S7E5: Making Teaching Materials More Inclusive with Lottie Galpin

Inclusive ELT Consultant Lottie Galpin talks about the importance of inclusive representation in teaching materials and suggests ways to make textbooks more inclusive.

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Key talking points

✅ The importance and impact inclusive representation can have on learners

✅ How to include teenage and adult learners in analysing existing materials

✅ How small adaptations, such as changing photos or names, can make a big difference

✅ Including learners by making tasks relatable and achievable so everyone can take part

To learn more about Lottie's work, follow her on LinkedIn, Facebook or visit her website here.

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To watch this episode with closed captions, click on the video below or scroll down to view the transcript.

Transcript

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:28:08

Laura

TESOL Pop, Season seven Episode five Hello and welcome to TESOL Pop: the mini podcast for busy teachers. My name is Laura and joining me today to talk about making teaching materials more inclusive is Lottie Galpin. Lottie is an inclusive ELT [English Language Teacher] consultant, trainer, editor and writer. In her work, she helps publishers and freelance publishing people to understand how to create materials that represent the true diversity of the world we live in.

00:00:28:10 - 00:00:40:15

Laura

She specializes in representations of mental health, disability, socio economic realities, and in creating accessible materials. Thank you so much for your time, Lottie. A very warm welcome to the show.

00:00:40:17 - 00:00:41:13

Lottie

Thank you very much.

00:00:41:14 - 00:01:03:03

Laura

So in today's episode, we're talking about the importance of inclusion in the language classroom and how we can work with existing resources and materials such as coursework, to make our classes more inclusive. As with many TESOL Pop episodes, today's episode is relevant whether you teach English language or other subjects. So why not continue the conversation by sharing today's episode with the teaching community?

00:01:03:05 - 00:01:08:13

Laura

Lottie, why is it so important that we think about inclusion in our language classes?

00:01:08:15 - 00:01:36:13

Lottie

Oh wow. That's a really good question and it's quite hard to answer just in the time that we've got. So I think, first of all, let's try and understand what we mean by inclusion. And it's a tricky term because if we think about including something that generally means that the people with power are including people with people who are excluded, and that, you know, you can see that that's problematic in terms of them kind of a power dimension.

00:01:36:15 - 00:02:05:04

Lottie

So inclusion isn't the perfect word, but we'll use it today just because it's quite commonly known and it's easy to work with. So typically when we think about inclusion and people tend to think about inclusive education in terms of including people who might have students who might have additional needs or specific learning differences like, say, dyslexia or, you know, other forms of new diversity.

00:02:05:04 - 00:02:28:17

Lottie

So that's one way of defining inclusion and that's obviously like super important. We want everyone to be to feel that they belong, to be able to access materials and, you know, to be able to succeed in the classroom. But what I kind of wanted to look at and where I'm coming from is what I would call inclusive content or inclusive representation.

00:02:28:19 - 00:03:10:15

Lottie

And that means materials that represent people who are typically excluded from materials or people who are marginalized in society. So when we think about alt materials, typically not all the time, but typically they tend to default to a quite specific norm. And that norm doesn't really represent the world, doesn't really represent all students, doesn't really represent teachers. And that norm tends to be, you know, non-disabled, white, heteronormative, neurotypical and quite middle class.

00:03:10:15 - 00:03:51:24

Lottie

So in that way, the representation we give in materials is a pretty limited representation of reality. Now that is problematic because it can, you know, exclude students. If you can't see yourself in materials, if you can't see someone who looks like you or has a similar identity to you, then logically you're not going to feel that you belong in those materials, perhaps in that subject and perhaps even in education, you know, say the potential for damage caused by not including people is is quite large.

00:03:52:01 - 00:04:20:02

Lottie

And so when we think about inclusive materials in our classroom, we're thinking about ensuring all students can see themselves. We're thinking about and ensuring all students have the language to talk about themselves. So if we're thinking about, you know, a common subject, like talking about parents, we need to make sure we're giving students the right language to describe their skin tone, their hair.

00:04:20:04 - 00:04:46:16

Lottie

And the other reason that inclusive materials and inclusive representation is important is that it teaches all our students about the reality of the world. You know, like all our students, regardless of where they are, are likely to come into contact with people who might come from a marginalized or under-represented background. And it's important that, you know, students know how to interact with people.

00:04:46:16 - 00:04:54:07

Lottie

They are learning those kind of intercultural 21st century skills that really prepare them for the world.

00:04:54:09 - 00:05:12:22

Laura

Many of our listeners are probably working with materials that they've been assigned by their school or language center. I'm thinking about the course books I've had to work with over my career. What tips do you have here for working with existing materials when you want to make your classes and materials more inclusive?

00:05:12:24 - 00:05:35:23

Lottie

Okay. So if we're thinking about, you know, making them more inclusive in terms of representation, and then there are, you know, different things that we can do and obviously we can't cover them all here, but I thought we could break them down into sort of three different categories and look at it that way. Right. So the first thing we can do is analyze.

00:05:35:23 - 00:06:06:17

Lottie

And by that I mean what we can do is ask students to interact with that textbook and consider how representative it is. So that could be something like having the students look at the types of photos and what people are doing in the photos. It could be something like having students look at the types of people that are represented in texts or the types of places that are represented.

00:06:06:22 - 00:06:40:23

Lottie

To give you a practical example, if we thought about gender representation, which is, you know, fairly applicable everywhere, what you could do is start with a video or a text or a social media post about, say, gender representation in films and use that as an intro to the topic feed in some, you know, useful vocab. And then you could have students look at a section of the textbook or the whole textbook and look at representation of different genders and how they are represented.

00:06:40:23 - 00:07:04:15

Lottie

So they could simply, you know, tally up the number of different genders. They could tally them up and make notes. For example, you know, there are 23 women and all of them are cooking. You know, if you it's just a get to get students thinking about, you know, the content that's there. And then following on from that, you could have students, you know, think about maybe why that's happening.

00:07:04:20 - 00:07:33:19

Lottie

You know, that could be just a bit of a discussion and then you could follow up with some kind of output. They could write a report, do a video, you know, a presentation, social media post, whatever works for your context. Now, I know that when I was teaching, I tended to adapt from the textbook because the materials weren't quite, you know, relevant for the classes I was teaching or even perhaps, you know, the country I was teaching in, that culturally it wasn't appropriate.

00:07:33:21 - 00:07:57:12

Lottie

So I think that that's a really good thing for teachers to do to begin to make their existing textbooks more inclusive. So some things you could do are swapping out some of the photos. So what you can do. Let's say you've got a vocabulary page where you know the standard thing. You've got eight photos, say, of people doing sports and some text exercises underneath.

00:07:57:14 - 00:08:31:00

Lottie

So what you can do is transfer that text to a word document and then, you know, find your own eight photos representing these different vocab items. And that way you can include some more diverse representation. And so that might be, you know, a range of ethnicities or including some disabled people amongst those images. But it just gives you an opportunity to vary the kind of photos and images that students are encountering in the lesson.

00:08:31:02 - 00:08:50:12

Lottie

And I think that that's important because photos really do create kind of a landscape and a really strong first impression for students that, you know, a very for for a generation or for people now that are very visual, they really do have a strong effect on how people interact with those materials.

00:08:50:14 - 00:08:58:10

Laura

You've mentioned analyzing and adapting or making small changes to a course, but to have a big impact. What was the final tip you'd like to share?

00:08:58:12 - 00:09:49:10

Lottie

So that's supplementing and really it's kind of an extension of adapting or changing. But in this scenario, we're either giving an alternative to what's in the textbook or a additional material to what's in the textbook. So let's say you have a text about a European inventor. What you could do is provide texts, you know, research and write your own texts about inventors from a range of countries or with a range of identities, you know, so women inventors, inventors of a range of genders and disabled inventors and so on to ensure that students are getting a more realistic view of the kind of people that invent things, because that does tend to be a default in ELT

00:09:49:13 - 00:10:19:09

Lottie

materials, that knowledge and creativity resides in Europe or in the US, and clearly that's not true. So you could do that. In addition, the students would read, say, all four texts, or you could not include that text from the textbook and provide those other texts is an alternative. And you know, either of those would be perfectly acceptable, you know, alternatives for approaching that.

00:10:19:11 - 00:10:43:12

Lottie

Um, another thing I'd say, and one thing I'm really keen on is relatability and achievability. So sometimes in textbooks there will be activities are just not relatable for students because you know of their own, you know, personal circumstances or where they live or they might not be achievable because students don't have the life experience to talk about them.

00:10:43:14 - 00:11:12:07

Lottie

So a classic example is talking about foreign holidays. Now, some students won't be able to afford that. Some students, you know, culturally in that country, You know, in some countries, people don't tend to go abroad. They tend to holiday within the country. So in both contexts, the activity isn't relatable or achievable. So when you have something like that, you know, you can have a look at it and think, well, a machine is actually going to be able to do that.

00:11:12:09 - 00:11:31:09

Lottie

And then if not, you can rewrite the activity. But just choosing a context that might be more relatable for the students. So instead of foreign holiday, it could be a day out within, you know, within their country, just something that is more, more, more relatable and more achievable for them to do.

00:11:31:11 - 00:11:55:02

Laura

I was going to say this is so important because it's there's nothing worse than sitting in a class where you just don't connect with the task. And even like you say, you don't have that life experience. I've certainly been in scenarios myself, both as a teacher and also as a student, where the just feels that disconnect and, you know, students will go through the motions of doing the task, but they won't really be very motivated to do it because it's just not representative of their lives.

00:11:55:02 - 00:12:11:05

Lottie

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's not representative of their lives. And it might not actually be, you know, particularly much use to them in real life as well. And if it's not useful to you, you're not going to engage with it because, you know, when am I ever going to talk about a foreign holiday if I never go on foreign holidays?

00:12:11:05 - 00:12:39:09

Lottie

You know, you would immediately kind of disconnect. So I think I also wanted to say, just thinking about student generated materials, you know, you can ask students to do all of the above as well. So you can ask students to have a look at their photos, decide whether they think that they're, you know, particularly representative. And they could change the photos, they could research them, and they could do the same with the names and the places so they could have a look at the exercises and say, okay, I don't know John, a Jane or a Peter.

00:12:39:09 - 00:12:49:06

Lottie

So let's replace those names. So again, getting students involved and giving them kind of ownership and empowering them in terms of that textbook.

00:12:49:08 - 00:13:05:23

Laura

This has been really helpful. Lottie, thank you so much for sharing your tips. They are so practical. And like you said, if teachers are feeling a little bit overwhelmed by this, the teaching community, their students, it can be very much a community effort and not a sole effort. Because we know how busy it gets when teaching.

00:13:06:00 - 00:13:09:23

Lottie

Gosh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

00:13:10:00 - 00:13:30:10

Laura

To find out more about Lottie's work, you can go to her website Lottie Galpin.com or go to her Facebook or LinkedIn page. And as always, I've included those links in the show notes so you can find them easily. If you have a question you'd like us to answer or you have a topic that you'd like to pick for an episode of TESOL Pop, then you can contact us via Instagram, Facebook or the website TESOL Pop.com.

00:13:30:12 - 00:13:44:10

Laura

Finally, you can support the work we do at TESOL Pop by leaving a rating a review wherever you listen to the podcast or by sharing today's episode with your teaching community or by even buying a coffee at ko.fi.com/tesolpop

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