Emerging Voices in ELT: Exploring ESOL practitioners’ identities from an intersectional perspective

This is the first video contributing to our ongoing Emerging Voices series. In the mini interview, Tomasz John (Strathclyde) asks Paula Barrowcliffe (UWS) to explore intersectionality in ESOL.  Our guest is a PhD student at the University of the West of Scotland. where she also works as an Associate Lecturer in Spanish and EAP. She also works as a Lecturer in ESOL at one of Glasgow FE colleges. Paula sheds some light on her PhD research conducted from an intersectional perspective looking at power, “othering” mechanisms and the teacher’s identity classroom.

​We wonder to what extent this is relevant to the EAP sector. Any comments, please share them with us in the comments below, on our EAP4SJ Twitter and/or our Emerging Voices Padlet.
  

​Currently fully immersed in her PhD study, Paula is exploring, from an intersectional perspective, the identities of ESOL lecturers working in the college context in Scotland. Based on research done in a broader TESOL context (a necessity based on the scarcity of ESOL research in Scotland), it seems apparent that a very narrow profile of teachers is preferred, usually white, usually first language English speakers, and usually middle class. However, if we have a close look at the ESOL students that are currently being taught in Scottish colleges, their identities seem to be very varied in many different aspects: culturally, linguistically, and of course in terms of education, age, and class. Therefore, there seems to be a mismatch between the identity of teachers and learners which creates a division between both groups in a way that may not have a positive effect on learning and on the profession and that seems to be stopping people from different backgrounds entering the ESOL profession. It is worth then asking the question that starts any piece of research: Why? And what is the potential impact of it on lecturers, students and ultimately on the future of the profession?