Publication Alert! Supporting multilingual learners in schools AND ethical publication practices (by Dr Jennifer Burton & Dr Jeff Bale)

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This week’s special BILD post celebrates a recent publication whose ten authors include several BILD members and contributors. Click on their names to enjoy their past posts.

We are grateful to BILD to have the opportunity to share our recently published book Centering Multilingual Learners and Countering Raciolinguistic Ideologies in Teacher Education: Principles, Policies and Practices by Jeff Bale, Shakina Rajendram, Katie Brubacher, Mama Adobea Nii Owoo, Jennifer Burton, Wales Wong, Yiran Zhang, Elizabeth Jean Larson, Antoinette Gagné and Julie Kerekes. In this post, Jennifer and Jeff explain how the main contributions of a three-year multistrand research project which form the main content of the book contribute to the field of multilingual teacher education, specifically highlighting the ethics of publishing with 10 co-authors.

Photo of the front cover of the book. Cover image designed by Christian Faltis
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Lo que importa is what matters (by Dr Yecid Ortega)

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To find out more about Yecid’s work, check out his website at https://www.andjustice4all.ca .

Matter in Spanish means materia or what things are made of.  In the context of the physical world, it refers to the material substance that makes up everything around us. In English, the word “matter” also means the same but means something else when used in a sentence like it does not matter, it matters, it matters to all, etc. Here, matter might also be something of importance or significance; it can be used to refer to something that is important, significant, or of consequence. For example, when we say that something “matters” or is of “great matter,” we are emphasizing its significance, value, or importance.

For me, what matters is beyond that, it encompasses all the tangible objects and substances in the universe, including the Earth, stars, living organisms, and inanimate objects in relation to the self and the Cosmos (See figure 1).

Figure 1: Our relationship with the cosmos

The key components of this blog post (the matter, la materia) refer to the intersectional and multiplicity of mechanism, architecture, tools and engineering of why I do the work I do. Similar to the idea of matter that exist in various states (solid, liquid, gas, plasma, condensation, etc.), throughout my life, I have been going through different states, stages, phases, but one thing that always remains was the core idea of working for social justice.

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The Transgressive Potential of Stickers (by Janan Chan)

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Our last regular post of the 2023 calendar year is by frequent guest blogger Janan Chan, who writes, “I was born in Hong Kong SAR and moved to Canada with my mother when I was seven. Growing up in a small university town in Québec, I struggled with accepting my Chinese heritage. Graduating from Concordia University, Montréal with an MA in English Literature and Creative Writing, I found an ESL/EFL teaching position in Shanghai, China. From 2021-2024, I have continually modified the lesson materials provided to discuss real issues and to use language in creative, expressive and meaningful ways. Teaching ESL/EFL in Shanghai, China has helped me to develop my teaching ability and allowed me to reconnect with parts of my identity which I had once rejected. I am a life-long creative and my poems have been published in The Mitre (118, 122, 128), yolk. (1.1), Soliloquies Anthology (25.2), Warm Milk (3), and the chapbook “Water Lines”. My poems explore identity and belonging (Chinatown, Montreal, pg. 62-63) and feelings of nostalgia and longing (On Track, pg. 15, Knowing Few People in Early Semesters, and 15.), to name a few.

My previous four BILD-LIDA blog posts explore my conflicts of identity in Shanghai; “hyper-Canadianness” in Shanghai’s Tim Hortons; cyborg relations during Shanghai’s 2022 COVID-19 lockdown; and real L2 use while skateboarding.“

This week’s blog post includes a linked audio file. Just click on the link below if you would like to hear the post read aloud. Scroll down to read the text.

Internet access in China can often seem contradictory. While smartphones allow people to scan QR codes in restaurants to order food, unlock shared bicycles and make cashless payments, China’s internet firewall blocks access to foreign websites or sites which might provide dissenting information (Economy, 2018). Social media posts can be removed, censored and monitored, and users can be blocked from posting text with certain keywords. Within this restrictive communicative landscape, however, internet users still find creative ways to express transgressive opinions, thoughts and information.

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Good faith, bad faith, and teaching how to listen better (by John Wayne N. dela Cruz)

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Image from: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/bad-faith-good-faith/

 “But that’s in bad faith”, a student retorted to my comment. “It’s done in bad faith”, they emphasized.

“How so?”, I asked back. “We just saw it from research”, I added, with a somewhat rising intonation.

“Well, it’s just… it’s bad faith… yeah”, the student shrugged with a tight-lipped, resigned smile.

            Hmm, is it? I asked myself.

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