CALL for help: Critical CALL for diversity, inclusion and sustainability

Guth, Sarah; Hauck, Mirjam; Helm, Francesca; Hubbard, Phil; Pegrum, Mark and Ohashi, Louise (2019). CALL for help: Critical CALL for diversity, inclusion and sustainability. In: WorldCALL 2018 Conference Proceedings (Barr, David; Bañados, Emerita and Gimeno, Ana eds.), WorldCALL, pp. 76–81.

URL: http://worldcall5.org/images/WorldCALL_2018_Procee...

Abstract

This symposium highlighted ways CALL might serve a critical role in fostering diversity and inclusion across languages and cultures, with papers focusing on four different but interrelated themes. The first paper considers how factors such as financial status, employment, family responsibilities and nationality can prevent language educators from attending conferences, and outlines ways CALL can enable wider participation. The second shows how digital literacies, including intercultural, ethical and critical literacy, can help language teachers and learners to build bridges between cultures. The third argues that rather than connecting people, the Internet and social media seem to be isolating them in bubbles with like-minded others, proposing virtual exchange (telecollaboration) as a way educators can use the Internet to help students connect with, learn from and collaborate with peers with very different life experiences. The fourth advocates systematic teacher and student preparation for technology-enabled, people-to-people education programs in language studies and across the curriculum maintaining that such programs provide an ideal context for promoting a critical and sustainable approach to developing digital literacies and citizenship. Between them, the four papers raise many key questions about CALL, diversity and inclusion, and begin to sketch out some preliminary answers.

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