[00:00:55] Sanchia Rodrigues (she/her): Hello and welcome back to another episode of All Things EAP. I'm Sanchia Rodrigues at the University of Warwick in the UK.

[00:01:04] Xiaoqing Bi (she/her): Hi, and I'm Xiaoqing Bi at Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University in China.
As usual, we've got a great discussion lined up for you today. You're going to hear from Olive Nabukeera, Geoffrey Nsanja and Laurietta Essien at the University of Leeds in the UK, as well as Quanisha Charles at North Central College in the USA. Now, Olive, Geoff, Laurie, and Quanisha all come from very different backgrounds, as you will hear in this episode. However, they do have one thing in common. They're all Black academics working in EAP, and that's what today's episode is all about.

[00:01:42] Sanchia Rodrigues (she/her): I know we both really connected with this episode. Xiaoqing, which part stood out the most to you? 

[00:01:47] Xiaoqing Bi (she/her): Yeah, the part when Olive spoke about intersectionality, the idea that it's rarely just one factor that shifts our teaching experiences and practice, but rather a combination of multiple elements. So as a Chinese academic teaching EAP in an international university here in China, I'm not in the minority contextually, but sometimes my experience as an Asian academic can definitely feel quite different compared to other teachers.

[00:02:19] Sanchia Rodrigues (she/her): What I loved was how they took those kind of shorter personal reflections on their experiences in the workplace, like you mentioned, and connected them right through to these huge social and political issues like capitalism and decolonization.

[00:02:34] Xiaoqing Bi (she/her): Yeah, yeah. It's also made me reflect on how our unique backgrounds, identities and the institutions or the environments we work in all interact to shape our experiences in very nuanced ways.

[00:02:47] Sanchia Rodrigues (she/her): Definitely. and we hope that you enjoy listening to it as much as we did. 

[00:02:53] Olive Nabukeera (she/her): Um, welcome everyone. My name is Olive Nabukeera, and I'm a lecturer of English for Academic Purposes at the University of Leeds in England. As someone who's a Black African, specifically Ugandan, and who has taught in different contexts across Africa, the United States, and the UK, I've seen firsthand how rare it is to find others of my racial or ethnic background in academia. And I know that my experience isn't unique as studies highlight the lack of racial and ethnic diversity among English language instructors from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. So for this podcast, I wanted to bring together academics from various Black backgrounds to share their views on key topics in our field, and also offer a perspective that is not as dominant in EAP TESOL discourse:, the Black practitioner perspective. Now, I recognize that even the term Black can be problematic as it tends to generalize. In The Good Immigrant, Varaidzo talks about the idea of while being Black can be a shared experience, not all Black experiences are the same. There's no singular way to be Black, no universal set of experiences. We all share the stereotype that can accommodate the diverse array of personalities, histories and ethnic backgrounds that Black people possess. And so, with that in mind, I'm excited to welcome our panelists today, Dr. Quanisha Charles, Dr. Geoffrey Nsanja, and Ms Laurietta Essien.

[00:04:24] Quanisha Charles (she/her): Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Quanisha Charles. I'm currently an Associate Professor of English at North Central College in Illinois, USA. , I have worked in various contexts in South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the U. S. 

[00:04:40] Geoffrey Nsanja (he/him): My name is Geoff Nsanja. I have been teaching English for Academic Purposes for about 16 years now. I am a member of the Language Centre at the University of Leeds, and before joining Leeds, I taught EAP at the University of Malawi. Now, the thing that really made me interested to join this panel is the understanding that, as Ding and Monbec put it, EAP is predominantly white and there is hardly any talk about racialized identities in EAP, so being Black myself, I thought I could add a voice to what is missing in EAP at the moment. 

[00:05:19] Laurietta Essien (she/her): Hello. My name is Laurietta Essien and I am an EAP practitioner also at the University of Leeds. The reason I'm really interested in this conversation is because in the different iterations of my teaching, I have been either the only person, um, or one of very few in a predominantly white space, so I think it's really important that we have the opportunity to have such conversations with each other, so thank you for having me.

[00:05:44] Olive Nabukeera (she/her): Thank you all. I'd like to start by talking about your own racial identity. How do you self identify and how much of yourself do you, um, bring into your work, into your research, into the classroom and also in terms of your own scholarship? For example, I'm Ugandan, and I'm from the Buganda tribe, and I'm East African. While I've always known who I am, I think my sense of identity shifted. When I moved to the United States, I often say that I arrived in America as an African and left as Black. I moved to the U. S. in my late 20s as an established English teacher with three degrees, um, from reputable universities. So I knew who I was, but then I realized very quickly that Blackness, um, in the U. S. has sort of deeply ingrained meanings that are foreign, um, to people that move there from other countries and cultures. Um, and so I was constantly confronted with assumptions about who I was before I had the chance to prove to my, you know, prove myself. Whether it was in class with students or with coworkers, with employers. Um, and so one of the reasons why I'm doing the work that I do now, and one of the reasons why my doctoral research was based in Black experiences in the U. S. is largely because of my own experiences. Um, and so for me as a form of identity resistance, I had to learn how one to be Black again, in the context of the U. S. and also then how that informs the work that I do in the classroom. So I wonder for you if, um, your entrance into English Language Teaching and EAP, um, was informed by all your own experiences of race, of belonging, or whether it was a different path.

[00:07:41] Laurietta Essien (she/her): OK so just thinking then, based on your question, I was reminded of um, Chimamanda Adichie in Americanah, and when she said that she didn't know she was Black until she got off the plane. Um, so I'm Nigerian, West African I started with a CELTA as a means of, funding my, my parallel career, almost. I never set out to become a teacher. In fact, being Nigerian, my options were not education. Teaching was never really an option that was offered by my parents. It was the typical, you know, accountancy, business, law or medicine.  When I start to think of it now I think one of my issues was when I was applying for jobs abroad and I was applying for positions and I had to put my picture on the applications, and I just never was getting any interviews, and I just didn't know why and then I took my photo off, and then I had a few interviews, and, ah, okay, so that's how to do it, and, you know, some people were a bit shocked, for example, when they saw me, um, you know, online, but, you know, I, I did manage to get a job. 
And then even then when I got my first English Language Teaching job abroad, people would not believe I was a teacher. I was in Italy, and they would assume that I was a woman of the night, uh, so to speak. So, I had kind of a little bit of a battle in the classroom, but actually overall people, once they, knew me were okay. Um, when it comes to my scholarship, because I came to it quite late, I didn't come to it with any mind of making a big change. My scholarship kind of is, is still evolving, I'd like to say. So, I, I'm interested in broader issues like widening participation and, um, you know, class and gender and how they can affect access to education and things like that. 

[00:09:36] Geoffrey Nsanja (he/him): And the quote which Laurie, you, you, you mentioned, um, I never thought I was Black until I came to the UK. I taught EAP in Africa in the University of Malawi for about 10 years. I, I never thought anything about my racial identity and that's why perhaps for me, I prefer to, to, to call this racialized identity because there is the agency side of things. It's the experience you go through that makes you kind of aware of your racialized identity.  So I taught in Malawi for about 10 years, teaching EAP, and I never thought about my race or my racialized identity until I came to the UK, when I started getting this sense that I look different. And, uh, there was an incident that happened when I got to the UK because of how I was misrepresented in a conference program where a picture, a random picture of someone else was put to my name. So it, it kind of heightened my awareness of, oh, hang on a minute, I am Black. But then it was this idea of being lumped into any other type of a Black person. The sense I got from there is like, um, you can take a random picture of a Black person and that's Geoff. So any picture of a Black person can represent who Geoff is. So this kind of, um, heightened my awareness of my racialized identity. I felt racialized. I felt marked. And, uh, to come to the question of scholarship, I have always been interested in politics of representation. So way, way back, in my undergraduate studies, I wanted to look at politics of representation from a feminist point of view. And then for my PhD, I looked at identity construction in written discourse among students who are making the transition to university life in Malawi, and the idea in identity grew from there. But when I was marked in this way, when I was racialized in this way, I kind of like felt as a response, let me bring something of my background to my scholarship, to my pedagogy, and one of the things I currently do is to explore EAP through the Ubuntu lens. I'm always thinking about encouraging students to bring their own lingua culture to the classroom, to their own work, as a way of perhaps engaging in a bit of epistemic disobedience.

[00:12:11] Quanisha Charles (she/her): I think this is a, is definitely a complicated question. Within my particular context, within the U. S., we would celebrate the markedness of being who you are, right? So whenever we talk about Black or African American, we use those terms interchangeably and we talk about the celebration of it, so that's why we have things like Black History Month and so on and so forth, um, celebrating Black culture. 
And so it wasn't until I decided to venture out of the U. S. and actually go to, South Korea, where, being marked, it was so visibly in my face that this is a horrible thing to be, right? And I think here in the U. S., there's a way of disguising it maybe a little bit more. But there, it's perfectly normal to say you need to be white. and so when I was teaching in South Korea, my first time actually going into the classroom, students say, where are you from? Africa, right? And so they really grappled with the idea of you being the person, you are coming from the U. S. and so that was eye opening for me that I need to talk more about what the U. S. represents and who are some people who are in the U. S. and what the U. S. looks like, right? And so students were holding to this idea of, you know, what an American must look like and what their expectations are. 

[00:13:32] Olive Nabukeera (she/her): At least I know for myself when students would ask, oh, where are you from? Um, there was also like, do people in Uganda speak English or I've had people ask me, oh, no, no, no, no, no, you said you're Ugandan, but really where are you from? Um, because again, of the accent is that perception that, oh, she cannot just be African. She has to be from somewhere else. 

[00:13:53] Quanisha Charles (she/her): Absolutely. I think there was a little bit of sense of ignorance, um, both on their side and mine, because I also had this idea that they should be aware of American culture already. And so it was presumptuous on my end to assume that as well. And so I find I found myself actually learning more Korean language in order to connect and establish rapport with my students, and when I started doing that, I started to see our relationship really grow. And so that was pretty helpful for me. 
Um, however, when I actually started to look at the linguistic climate of, um, what does it mean to be an English professional in the global context, particularly in Korea. And I started seeing these marketing strategies. And so to have a white face or to be white, this was closely tight knitted with a marketing strategy to get more money. And so I don't, I'm laughing because it's the audacity of people. So some people would use faces of foreigners and just put it on a billboard and market their schools. Um, I would see some, here's some colleagues saying that they found their picture somewhere without their permission. Um, just to get money from people to come study English with a foreigner, right? You start to realize how English is the symbol for everything. It's a symbol for marketing purposes. It's a symbol for power, but also you start to realize how, um, many people are exploited. Right? Um, for the English language, for the money. And so I particularly looked at the lens of individuals or teachers who identified as Black or African American.
That was a part of my research. What was happening in the classroom? Did they, you know, were they being, uh, introduced to any type of racialized discourse in terms of being asked, where are you from? Why is your skin black? And so I just wanted to hear about these other experiences because I had a strong feeling. I couldn't be the only person in South Korea who was having this experience. And I saw a pattern of teachers saying, yeah, but this is how I do it. You know, like this is it's typical. So they were normalizing. This is something that you probably can come to expect. Um, but it's more so what you do with these types of, uh, you know, type of microaggressions when you're faced with it. What do you do? Do you educate students? How do you, what do you do with that information? And so I started exploring ways in which we can think about pedagogical strategies and education. Right. And I was also mindful of my position, still being an American and a Westerner to some people coming over and suggesting this is what I think is best for you to do in order to accommodate those who are coming in. And people were looking at me like, you already have a lot of power, you are speaking the English language. And so when we start talking about these ideas of diversity, equity, inclusion, to some people that's viewed as a luxury, right? Whereas we're just trying to learn the English language. We don't have time to think about diversity, equity, inclusion. 

[00:17:00] Olive Nabukeera (she/her): I was just sort of thinking about the idea of intersectionality where most times it's not just about one race for, for the teacher. It is also issues to do with nationality and, and age and gender. Um, so the layering does definitely play a part in, in you know, sort of our experiences. 

[00:17:22] Quanisha Charles (she/her): it's like, where, what's my foundation on this? I try to approach everything I do now through the lens of LOVE as a method, and that's, that's one of my most recent articles that you can find in TESOL Journal. And LOVE is an acronym that stands for how are you Lifting up others? Offering support, Valuing others, and Evolving yourself as a teacher when you're trying to introduce strategies you think are best for a particular context that you were not necessarily raised in. You know, I understand that idea of colonial aspects so ... that idea of decolonizing is still very crucial when we're thinking about English and positionality of Black teachers. 

[00:18:03] Olive Nabukeera (she/her): I wanted us to, um, move on to the topic of decoloniality because again, like we've talked about in our field, race is ever present because English itself is tied to the histories of colonialism. Um, and when we talk about decolonizing the curriculum, sometimes as teachers of English or as practitioners or academics, we're often caught in between helping students succeed in academic contexts, but also we're working in the systems that embedded, um, in, you know, have a colonial past. 

[00:18:34] Geoffrey Nsanja (he/him): Yeah, um, the, the issue of, decolonizing the curriculum, especially in an EAP contexthas got quite a long way to go, I think, because like you said, we're teaching English with its, um, history and its roots in a colonial mindset and a colonial culture. For me, decolonization starts with, um, accepting the sort of hybridity which my students bring to the classroom. I try as much as possible to move away from normative assumptions about what is correct English . 

[00:19:08] Olive Nabukeera (she/her): I know, um, teaching EAP, especially International Foundation, you know, we ask students to write a reflective essay, but it's based on a very Western-centric framework that doesn't really account for the collective reflection that in some cultures it's more collective. Um, so I wonder as a, um, a professional working in a Western context um, or in other contexts, where sort of English is the language of instruction, and it has a lot of these colonial, um, dimensions to it, how do you navigate these contradictions? Do you, um, have you faced challenges in trying to decolonize your own teaching practice? Um, are there any tools or teaching tips?

[00:19:52] Geoffrey Nsanja (he/him): So, I look at my students from different cultures, uh, learning to write in English for Academic Purposes as, um, being in that kind of like a Third Space. Homi Bhabha talks about a Third Space. And one of the things I feel works well in trying to empower my students from that perspective is to encourage them to find, um, um, something of epistemic value from where they're coming from and try to develop their studies around that. And of course, citing my own example of using Ubuntu in my scholarship kind of drives the point home when I talk to my students. 
So for me, when, when it comes to trying to decolonize EAP, um, it's about encouraging this kind of hybridity, making students feel comfortable to bring this hybridity to the fore, in terms of the sort of linguistic and epistemic resources, which they are using in their knowledge construction. So it's not just about the, the, the normative way of speaking, for example, or the normative ways of writing, because I look at um, writing and the sort of writer voice as the sound of the person on the page, as part of their accent. And I do try as much as possible to encourage them to say it's okay to sound the way you would want to sound. Now when I say it, I know there's a long way to go because I know there's a whole systemic structure that is yet to accept that kind of thing. I know they're writing for their supervisors. They're writing for other lecturers, other tutors in other departments who are yet to perhaps have this understanding that when students come from different parts of the world and they write for Academic Purposes using English, they are bringing with them their own linguistic resources. 
So for me, I think the work of decolonizing EAP in my classroom starts from there to encourage and empower my students to think and be okay with being different in the sort of resources they're bringing to class and how they can use them in a meaningful way. 

[00:21:49] Laurietta Essien (she/her): I, I agree with Geoff. I think there's definitely a long way to go. Um, you know, if we think about it, students, the students are generally are buying into the idea that they should come to England or come to, um, a Western country and learn to improve their English, you know, so for my classrooms I am open to discussions on race, um, on, you know, the different backgrounds that the students come from.
Um, and I think it's, you know, it's about for me, I think, you know, reducing the distance between the students and between me and the students. So, you know, referring to the other question before, um, you know, I do bring myself into my classroom. Um, I think it definitely reduces the distance, but I do find that sometimes when it comes to EAP that we're happy to, you know, take the students money. It's like, we'll take it, we'll take your money, but we don't want your culture. You know, that is kind of a strange, um, a strange thing there. So you know what I mean? So, so, we're happy to take your money, but we want you to kind of disregard your cultural norms, the practices that you've essentially, you know, worked with for, for the majority of students, 18 years of their life and just, you know, disregard that. Um, but I do think also as well, the, the, the, the problem, I think, or the difficulty for me is that, as Geoff says as well, that you are, you do have to consider who the students are writing for, for example, assessments that they have to do, I do remind them that, you know, regardless of, this sounds terrible, regardless of where you've come from, you do have to remember who it is you're writing for. So do your work, get your paper, but keep hold of yourself where possible. Um, does that, does that make sense? It's like, do what you need to do, do what you need to do, don't lose yourself, but remember who you're writing for. Because those are the people that are in power, the people that are marking your work, essentially.

[00:23:35] Olive Nabukeera (she/her): Don't lose yourself. 

[00:23:37] Laurietta Essien (she/her): Don't lose yourself, yeah, 

[00:23:39] Olive Nabukeera (she/her): As we wrap up, Quanisha, any thoughts on sort of decolonising the curriculum? 

[00:23:45] Quanisha Charles (she/her): So when I think about decolonizing specifically within the English profession, I think it's important that we allow students to Think about their ownership of the English language, starting with themselves. What does it mean to speak English? And I think also you will see some objectives or the purposes for each student, why they are learning English. And it's all contingent upon which context you're in, right? Maybe for college level students, they're able to articulate why they want to speak English. And for the most part, many of them say to do international business. We know that the English language is marketed and associated with a business language. Um, it's affiliated with a language of power. And so it's kind of no way of getting around that because it's so commercialized in that heavy sense. If I want to do business or gain access to more business, then I need to adopt the English language, right? And so, I want to just name it and say it's already a colonial enterprise. However, when we are going into the classroom, it's important for students to highlight who they are when it comes to the English language. Does it change your identity? How do you represent and how do you take ownership of the English language? Because the language is so exploited, everyone has the right to it, right. And so beginning using that, adopting that for yourself. How does that influence you and who you are? And letting students start with themselves and talk about the English language within their home context and how they use that, then it becomes more of a tool. Thinking about decolonization, I think when we also tap into the ideas about race, there has been so much talk about what does race mean?

[00:25:23] Olive Nabukeera (she/her): Race in the classroom is still very, very controversial, not just for, you know, teachers of, of other races, even for, for, for Black teachers, it can be uncomfortable. We do not know where to begin or where to start or in what ways, you know, how much we can discuss it, especially within the context of EAP, when we're preparing students for academic work at UK universities, for example, in my own case. 

[00:25:48] Quanisha Charles (she/her): We know that in terms of biologically, it's, it's really not existent in terms of who we are, but people tend to rationalize it as talking about the human race. Now we're operating in the age of technology, AI, it's important for the human race to exist. We don't want to be replaced by these digital beings or, you know, whatever you want to call them. But we're also aware of how it's socially constructed and how it impacts people of color. And so there was a lot of talk about whiteness of A. I. and what that means. But we tend to what we're noticing a shift in ways in which we talk about race and whiteness and how that still tends to place white individuals on a pedestal, and we need to decolonize that way of thinking as well. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm so thrilled that we had this conversation. I think it is very, very important, especially now when we're sort of having these conversations and on positionality and equity and diversity and inclusion. It has been a pleasure.

[00:26:49] Laura Richards: Back on the 1st of November, the University of Portsmouth hosted a professional issues meeting on issues and challenges in materials design. Michelle and I went down to Portsmouth from Leeds to attend and we were really, really impressed with the range and depth of discussions taking place on our principles and practices for materials design. Whilst the keynote address from Nigel Harwood examined how we research materials, from their content and consumption to their production, presenter talks and workshops covered a wide range of topics, including theoretical and socio-cultural approaches to materials design, the place of digital accessibility and artificial intelligence, insessional experiences and collaborations, ethical considerations and even approaches to paraphrasing in EAP materials. It was a great day, so we wanted to share some reflections with you. These come from the event, organizer, Alex Brunin and an event presenter Kelly Webb-Davis from the University of Oxford. Here they are looking back at the event.

[00:27:55] Alex Prunean: Hi, this is Alex Prunean, one of the organizers of BALEAP PIM here at University of Portsmouth. when we selected a theme for the event 'Challenges and Tensions in Material Design for English for Academic Purposes', what we wanted to do is to aim to highlight the dynamic landscape that we're navigating. A landscape where student needs, technological advancements and pedagogical goals are evolving at an incredible pace. A major driver of the theme is the growing role of technology, especially artificial intelligence and Kelly Webb-Davis workshops on artificial intelligence. for language adjustment shed light on the potential of AI to make EAP materials more accessible and tailored while preserving the human element crucial to, to language learning. I think the theme also brought an essential focus on inclusivity. Reflected in session on mobile optimized and accessible materials design and those presentations reminded me personally of the need to consider diverse student backgrounds to create materials that are not only engaging but adaptable to varied learning environments and needs. On a personal note, I found the PIM quite invaluable in offering insights that enhance my own practice and inspire new ways to tackle the complex challenges of EAP materials design. And I hope that by organizing this event has given others this platform to share good practice, but also to reflect on the potential challenges that we are all currently facing.

[00:29:42] Kelly Webb-Davies: I had a great experience at the BALEAP PIM for Materials Design back at the beginning of the month in Portsmouth. In particular, I really noticed how people were grappling with the kind of changing digital landscape and all the affordances and challenges that brings to materials design. In particular, I really liked a talk by Amy Aisha Brown and Ella Ballinger. They were describing how they brought a kind of top down systematic change to making materials accessible and educating the people in their institution about how to go about that. And I also really liked Laura Richards' talk and she was addressing AI. Which is obviously a really disruptive technology in materials design and just in general. And I really liked how she was thinking about prioritizing the skills that students need to learn now and how that's changing and how that will change curriculum design. 

[00:30:38] Laura Richards: I promise I didn't pay Kelly to say that! Many thanks to Alex and Kelly for sharing their reflections on the PIM. If you'd like to know more about the talks that were given at the event, there's a link to the final program with all the abstracts and presenter bios in the show notes for this episode. 

Thank you so much for listening to All Things EAP. We really hope you've enjoyed it and that you've found something interesting or useful in it. We really want to hear from you as well. So if you'd like to share a comment, suggestion or an insight into something that we've talked about on one of the episodes, please send us an email or voice note at podcast@baleap.org, but you can also get in touch through X, formerly known as Twitter and our YouTube channel, which are both @AllThingsEAP. Thank you again for listening, and we hope that you can join us for the next episode. 
Take care. Bye-bye.