Today’s guest blogger, Yecid Ortega, brings us the first episode of his new podcast series, Chasing Encounters. Click on the link below to hear Yecid’s conversation with fellow OISE/UT (University of Toronto) PhD candidate Claudio Jaramillo. Yecid has also provided an abstract and a listening guide.
Chasing Encounters: Episode 1 — Our linguistic and cultural journeys
This conversation between Yecid and Claudio explores their own visions on ideology, capitalism, identity and language in today’s world. As a point of entry, we deploy our ideas based in the concept of investment (Norton, 2013; Peirce, 1995) as a form of identity navigation in our lived experiences as language educators and researchers in different contexts. We identified some key elements of what makes a good educator in today’s post-truth times. First, how tolerating the other is not enough but accepting and understanding is key to human development. Second, we posit that being an expert is not enough because we as teachers need to acknowledge the complexity and intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) of our classrooms. And finally, we need the pedagogical, political and disciplinary knowledge in order to address contemporary issues inspired by plurilingual instruction (Galante, 2018). We conclude by hoping society will move from individualistic to more collective ideologies that would support our communities and our future generations.
Indexed guide to listening:
| Time Stamp | Topic |
| 00:00:15 | Introduction: Research interests, professional biography and experience |
| 00:05:13 | Alternative forms of academic knowledge production |
| 00:06:48 | Identity transformation: Professional maturity and experience |
| 00:10:28 | Hierarchies or co-construction of knowledge? |
| 00:11:19 | Making decisions: What does it mean to be an English teacher? |
| 00:13:54 | Critical awakening: Equal rights and social justice |
| 00:16:58 | Collaborative work: Identity and our relation to the world |
| 00:19:27 | Critical pedagogy experiences |
| 00:23:17 | Sparking curiosity to understand the other |
| 00:26:54 | Current affairs |
| 00:30:32 | Tolerance, acceptance and understanding |
| 00:31:17 | Individualism vs. Collectivism |
| 00:33:00 | Complexity and diversity in teacher education |
| 00:33:57.24 | Conclusion |
Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters
Yecid Ortega is a Ph.D. candidate in the program of Language and Literacies education and the specialization program in Comparative International, and Development Education (CIDE) at OISE – University of Toronto. His general research interests are within (decolonial) critical ethnographic and case study approaches in international urban and rural areas. Yecid explores how globalization, capitalism and neoliberalism influence language policy decision-making and classroom practices. He wonders how these juxtapose with concepts of culture and race within frameworks of peacebuilding and social justice. Yecid loves and writes poetry, makes experimental music and is fascinated by riding his bicycle everywhere no matter the weather.
Email: yecid.ortega@mail.utoronto.ca
Website: https://www.andjustice4all.ca/
Claudio Jaramillo is a South American, Chilean, teacher of English, MA in TEFL, and currently PhD student at the LLE program at OISE, Toronto University. He has been both a university teacher trainer for 12 years in Chile and language policy maker in the Ministry of Education. Most of his current academic interests revolve around critical pedagogy and in particular how students and teachers construct their sociopolitical educational discourses emerging from the EFL teaching and learning experiences within the classrooms as an input for teacher education programs. He is also interested in a myriad of other unrelated stuff that ranges from phonology, politics, hyper-realistic painting, Shodo, astronomy, paleontology, animals and very cold weather.
Sources mentioned:
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039
Galante, A. (2018). Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Language Education Through Plurilingualism: Linking the Theory into Practice. In Handbook of Research and Practice in Heritage Language Education (pp. 313–329). Springer, Cham. Retrieved from https://link-springer-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-44694-3_13
Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning : extending the conversation (2nd Edition.). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Peirce, B. N. (1995). Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9–31.
Music by:
Ari de Niro
Rooftops
URL: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ari_de_Niro/Jules_Lives/Rooftops
Comments: http://freemusicarchive.org/
Curator:
Copyright: Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 International: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
