Mimi Masson, University of Ottawa, Canada

Title: Culturally-responsive teaching in French as a Second Language: creating inclusivity for racialized youth

Abstract:

In Canada, institutional and systemic barriers in French as a second language (FSL) programs have created conditions for ongoing exclusion of marginalized groups. While research has explored English Language Learners’ (ELLs)(Mady, 2012) and students with learning disabilities’ (LDs)(Arnett, 2010) experiences, it has yet to examine the experiences of racialized allophone students in FSL. This seems particularly salient given that the settler-colonial history of French language and culture has played a large role in the establishment of FSL in Canada within a White Anglo-Christian tradition. This paper narratively examines how one FSL teacher applied anti-racist and anti-oppressive educational practices in FSL through culturally responsive teaching (CRT). Her ‘small stories’ (Bamberg, 2004), collected over the course of four years, relate her professional and pedagogical experiences working in an urban middle school with highly racialized, often allophone, student populations.

The findings show that CRT helped this teacher concretely tacklethe disconnect between the FSL as a living language and culture and students’ own lived experiences as plurilingual Muslim speakers of French. Applying CRT as a pedagogical practice in FSL provides insight into the ways that intersectionality can impact teachers’ practice on the micro level andtransform students’ experiences in the program to connect with French language and culture in meaningful and transformative ways, particularly when working with vulnerable, racialized and/or minority youth.