What to do when one's hands are tied by existing materials?

Making existing materials in the language classroom inclusive can be both, challenging and tedious. Doing so is nonetheless most rewarding, especially if one is bound to use a prescribed textbook that includes materials that exclude.

In such situations, the first thing to realize is that, one's hands are never tied!

It is the treatment of such traditional topics with non-inclusive and possibly discriminatory materials that is key to making the classroom inclusive. Putting such materials in context and/or supplementing them are some strategies one can use to make one's class more inclusive. For example:

• If all examples of families in the textbook push the heteronormative stereotype of parents being heterosexual, it is important to supplement such narratives with examples of non-heteronormative counterparts.

• Or, if all scenarios presented are from privileged middle-class backgrounds, or reinforce heteronormative gender roles and sexist ideologies of masculinity and femininity, it is important to counter through questions or examples.

• In an attempt to 'teach about culture', some language textbooks have units on customs and rituals associated with festivals & holidays celebrated in the parent culture of the target language (TL). This is often used as a spring board to discuss customs and rituals revolving around festivals & holidays celebrated in the country where the TL is being taught. Instead, one could use such units as a segue into more critical discussions that allow for inclusion. For instance, in the US, one could use them as a spring board to discuss celebrations around Columbus day v/s Indigenous people's day; or around the Thanksgiving holidays, where, instead of limiting discussion to rituals associated with Thanksgiving & student plans, in short, instead of limiting discussion to the surface meaning of the holiday, one could include implications of such a celebration and its impact on Native American populations in the US.

• Spending a few minutes every now and then to discuss current affairs is another way to ensure a more inclusive curriculum and classroom atmosphere. Daily news is afterall, all about exclusion and inclusion.

So in short, even if one is bound to use a textbook that does not quite include, one can create spaces for students to bring in their own narratives, thereby recognizing that, what you have to work with is not necessarily their story, nor the full story.

Examples

A complicated love story: Example of an inclusive first year Hindi reading comprehension exercise

Arranged marriage: Example of an inclusive first year Hindi reading comprehension exercise

A fill in the blanks love story with "should, want, desire and compulsion" constructions