Abstract
In recent years, the terms “accessibility” and “inclusion” have become increasingly important in the field of education and language teaching. The application of guidelines such as those from the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) helps to remove barriers to learning difficulties in the language classroom by designing inclusive and glocal educational interventions, based on the linguistic and cognitive profiles of students. To do that, special attention should be given to the reflective practice (Dewey, 1933; Farrell, 2022; Schön, 1983; Wallace, 1991), including its emotional affective aspects. In this paper we would like to highlight the importance of the prac-tice of reflection as a primary tool for ensuring inclusion and accessibility when teaching and learning a foreign language, and to stress the power of observation and reflection cycles as an educational device oriented to future action: an action that is new, justified, effective, just, and motivating. We will illustrate this by drawing on my experience teaching foreign languages (FL) at the University of Cape Town, moving as “teacher-researcher”, and utilizing the reflec-tion practice firstly as a primary tool for the creation of the content to be used in class, and sec-ondly to observe the interaction between the learners and the new inputs that are gradually ex-perimented. Guaranteeing equality and real access in the FL classroom can, in addition to pre-venting loss of motivation, stimulate greater interest in the language and, in the long term, pro-duce lasting trans-formations for the individuals and their society, in the logic of No one left behind.
Author Information
Chiara Ronchetti, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Paper Information
Conference: ACEID2025
Stream: Curriculum Design & Development
This paper is part of the ACEID2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
Full Paper
View / Download the full paper in a new tab/window
Comments
Powered by WP LinkPress