens of social justice (2nd ed.). ACTFL.

Johnson, S. M., & Randolph, L. J., Jr. (2015). Critical pedagogy for intercultural communicative competence: Getting started. The Language Educator, 10(3), 36-39.

Singleton, G (2014). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools (2nd ed.). Corwin.

Wassell, B. A., Wesely, P., & Glynn, C. (2019). Agents of change: Reimagining curriculum and instruction in world language classrooms through social justice education. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 1-22.

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L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.

Editor’s note: This post is the second in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. Read the rest here.

One of the easiest, most effective, and seamless ways to integrate social justice is careful, intentional selection of resources. You can be certain that individuals from marginalized communities are already thinking deeply about some of the topics and perspectives that you may be considering integrating into your class for the first time. I recommend selecting open resources that present counterpoint and counternarratives and that don’t “oversimplify diversity or gloss over controversy and inequality” (Johnson & Randolph, 2015, p. 37). In many ways, if we just select resources that focus on how diverse people critically engage with various issues, justice-oriented experiences will come about much more naturally in our classes. These “authentic” resources are often not learner-centered and may not have the pedagogical support necessary for students to understand them. (See Simonsen (2019) for a more detailed discussion on authentic texts, learner-centered texts, and non-learner-centered texts). Thus, many students may find such resources to be too challenging. In this post, I will share a few of the strategies that I use for selecting resources and facilitating language comprehension with novice and intermediate learners in particular.

Simple resources pack a big punch. Songs are great due to their short length and predictable patterns and rhymes. Infographics are great because the language is limited and includes visual support. Blog posts written by members of the speech community of the language studied are another option. Finally, although they may not be the traditional resources we’re used to seeing, memes and social media posts (e.g., Twitter and Instagram) are good options as well. Such posts usually contain accessible language, and even in cases where the language is too advanced, it usually is easy to provide adequate support due to the limited amount of language that students have to process.

Direct students to meaningful details. When confronted with a complex text, students may often feel discouraged or frustrated if they are not able to understand the text well enough to adequately engage. I have found that there are several strategies that can be employed to guide language learners to focus on the most important details. These strategies might include:

• Develop simple true/false or multiple-choice comprehension questions that draw students’ attention to the most important details. One-word answer, as described by Meredith White on Twitter, is another option.
• Have students express a reaction to the text via a mock tweet (100-200 characters) or a meme via Jamboard or Padlet.
• Ask students to write a title for each paragraph or section of the text.
• Have students develop an original caption for any images that accompany the text.
• Ask students to simply highlight what they believe to be the three most important passages of the text.
• Develop an embedded reading. Click here to view an example of an embedded reading for the song “El Niágara en bicicleta.”
• For absolute beginners, only read the title, section headers, and/or picture captions. Then, provide as much additional contextual information as possible (at the students’ language level) to facilitate comprehension.

Make comprehension an interactive, collaborative endeavor. The onus of comprehending and processing texts should not always fall on the individual student. Below, I highlight three tools that I use to make reading comprehension a process-oriented collaborative activity. The beauty of these tools is that they work well in a variety of course modalities (face-to-face, hybrid, and online synchronous/asynchronous).

• EdPuzzle. I use this tool to divide video and audio resources into manageable chunks. I then incorporate checks for understanding, contextual information, and reflexion questions throughout. This creates an immersive, interactive experience as the student listens to or views the resource.
• Google Docs. I use Google Docs with texts to create a shared, collaborative reading experience. First, I upload the text as a Google Doc. Then, I go through and annotate various sections. I might provide vocabulary support, give background/contextual information, post my thoughts/reactions, or pose comprehension and reflection questions. Next, I update the sharing settings of the document so that others can view my comments and leave their own comments. Students are then able to annotate the text directly and are encouraged to upload their own original reflections and questions as well. To prevent the document from becoming overloaded with comments, this works best when students are divided into groups of about five to eight students each, and each group has its own version of the document to annotate. While Google Docs works fine for my purposes (all of my students have Google accounts), other tools like Perusall were created specifically for this purpose and offer more functionality.
• VoiceThread. I use VoiceThread with audio/video resources in the same way I use Google Docs with written resources. Once the recording is uploaded, students can engage in asynchronous conversations (via text, video, or audio) in response to prompts provided by the instructor throughout the recording or topics/questions raised by fellow classmates. Again, this works better when students are divided into small groups and each group has its own VoiceThread presentation to work with.

No matter which strategies you use, the main takeaway is to understand that with the right strategies, any text can be adapted to any learner skill level. Do not let the thematic or linguistic complexity of so-called “authentic” resources prevent you from incorporating them into your classes. In many cases, such resources provide the points of entry to study critical content from marginalized perspectives.

What other strategies have you found to be successful in your classes?

References:

Johnson, S. M., & Randolph, L. J., Jr. (2015). Critical pedagogy for intercultural communicative competence: Getting started. The Language Educator, 10(3), 36-39.

Simonsen, R. (2019). An analysis of the problematic discourse surrounding “authentic texts.” Hispania 102(2), 245-258.

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L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.

Editor’s note: This post is the first in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. The advice here is for teachers of any language and culture, although the classroom examples given are for teaching Spanish. Thank you to Dr. Randolph for sharing his expertise, and to Luis Avilés, Shavonne Coleman, and Rachel Frankel for their input during the process. A new post will be published each Monday in August, and the full series will be available here.

As a language learner, I have always been drawn to critical content in the context of language learning—social issues that matter deeply but that are also messy and uncomfortable to wrestle with, marginalized perspectives that clearly show how language and power/powerlessness are inextricably linked, and innovative experiences and pedagogies that challenge traditional approaches to the discipline. Unfortunately, I did not often see those themes reflected in the curricula of the novice and lower intermediate courses in which I was enrolled. Such topics seemed to be reserved for specialized advanced courses at the university level, and when those topics did appear in lower level courses, they were approached in superficial ways. Perhaps we compared very generalized practices, products, and perspectives of the “target” culture with “our” culture (these always seemed to fit neatly within a Venn Diagram), or perhaps we learned superficial facts and tidbits about Spanish-speaking individuals and societies that the textbooks or teachers deemed important (again, neatly packaged cultural knowledge that could easily be regurgitated and assessed through traditional tests).

When I became a language teacher, I desperately wanted to challenge this status quo. Inspired by the work of various critical scholars, I wanted to enact a language class that challenged the very idea that proficiency could ever exist outside of the politicized nature of language. The more I began to fully develop this pedagogical approach, the more I came to realize that my class was veering away from the format of the introductory language classes that I had taken and the language learning experience that many of my students had come to expect based on their previous language courses. I also saw that my students experienced a bit of shock, and probably some anxiety too, when they were asked to engage with the critical content that was a part of my class.

As an instructor, I had naively assumed that my students would understand my approach and would be along for the ride as we approached language study in a new way. While many students did eagerly hop on, many others approached with caution, while some others missed the ride completely.

In this post, I wish to highlight one simple way in which I proactively set the stage for the type of course that my students might expect to experience. I share this information in one of the first official pieces of communication that my students receive from me: the syllabus.

My ever-evolving statement that I use for my third-semester Spanish 201 course is below. At this level, most students in the course are at the novice-high/intermediate-low proficiency range.

Spanish, like many European languages (including English), has a history characterized by centuries of colonization and imperialistic domination. This history has often diminished, devalued, or erased the language varieties, cultures, and experiences of people who do not reflect Eurocentric identities. We still see those effects today. For example, certain dialects of Spanish spoken in Spain often enjoy more prestige than dialects spoken in, say, Puerto Rico or Mexico. And the literature, culture, and history of Spain are usually taught as their own separate courses, while the literatures, cultures, and histories of all Latin American countries are usually combined into the same course (check out UNCW’s Spanish course offerings as an example). In my attempt to flip the narrative and diversify the curriculum, this course will take an intentionally anti-colonial, anti-racist approach. That means that I will often supplement activities from the textbook with readings and other resources that more authentically reflect the racial, linguistic, and cultural diversity of Spanish-speaking people from around the world, with a special emphasis on people from historically underrepresented, minoritized groups. We will use these resources to reinforce linguistic elements like grammar and vocabulary. However, we will also critically examine the perspectives presented in the resources. At times, this will require the use of English, since you have not yet developed the skills in Spanish to engage in this level of dialogue. Also, this will often require us to push ourselves a little beyond our comfort zones in order to grapple with societal problems that matter deeply to us all but that are also highly complex and nuanced with no easy solutions. It is my goal for us to empathize with and celebrate a multitude of diverse lived experiences (including our own) and to learn some Spanish along the way. I hope that you will join me on this transformative journey!

In crafting this statement and sharing it to students, I hope to accomplish the following:

• openly and honestly acknowledge the politicized nature of language study.
• be upfront about my intentional efforts to take an anti-colonial, anti-racist approach to language learning.
• clearly explain the rationale for the topics and instructional resources that will be included in the course.
• take an initial step in helping students feel “comfortable with the discomfort” of critical engagement.
• express reasons and expectations for using English.
• affirm that I, too, am willing to engage in critical self-reflection along with my students.

This process of clearly articulating the language learning philosophy that drives the course is important for students and instructors alike. For instructors who may not use a traditional syllabus (e.g., non-postsecondary), such a statement can be included as part of a course introduction or policy document, or it can be posted to a course website or LMS landing page.

Finally, it’s important to iterate that this is an ongoing process. Students need to be reminded of this course framework throughout the duration of the term (not just at the beginning of the class), and several low-stakes/no-stakes team-building activities should be incorporated throughout the term in order to build the relationships necessary to support the type of dialogue that is expected in the critical language class.

So how did students respond? I copied below some of the recent feedback that I received from novice and intermediate-low Spanish classes. Although the format of the class was different from students’ expectations (based on previous experiences), these reflections show that students ultimately appreciated the approach and content of the course.

“I learned so much about the Latino identity, culture and history, and in doing so I feel like I learned more about myself.”

“I really appreciated the identity material in this course. It was nice to see some issues that I deal with as a diverse student brought to the attentions of my white pupils and then to be able to discuss these issues was extremely eye-opening to a lot of students in the class.”

“I really enjoyed this course. I like how Profe Randolph tied everything we were learning with social issues/racial issues, by doing so it made the class more memorable and interesting. I’ll always be able to remember about what we learned about even if I may forget the Spanish components (oops).”

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L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.