"How do you do?": Diversity and inclusivity in the CALL community
Creators: name: Marandi, S. Susan
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2019
Subjects: Computer assisted language learning (CALL)
CALL/e-learning hegemonies
diversity
computer assisted language learning
CALL hegemonies
e-learning hegemonies
electronic imperialism
TEFL
ELT
inclusivity
Marandi
S. Susan Marandi
Alzahra University
CALL community
TESOL
CALL Teacher Education
virtual walls

description: As a learner and teacher of language, I remember hearing that “How do you do?” is merely<br> a polite form of communication, a common courtesy, and as such, only a rhetorical<br> question, to be answered in kind. The implication was that people weren’t necessarily<br> genuinely concerned about your well-being, and that if you were not in fact well, you should<br> not force this fact upon other people’s notice in response. Similarly, as a Muslim travelling<br> from Iran to various countries over the years, I have sometimes felt that the terms<br> “diversity” and “inclusivity” can also be somewhat rhetorical—a requirement of polite<br> society, to be sure, but not always to be taken too seriously. Accordingly, I would often<br> make an effort to be as unobtrusive as possible, and not force what I often perceived to<br> be a distasteful presence on the notice of others. Thankfully, this feeling of being<br> ostracized has been far less common while interacting with my colleagues within the<br> international CALL community, since it includes many wonderful people who go out of their<br> way to make minorities feel welcome in their midst. However, notwithstanding their<br> heartwarming and welcoming behavior, I believe it would be accurate to claim that, despite<br> our best intentions, we still do not always practice what we preach, and that different 2<br> groups are not always equally represented in our CALL community. This is all the more<br> disappointing due to the high expectations of multiculturalism and mutual respect created<br> by the predominance of networking in CALL communities, such as the large numbers of<br> people interacting online through social media, virtual exchanges and telecollaboration,<br> MOOCs, etc. Therefore, the current study attempts to scrutinize some of the venues<br> common to the international CALL community, in order to see whether people from all the<br> over the globe are being equally represented. It illustrates praiseworthy attempts made<br> to redress the balance, as well as pointing out areas which merit further attention.<br>
description: This paper was intended for the 20th International CALL Conference (CALL2019), with the theme Social CALL. My abstract was initially accepted, but after I sent the short paper for the proceedings, I was informed that my paper was considered to be too personal and that it would not appear in the conference proceedings. I was also informed that if I wanted to present my paper at the conference, my slides would need to be supervised first. Ultimately, I decided to withdraw my paper; however, since the issue is an important one for me and it seems unlikely that I will find a public venue where my voice can be heard, I decided to at least share the manuscript with you. Frankly, I have started to doubt whether it will be of interest to anyone but myself and a few close friends with similar experiences, but I felt that I owed it to myself and to those few to share it, nonetheless, not the least because I was shedding tears the whole time I was writing it, as I relived the experiences mentioned in these pages. Finally, I should mention that these words are not intended as a personal critique of any one individual in the CALL society, and should be read in the same spirit as they were intended; i.e., some thoughts to be shared among colleagues, friends, and peers, for the conference sub-theme: diversity and inclusiveness.
description: {"references": ["American anchor for Iranian TV says she was mistreated during US detention. (2019, January 25). Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/2019/jan/25/marzieh-hashemi-iran-press-tv-journalist-detention", "Lamy, M-N. &amp; Hampel, R. (2007). Online communication in language learning and teaching. NY: Palgrave Macmillan.", "Marandi, S. S. (2017). Virtual walls and bans: E-learning/CALL hegemonies in the Iranian context. In J. Colpaert, A. Aerts, R. Kern, &amp; M. Kaiser (Eds.), CALL in Context \u2013 7 Proceedings of the XVIIIth International CALL Conference, UC Berkeley, California (pp. 488-495).", "Marandi, S. S., Karimi Alavijeh, K., &amp; Nami, F. (2015). Layers of CALL hegemonies: an Iranian experience. In F. Helm, L. Bradley, M. Guarda, &amp; S. Thou\u00ebsny (Eds), Critical CALL \u2013 Proceedings of the 2015 EUROCALL Conference, Padova, Italy (pp. 386- 391). Dublin: Research-publishing.net. http://dx.doi.org/10.14705/ rpnet.2015.000363", "Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. Cambridge/Massachusetts: MIT Press."]}