International Women’s Day – mini-event

About the webinars

THEMIS project (Evaluating gender equity and equality in the English language teacher curriculum, ICT policies and learning materials in Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa)

Speakers: Ayca Gunaydin Kaymakcioglu, Michael Thomas, Maureen Sindisiwe Kalane

This webinar introduces the THEMIS project, which evaluates the English language curriculum of teacher training courses, ICT policies and learning materials in Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. THEMIS adopts a mixed method research approach and produces case studies from low-and middle-income countries to discuss gender inequalities aimed at teacher trainers, trainee teachers, curriculum designers and policymakers.

In this webinar, we provide an overview of the project and address the current themes and directions in gender and language education research. The webinar will also highlight preliminary findings on textbook analysis research from Botswana, one of the case countries.

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CEDAW in ELT

Speaker: Elizabeth S Coleman

This talk will examine how EFL and EAL can contribute to the aims of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the meeting of the 5th UN Sustainable Development Goal (gender equality).

Beginning by examining the representation of women in ELT materials, the talk will then move to look at the benefits of educating women and girls, including a focus on the benefit of learning English for migrant women.

At the end of the talk, attendees will have an enhanced knowledge of CEDAW and how they can support the development of women within their classrooms.

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Gender-ing ELT: What can we do in our everyday classes?

Speakers: Dr Vander Viana, Dr Aisling O’Boyle

Much of our attention in English language teaching can be dedicated to the language itself – for example, grammatical structures and thematically related sets of words.

In our language classrooms, there may be less attention given to social issues in teaching materials and fewer opportunities provided for students to engage in social issues.

As teachers, we may be overlooking the contribution that we can make to the education of our English language students as individuals who are fully engaged with global issues. Drawing on a research project conducted in several countries, this webinar shows how we can embed gender-related topics in our pedagogical practice.

To this end, we draw on activities designed by teachers and student teachers around the globe. Collectively, these activities illustrate how we can overcome existing barriers (e.g. lack of relevant pedagogical materials) and bring together the focus on both language and socially relevant themes.

We would hold that we, all English language teachers, should welcome gender-related topics to our classes with a view to educating gender-aware students, reducing gender issues in our present-day society and contributing to internationally relevant sustainable development goals.

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