Language Education Speaker Series
The Language Education Speaker Series at BU Wheelock College of Education & Human Development brings well-known scholars in the field of applied linguistics to campus to discuss their work. These talks are open to all members of the BU community, as well as scholars and students of applied linguistics throughout the Greater Boston area.
Upcoming Events
¿Soy Acaso Negra?: A Testimonio on the Erasure of Black Latines within, and beyond, Bilingual Education.
María Cioè–Peña, University of Pennsylvania
Thursday, October 5th, 2023
5:00–6:30 pm (ET)
Photonics Center
8 St Mary’s St
Room 210
Boston, MA 02215
Black erasure remains a large issue within bilingual education with the standard association of Blackness in the U.S., often, equated with African American identity and English monolingualism. Conversely, most bilingual programming in the U.S. serves Spanish-users, and bilingual education research tends to center Spanish-using Latinx students and communities. Across these contexts, the focus is on language and an imagined mixed-race (i.e, mestizo) collective, centering culture to circumvent race and treating language as connective yet racially neutral. As a result, addressing issues of anti-Blackness is often viewed as beyond the scope of bilingual education. However, as critical scholars have shown, language and perceptions of language users are not racially-neutral and practices that are rooted in this ideology create more harm than good. Black people exist within Latin America, the Latin American diaspora, and bilingual education settings. Thus, Black erasure in bilingual education upholds anti-Blackness and model minority narratives in education overall and results in tangible exclusion and oppression for Black bi/multilinguals. Supported by theory and history, in this presentation, I “makes visible the internal and external pressures that have contributed to silencing my voice” as a bilingual Black Latina to shed light on the continued erasure of Black students in bilingual education programs and research.
About Dr. María Cioè-Peña
As a bilingual/biliterate, neurodiverse researcher, María examines the intersections of language, disability, race and education policy. She focuses specifically on Latinx bilingual children with dis/abilities, their families and their ability to access multilingual and inclusive learning spaces within public schools. María’s two-time award-winning dissertation focused on the experiences of Spanish-speaking mothers raising emergent bilinguals labeled as disabled. Maria’s work is featured in multiple journals including Urban Review; Education Forum; Bilingual Research Journal; International Journal of Inclusive Education, as well as contributed to multiple edited volumes. Her book, (M)othering Labeled Children: Bilingualism and Disability in the Lives of Latinx Mothers, published by Multilingual Matters in 2021. And, In 2022, she received the Early Career Award from AERA’s Bilingual Research SIG. María is currently an Assistant Professor in Educational Linguistics at The University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and a Spencer/National Academy of Education post-doctoral fellow.
Understanding Wampanoag Culture Through Wôpanâak Language
Dr. Nitana Hicks Greendeer, Brown University
Tuesday, October 24th, 2023
5:00–6:30 pm (ET)
School of Theology Building
745 Commonwealth Avenue
Room B19
Boston, MA 02215
The Wampanoag Nation has been reclaiming its language for over three decades. In 2016, the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project opened a school to help achieve this goal. Recently transitioned to a program of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, Weetumuw School aims to provide Wampanoag children with an education that is firmly grounded in their culture. The effort to raise a new generation of Wampanoag people who know from a young age the values and responsibility of being a part of their community, is one that the whole tribe must undertake together. In this undertaking, older generations are learning too, and for those committed to the process, the community strengthens. Learning Wôpanâak Language is a critical piece, as it provides a direct link to the ancestors who spoke this language.
This talk will discuss how Wampanoag people are participating in this cultural revitalization both personally and as a community through their understanding of Wôpanâak Language, and how the cultural health of all is reflected in the children at Weetumuw School.
About Dr. Nitana Hicks Greendeer
Dr. Nitana Hicks Greendeer, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, has worked for over 20 years with her tribe as a Wôpanâak language teacher, researcher, and curriculum developer, and now as the Head of Weetumuw Katnuhtôhtâeekamuq, the culture and language school. She is also presently a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council. Dr. Hicks Greendeer also teaches at Brown University as an adjunct professor in the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program in the American Studies Department. Through her education, language, and academic work, Dr. Hicks Greendeer works to give Wampanoag children positive, culturally relevant educational experiences as a means of decolonization and prevention to increase personal and community wellness.
Previous Events in the Series
April 11, 2023
Researching Language Learning and Multilingualism: From Social Justice to a Decolonial Lens?
Lourdes Ortega, Georgetown University
April 3, 2023
Navigating language learning as a non-binary student: Insights into diverse experiences from participatory research with non-binary youth
Julia Donnelly Spiegelman, UMASS Boston
November 2, 2022
What Effect Do Heritage Languages Have on Majority English in Adolescent and Adult Heritage Speaker Bilinguals?
Shanley Allen, University of Kaiserslautern
September 26, 2022
Biliteracy as Property: The Promise and Perils of Seal of Biliteracy and Dual Language Programming through an Equity Lens
Chris Chang-Bacon, University of Virginia
March 28, 2022
Language Learning Apps: Do They Really Work?
Shawn Loewen, Michigan State University
February 22, 2022
Enacting a Critical Translingual Approach in Teacher Development
Kate Seltzer, Rowan University
November 16, 2021
Measuring L2 Grit Not Once, But Twice, and Exploring How Much Learners Need it to Succeed
Paula Winke, Michigan State University
October 26, 2021
Complex Dynamic Systems Theory—Learning-Centered Teaching
Diane Larsen-Freeman, University of Michigan
February 8, 2021
Shifting the Discourse from Deficit to Difference: Understanding the Cognitive Neuroscience of Learning in Bilingual Learners
Gigi Luk, McGill University