Opening linguistic spaces in the gendered language classroom: The gender-just teacher toolkit

Riccardo Amorati; Elena Pirovano

doi:10.6092/issn.1970-2221/20375

Authors

Riccardo Amorati The University of Melbourne https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8776-4078

Riccardo Amorati is a Lecturer in Italian Studies at the School of Languages and Linguistics of The University of Melbourne (Australia). Following university studies at the University of Bologna (Italy), he completed his doctoral degree in Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne (Australia). His research interests are in three main areas: (1) psychological factors that influence L2 learning (motivation, anxiety, emotions, well-being); (2) novel approaches to second language teaching; (3) student recruitment and retention in language studies at different education levels.
Elena Pirovano The University of Melbourne https://orcid.org/0009-0003-6477-6959

Elena Pirovano is a language educator, currently holding a position as a Lecturer in Languages and Literacies Education at the University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education. She is an experienced teacher who worked in different countries (Italy, USA, Australia). She completed her doctoral studies in 2024, focusing on the affordances of plurilingual pedagogies and pedagogical translanguaging for learning additional languages. In her research and teaching practice, she also advocates for more inclusive and gender-just linguistic practices.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1970-2221/20375

Keywords:

inclusion, gender pedagogy, language education, gender justice, gendered language teaching

Abstract

Introducing gender-just linguistic practices in language education fosters the creation of a learning environment that is respectful and attentive to the diversity of language classes. In this paper, we provide an overview of existing terminology and main research studies on the thematization of gender-just language in the language classroom. We then propose a pedagogical framework in the form of a toolkit with conceptual principles and linguistic strategies and examine its practical applications. Our aim is to orient the pedagogical and linguistic choices of teachers of gendered languages in the complex task of giving linguistic visibility to gender diversity.

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Opening linguistic spaces in the gendered language classroom: The gender-just teacher toolkit

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