What is DEI-SLT?​

DEI-SLT is a project that was born from our willingness to combine the teaching of second languages and social justice pedagogy.

When we teach a language we are doing more than teaching grammar and vocabulary, we are (hopefully) opening a new horizon of possibilities to our students. In doing so, we need to make sure that ALL students, from all backgrounds, are part of this journey. But, how can we do this?

Most of our textbooks and materials tend to focus on the behaviors, the art and the linguistic trends of the dominant groups of our cultures. For instance, in a Spanish textbook you may find a little note about Equatorial Guinea, a Spanish speaking country in Africa, while there will be an entire chapter about Spain. The first step is reflection: we need to realize these inequalities to then be able to address them. Once we have reflected on them, and realized the bias, it is time to address them. In order to do so, students need to be exposed to a multiplicity of narratives that give voice not only to canonical sources and cultural groups, but also to minorities and minoritized groups that are part of and shape the landscapes of our cultures.

Through this website we aim to provide instructors with ideas, trainings and materials that would help them include the topic of social justice in their second language classroom.

Meet our team

Juan A. Godoy Peñas, Ph.D.

Co-Director of DEI-SLT

Claudia Quevedo-Webb, Ph.D.

Co-Director of DEI-SLT

Resources

Learn how to design materials

Here you can find a lesson plan and a unit plan template to guide you when designing your own materials.

Explore key concepts

In this section you will find important information about keys aspects of second language teaching, social justice, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Access teaching resources

You can also find full units as well as lesson plans, which combine linguistic and social justice goals for all level according to the ACTFL guidelines. You can find different texts (images, videos, articles, tweets, ads, etc.) that can be used to include non-traditional perspectives of cultural topics.

Unit and Lesson plans >

Social justice oriented texts >

Bibliography

Here you will find different bibliographic resources about important articles that deal with second language teaching, diversity, identity and social justice. 

Get Involved

Submit materials

If you develop your own materials based on the templates and texts provided here, or you have other materials that focus on social justice that you would like to share, we encourage you to submit them, so we can make them available to other educators upon review. Materials in all languages are welcomed.

Please contact us via email and we will respond to you with further instructions. Thanks for participating.

If you have any questions or want to contact us, please feel free to email us at: