Gender- and Sexuality-Inclusive Curriculum in an Intensive Language Program

Abstract

Queer pedagogy is an application of Queer Theory to utilize inquiry, interrogate identity and employ pedagogical practices that interrupt heteronormativity. EFL (English as a Foreign Language) curriculum and materials have long neglected gender- and sexuality inclusive teaching practices and investigations. Furthermore, identity needs to be considered by ELT (English Language Teaching) professionals as a non-static, relational and complex construct that may have implications to second language acquisition. In asking how EFL university instructors can practice Queer Theory and pedagogy that proposes active deconstruction and disruption of heteronormativity, the authors made learning a site of inquiry, by implementing a classroom pedagogical strategy to examine classroom materials from an in-house textbook, center student perspectives, encourage self-reflexivity and to unpack unexamined normative discourses. Through literature review, content analysis, the study of reading practices, and classroom research, this paper explores the implications of challenging reading practices and heteronormative thinking and constructions of identities that may be present in an EFL university curriculum. The research findings illustrate how internalized heteronormativity surfaces in the assumptions made while reading a text, acts onto queerness and overrides judgment, blocking accessibility to diversity. The authors propose reading strategies that encourage critical thinking to excavate and obliterate heteronormativity and to unearth the queerness in curricula materials as an approach to integrating a gender- and sexuality-inclusive curriculum.