Laura Mayron Presents at ACTFL
Laura Mayron, a doctoral student in our Hispanic Language & Literatures program, tells us about her recent trip to present at the ACTFL conference in New Orleans.
My trip to New Orleans for the annual American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) conference was filled with the spirit of collaboration from the start: shortly after arriving the airport, I crossed paths with my colleague and friend Liliane Dusewoir, who let me share her ride to the French Quarter (Merci, Liliane!), and it only got better from there!
The discussion also expanded in new and exciting directions, with attendees bringing up the potential for gender neutral ways to address groups of students, inclusive demonstrative adjectives, and a debate about which entities—the Royal Spanish Academy or the Spanish-speaking masses—should be the ones to lead the charge in enacting inclusive language.
My presentation, entitled “Queer Accessibility: Gender Neutral Pronouns in Spanish Language Classrooms,” was based on a Brown Bag Lunch talk that I had given in October 2017, but this time focused specifically on Spanish. My talk was held in roundtable format, designed to take the form of a presentation and conversation with ten other people at my table—but I was in for a surprise when nearly thirty people showed up. We were quickly able to adjust by putting several tables together to accommodate three times the expected crowd, a move that felt symbolic of the larger topic of inclusivity and accessibility. The time went by all too quickly as we moved between the presentation, small group discussions, and a conversation as a whole about possibilities for gender neutral pronouns and adjective endings. The discussion also expanded in new and exciting directions, with attendees bringing up the potential for gender neutral ways to address groups of students, inclusive demonstrative adjectives, and a debate about which entities—the Royal Spanish Academy or the Spanish-speaking masses—should be the ones to lead the charge in enacting inclusive language.
I couldn’t have asked for a better first experience at ACTFL’s convention, and hope to return next year to present the talk in a traditional session that can accommodate an even larger audience. As an educator, a student, and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I am thrilled to see that so many educators are passionately invested in implementing inclusive language in their classrooms. The classroom—and an entire language community—can only be enriched when everyone is given the tools to respect and uplift their identity.