Recognising and including LGBTQ+ identities in language teaching

• Who is this toolkit for
• Different approaches to recognition and inclusion
• Doubts and questions
• Further help
• References and further reading 
• Related content

The lack of visibility and inclusion of LGBTQ+ voices in language teaching is a very common, or perhaps even universal, problem. However, the magnitude of the issue differs across teaching contexts and depends on many factors. The language you teach and the culture of the country where this language is spoken, however, are of particular significance.  

Teachers coming from a variety of backgrounds and teaching different languages might, therefore, notice that they do not always share the same experiences with regards to the topic of inclusivity. 

While in some countries the discussion on the topic of LGBTQ+ recognition in language teaching has already been initiated, in others this issue has barely been recognised or is actively suppressed.  

We strongly believe that change is fuelled by awareness, and therefore the simple, yet so critical act of identifying and recognising the issues should not be undervalued.
Therefore, we would like to invite you to reflect on your own teaching practice in relation to representation of gender and sexuality. 

Below are some questions that might help you get started

1. Think about materials available for the language you teach

• How often do LGBTQ+ characters appear in them?
• How are they portrayed?
• Do they only appear in chapters dedicated to relationships or family topics or do they also appear in different contexts?
• When they appear, do they reflect intersecting and overlapping of social identities (e.g. race, class, age, etc.)? 

2. Update your teaching activities or design

• Do you already include LGBTQ+ characters and related topics in your teaching resources?
• If yes, what is your approach?
• If no, why is that? Is there anything in particular that has stopped you from doing this?  

3. Consider your use of personal pronouns 

When communicating with others, we constantly use personal pronouns. In some languages these are non-gender-specific, but in others, you will inevitably face a choice between a very limited number of options.  

• Are you aware of the developments and discussions regarding the use of personal pronouns in the language you teach?
• Do you know before the start of your course what your students’ pronouns are? And do you have a strategy for ensuring that everybody feels included? 

You can continue the list of questions yourself, identifying which areas matter particularly to you and your students.Remember that you do not have to address them all at once: write them down and return to your list at a later stage to check your progress and aid your self-reflection. 

Once you have had a chance to think about some of these questions, you can determine which areas require your focus in the short term as well as in the longer term. 

Maybe you had considered all these aspects already, and now you are thinking about ways of taking action; or perhaps this is the first time some of these topics have been brought to your attention, and you need time to think about how to respond.  

UCL language graduate: 

Educators might feel that they need to change the way they teach so that it becomes more inclusive and will be prompted to have loads of really explicit conversations with their students. A better way is to put more subtle signposts and try to create a more inclusive space, but without putting anyone into a position where they might feel uncomfortable.

2. Include

Having reflected on the materials that you use in your classroom through a critical lens, you might be thinking about implementing changes (smaller or larger) that can make a difference to your language teaching. 

Suggestions to inspire and help you take the first steps:

1. Try to include LGBTQ+ characters, events and spaces in your materials

When you discuss the topic of family and relationships with beginner students, go beyond what we often see in textbooks and include different family models. You can also refer to cultural events and spaces relating to LGBTQ+ people.

• You could show a picture of two mums or dads and children, and ask your students to describe this family.  
• When presenting a story of a single person, you could mention that they currently have neither a boyfriend, nor a girlfriend.
• A character could be writing a Valentine's card to a partner of the same sex.
• Characters could be talking about events such as the Pride Parade or Pride Month (in the UK and/or in the target culture). The characters do not all have to be LGBTQ+, and the term 'ally' could be introduced.
• Locations such as LGBTQ+ societies or clubs could be included.

Education Scotland has published some interesting resources that might give you some inspiration: ‘Engaging with LGBT and migrant equalities: Activities for the ESOL classroom.’ 

Working with students at higher levels of language proficiency opens up many opportunities, as your students are equipped with language tools to discuss more complex topics on the crossroads of cultural, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competencies. There are many ways of embracing these opportunities, for instance by discussing the situation of the LGBTQ+ community in the country where the language you teach is spoken:  

Is civil partnership legal, and what are the rights of LGBTQ+ people (laws, regulations, customs, main LGBTQ+ organisations and charities)?  Are there any LGBTQ+ role models within sports or popular culture (maybe an interview or news article could be studied)?  How do LGBTQ+ organisations promote their viewpoints (exploring online platforms)? 

Think about exercises where a couple are interacting in a common, everyday situation (e.g. buying groceries, choosing a birthday gift for a friend, or renting an apartment). These come up in all types of language learning materials, at all levels. 

You could consider adjusting some of those scenarios to become more inclusive by, for instance, switching the names and pronouns of the characters to indicate that the couple portrayed in the exercise are not heterosexual. With this approach, you do not focus on the topic of relationships and family itself, and yet you include LGBTQ+ voices in passing, challenging common assumptions that couples in language learning materials are mostly heterosexual. Many of the assumptions that are reproduced and reinforced in coursebooks and other types of materials are so widespread that they have become invisible to us, and the effect is the erasure of everything and everybody that does not fit into the narrow category ‘normal’, which leads us to the next points we want to make:

While the topic of ‘family and relationships’ seems to be the most obvious choice when including LGBTQ+ characters in language teaching, it is also important to do so in other contexts. Moreover, we do not always have to draw particular attention to gender and sexuality - how often does a heterosexual character have to discuss their sexuality, and how often is that the centre of attention? 

2. Present a range of genders and sexualities in activities 

Find a range of social media profiles that include short profiles of people who identify as a range of genders and sexualities (LGBTQ+ as well as hetero, cisgender as well as transgender, etc.). This will provide students with authentic vocabulary to characterise and describe themselves from different individuals - and you might be able to discuss their use of pronouns, too.

If asking students to produce their own profiles, we suggest allowing for fictitious profiles so nobody feels obliged to share personal information unless they want to. 

3. Consider your use of grammar 

Grammar examples are sometimes seen as ‘neutral’ because they are, some would argue, about the grammar and not the content. They represent, however, an area where you can introduce more diverse representation (remember that even little changes can make a big difference).

The key question is: why should there not be LGBTQ+ people in grammar exercises? 

4. Challenge your assumptions – and those of your students 

We all have them, and we often rely on them to navigate in a complex reality. Sometimes our assumptions help us to quickly make the right decision, e.g. when we look outside and see people wearing thick jackets and carrying umbrellas, we decide that perhaps putting on another layer of clothes is not a bad idea. However, when it comes to people, our assumptions, when not constantly checked and challenged, can be more harmful than helpful.  

• Have you ever reflected on your own assumptions in relating to your language teaching or the culture that you teach? Do you normally present gender as binary? Is the family always a mum, dad and some children? When you think about athletes or role models, do they include some who identify as LGBTQ+? 
• Have your students ever reflected on how they have studied languages in the past, how the materials look and why that is the case? Have they, for instance, ever studied materials related to LGBTQ+? If they have, was it a one-off or something that was integrated into their learning journey? Do they understand why it is important to study a range of voices? 

5. Check the pronouns 

When students have an account in the university database, they sometimes have an option to indicate their title and pronouns. However, sometimes this field is overlooked. 

• Invite – but do not require – your students to fill it in before the first lesson
• Or prepare a basic form including optional fields to indicate a name and  pronouns and distribute it in class during your first teaching session. Some students might leave it blank because they are undecided or do not want to disclose it, but it demonstrates to students that there is space in your classroom for recognising gender fluidity. 

6. Help develop your students' cultural competence 

As should be clear from this section, there are many ways to include a diverse range of people in your language teaching materials. And it is hopefully also clear that it is perfectly fine to take small steps.

However, once you begin you might also want to begin problematising, criticising or questioning some of the topics you explore with your students, so let us turn to that in the next part. 

Work with students not only on their linguistic and communicative competence, but also on their cultural competence. This means addressing the reality of the countries where the language we teach is spoken, and also if this is potentially problematic: in some places, for instance, it will be unsafe or even illegal to be openly LGBTQ+, and our students need to understand that –  even if they do not themselves identify as LGBTQ+.  

This becomes even more crucial if students are expected to visit the country as part of their course (summer school, year abroad, field trip, etc.). Make sure your students who plan to travel to the country know where to ask for help and support.  

When talking about the LGBTQ+ situation within a particular culture, we suggest showing the complexity of the situation to avoid stereotyping. For instance, in some countries the law is oppressive but that does not mean there are no movements to change it. So rather than saying ‘this country is homophobic’ we might want to refer to the government policies as well as LGBTQ+ organisations who campaign against them. 

Final-year undergraduate in BA French and Spanish:

What is important is that regardless of what you identify as, there should be opportunities for you to discuss your opinions, without necessarily having to relate to your own personal experience. And that goes for gender and sexuality, too.

3. Problematise and question

Beyond recognising and including LGBTQ+ characters and topics in our teaching, we can also begin to problematise the way society relates to gender and sexuality, and, fundamentally, question why our societies are the way they are. Coda (2017) talks, for instance, about ‘challenging students' implicit bias in classroom conversations, not labelling the students with the dominant heterosexual identity, and creating classroom activities that encourage discussion related to sexual identities can be ways of challenging the heteronormative order of the classroom.’ (p. 12)

This might be done in class discussions by critically analysing news articles or policy documents, exploring heteronormative and sexist language use in popular media, analysing gender construction in music (e.g. which words are used about men, women and people who fall outside this binary), and so on. 
While these are definitely easier to bring into the more advanced language classes, it is worth thinking about how they can become a natural part of language classes right from the beginning.  

The following might help you think about some of these aspects. They are meant as examples rather than exemplars, but hopefully they will spark your own creativity: which would be relevant to your classroom and your students? 

Creating a classroom that encourages discussion

The concept ‘heteronormativity’ is interesting to explore, and this can be extended to a range of discussions: what is expected of boys and girls in terms of the toys they play with, the activities they are encouraged to undertake and the education they often choose (why do fewer women study engineering?); how people respond to two women/men holding hands versus a man and a woman doing so; colours (can a boy wear pink? Why is that even a question we need to ask?)

1. How have LGBTQ+ rights changed historically in the UK?

• When and why do we use the word ‘normal’? And how does it change in different contexts?
• How do discourses of normalcy structure our thinking around sexuality and gender?
• What is the relationship between heteronormativity and ‘normalcy’ and politics, politicians, consumerism and capitalism? For instance, why do textbooks rarely include LGBTQ+ characters and topics (Gray, 2013)?

2. What difficulties and barriers do LGBTQ+ people encounter when they are open about their gender identity and sexuality?

• Why might some people choose to keep their gender identity and sexuality to themselves?
• Why do many LGBTQ+ people (still) experience harassment at university (Bachmann and Gooch, 2018)?
• Discussing recent UK law, such as Section 28 (which prohibited the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality or any suggestion of the ‘acceptability of homosexuality’ in state school and was only repealed in 2003) can help emphasise the rapidity of change in culture and the ways in which actively removing and erasing LGBTQ+ content from educational spaces have been encouraged and legislated.

3. If you are heterosexual yourself, why are these topics even relevant?

• The concept ‘heteronormativity’ is interesting to explore, and this can be extended to a range of discussions: what is expected of boys and girls in terms of the toys they play with, the activities they are encouraged to undertake and the education they often choose (why do fewer women study engineering?); how people respond to two women/men holding hands versus a man and a woman doing so; colours (can a boy wear pink? Why is that even a question we need to ask?)
• What does it mean to be an ‘ally’?

4. Compare and contrast the UK with countries where the language you teach is spoken.

• How is the situation in these countries different from the country where your students live now, lived in the past and/or where they study the language?
• What discourses structure LGBTQ+ issues in the language you teach (political, religious, biological, medical, etc.)?
• How would you support a friend who was LGBTQ+ in that country in a safe way?

There is a lot to consider, and some of these questions are uncomfortable to address (such as on-campus bullying and harassment or cultures where identifying as LGBTQ+ might get you arrested, imprisoned or killed). However, the alternative, trying to ignore these problems, is far worse, and as teachers we have a responsibility to all our students. Hopefully the three approaches introduced above will mean that we can work with recognition and inclusion in a way that we are comfortable with and which suits our contexts. 

And remember that you are not alone. One thing the authors learned when we began discussions around representation in 2019 was that many of us had been thinking about it for years. Beyond being a starting point for self-reflection, then, we hope that this toolkit can spark further discussions in all the many communities of practice around UCL and beyond.  

First-year undergraduate in BA Russian and Spanish: 

What has been frustrating was when I've tried to be more progressive and inclusive in my speech, I was penalised for my "mistakes". Equality and inclusion in the classroom have to translate into all areas of schooling, so that kind of speech should also be seen as correct.