Education and community members alike must be aware of discriminatory practices, especially linguistically in assessments. Assessments must be inclusive and equitable to audiences and prospective audiences if they truly intend to address learners’ needs. This session aims to explore and prevent linguistically discriminatory assessments and pedagogy against (language) learners.

"Participants in this presentation will learn to: ● Understand the difference and overlap of conscious and unconscious linguistic discrimination; ● Employ formal and informal assessments that develop greater awareness and preventative skills towards linguistic discriminatory practices; ● Build a more empathetic and/or sympathetic teacher-learner relationship and pedagogy that encourage learners to look for support preemptively and engage more throughout a term; ● Provide varied assessments which support learners’ success both in and out learning settings; ● Facilitate an overall more inclusive and equitable classroom setting; and ● Be better allies in fostering student agency."

"Have you interacted with people who speak the same language as you, especially when you have acquired it as your secondary language, but they still do not know what you are saying, then decide not to speak to you altogether? Or, they respond with, “what?” “Say that again.” “Can I speak to someone who speaks better English?” Alternatively, have you asked any of these? Or, have you interacted with people who are in the process of learning your primary language, but they prefer to speak to someone that shares their primary language due to comfort, confidence, skills, etc.? Well, you may be facing and/or practicing linguistic discrimination. Please note that this presentation will not delve into the overall concept and practice of discrimination, but it will touch on it, specifically in the educational and linguistic fields. Discrimination – in itself – can be done consciously or unconsciously by a person, group, or entity towards another person, group, or entity. This can be categorized under the overarching concept of conscious and unconscious bias. In most cases, language teachers – as culturally and linguistically competent as they should be – conduct themselves in the classroom with unconscious biases towards language learners; meaning, that the intent is not malicious, especially since the discriminatory practice is due to a lack of awareness and/or control (Hasa, 2021). Since one of the important goals of TCC is to encourage students, faculty, and staff to strive for equity and inclusion and to continuously pursue professional development opportunities, it is imperative to further observe learners, specifically English language students, that face linguistic discrimination in their daily lives (e.g., education, occupation, errands, family life). Administrators and educators should know and be aware of their diversified student population and the daily struggles they may or may not have. People, across the world, face discrimination in some form, especially when it comes to language regardless of the person being monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual. This may be overlooked, but I have personally witnessed my students and others facing this. It, unfortunately, affects their learning paths and affective filters (e.g., self-efficacy, motivation) (Higgins, Nettell, Furukawaa, Sakodaa, 2012). Understanding the challenges that students face outside the classroom are just as important as those that occur within the classroom. In fact, some students may face linguistic discrimination from fellow classmates, their educators, and others in the school setting, either consciously or unconsciously. That said, to strive for greater (cultural) competence and infrastructure regarding accessible education, diversity, inclusion, and belonging, administrators and educators should set the tone to not only achieve self-growth and more inclusive and diversified pedagogy, but more so for students and for facilitating a welcoming language learning environment, where anyone and everyone can freely express themselves and not be ignored due to their language production or background. Linguistic discrimination occurs often in society, and, unfortunately, it may also be the case in the classroom as Khan (2019) reports. We, as the those who are on the frontlines and directly involved with people’s education, may tend to overlook this aspect of discrimination because there are so many other aspects to be respectful about when it comes to our students, coworkers, and counterparts outside the school setting. This presentation and its takeaways aim to increase your awareness and practices. Simply, this fits into the important ideals of the educational field because there is a weight on educators, like me, not only to understand the content that we are teaching and to teach it well, but to also consider our students’ and coworkers’ backgrounds (e.g., culture, race, gender, language(s)), especially before, during, and after assessing. We have to be aware of the challenges that our students are facing in and out of the classroom setting. These situations assist us in gathering the students’ needs and, thereafter, better developing curricula and assessments and frankly, being a better human. The continuous improvement and assessment key stakeholders (i.e., accountability partners) in our educational courses, programs, institutes, and beyond are not only ourselves and our capacity for empathy and sympathy, but also our fellows, students, and community members. Focusing on the students, how many times can we-as faculty and staff-say that we learn from them as much as we teach/guide them. Education is a mutual relationship between teaching and learning. We can establish and maintain these partnerships by continually “checking in” on these stakeholders by welcoming constructive feedback, conducting surveys, encouraging and facilitating in- and out-of-class workshops, developing and administering progress tests and achievement tests, and assessing learners informally with monitoring and the completion of in-class activities. We provide our students a means of also attending trainings and professional developments outside of the classroom-both on and off campus. To not only be ambassadors of our college or district, but also better overall global citizens, listening to and understanding people, as best as possible. Of course, this is a non-exhaustive list; however, they are examples which can be adopted and refined in a traditional and non-traditional school setting. The data gathered in these assessments cannot only be applied to our current population, but future ones as well. It is ideal to stay ahead of “the curve” and be preventative than to be in “the curve” and try and resolve issues or plan as items arise. It is not as professional and sensitive. This presentation empowers educators specifically to ask and reflect on questions such as: Are my assessments linguistically inclusive of my audience and/or prospective audience? If not, how can I accommodate them as much as possible? Even starting from the grassroots level, how do I ensure and participate in my courses, programs, institutions, and community are fostering sustainable relationships and education? One answer is by listening and understanding. And to do so, continuous observation and improvement of our assessments and evaluations are a requirement. Are our assessments (i.e., formatting, organization, syntax, language use) linguistically biased? For example, interestingly enough, Canvas now has an embedded “Accessible Tracker” when creating a description with colored font or highlights, ensuring that what is published is accessible to audiences. However, what “accountability partner” do we have when desiring to publish a written text besides the consideration of color or when we speak? For now: peer reviewers (if applicable/accessible), ourselves, and our understanding of our audience and potential audience in what language(s) they speak/read, or better, the language(s) they do not speak/read. Further, education is not only confined in a classroom setting. It is vital that educators make curricula and activities as practical as possible. This can be done in the form of a language research project where the learner conducts research (e.g., readings, interviews) and reports back to class to present and share their findings with others. Afterward, the educator can require them to complete a self-reflection assessment regarding the linguistic and cultural competence they have developed. Similarly, encouraging and hosting intercultural events and activities, such as Language Speed Dating and Conversational Hour on hot/popular topics, will allow participants to become more aware of linguistic discrimination and have a greater sense of control of it which they face and/or practice. To broaden or expand the “assessment conversation” and the level of inclusion that each assessment has – whether formative or summative or formal or informal – is to also bring the assessment from the outside, in. Meaning, that educators can require their students to be advocates or allies themselves and research or educate themselves regarding linguistic discrimination, a specific language and/or culture, or attend and report on diversity, inclusion and belonging workshops, trainings, and conferences on- and off-campus. In addition to implementing refined formal and informal assessments and documents, directly providing on- and off-campus resources which educate audiences of linguistic discrimination, such as office information on diversity and inclusion, accessibility, and groups, clubs, and conferences, rather than just in onboarding processes or orientations can further illustrate the importance of continually sustaining inclusion and equity. From being more inclusive by adding an “Other, please explain” field to a non-exhaustive list of “What languages do you speak?” on an application to providing students a list and means of accessible language-appropriate resources on- and off-campus, educational settings can be one step closer to a truly inclusive and equitable entity and take pride in that and their diversity. By facilitating, completing, and learning from such assessments, tasks, and items, audience members, including the facilitators, will be able to have longer lasting partnerships. In order to mitigate linguistic discrimination, we should set the example, implement education and tendencies that challenge biases, and become more empathetic and sympathetic in the process. To sustain such non-discriminatory practices, we must integrate them into our core curriculum, pedagogy, environments, behavior, and attitudes."