Could you spare a moment to answer some questions for my dissertation?

Hi everyone,

I am a UK undergraduate student studying English Language & Linguistics with a focus on teaching (just qualified in July 2020!). I am currently completing my final year dissertation. The study aims to find out if second language English teachers think that any bias/anti-discrimination training available to them is effective and helps them in the classroom (or if none is available, what provisions could be put in place). It also aims to identify areas for improvement, based upon teacher opinions.

Due to the pandemic, I am unable to run in-person interviews for the second stage of my study. I am also struggling to get participants for online interviews - in light of this, I have decided to simply type out a few questions I would have asked in interview, and if anyone feels like answering them, I would really appreciate it! Even if you have never attended a bias training programme, please consider answering the questions as your answers are just as valuable to me.

Just to let you know, your responses will be collected and stored anonymously and no reference will be made to you as an individual, or your institution, in the final project. Participation in this research project is voluntary and you may withdraw from the research at any time by contacting me with the email within the participant information sheet (https://drive.google.com/file/d/12gpc-W ... qvwfm/view).

So without further ado, here are the questions I'd like to ask;

Section 1 – your classes & work
1. Could you describe a typical lesson in your classroom? (Incl. type of class & learners, gender, ethnicity & nationality, socioeconomic status).
2. If I were to sit in on a meeting, with you and a colleague, about how to support your students – what suggestions would I hear?

Section 2 – bias training experience
3. Have you ever attended a bias or anti-discrimination training programme before? (Please skip to section 3 if N/A)
How did you feel about the experience and how effective did you feel the training was for your teaching practices?
Which areas of the programme were most helpful?
4. How long ago was the training and do you feel that you need updating on more recent literature or strategies?
5. Which areas of the programme do you feel could have been improved and how?

Section 3 - improvements
6. Are there any other areas you feel would be important to include in a bias training programme? Why?
7. If you were tasked by your school or institution to create a bias or anti-discrimination training programme for your colleagues, what kinds of areas or activities would you include?
8. Do you have any final thoughts?

Thank you for your time, I am very grateful for any help you can provide.

"Do you have any final comments?"

Only that on UsingEnglish you should always write in the standard font. Other fonts and colours are not welcome here. UE is consulted by thousands of people every day, using a huge variety of hardware and software including some that are very basic and primitive. Fancy fonts and colours just create difficulty for those with very simple equipment.
.

What's bias training? What does "support your students" mean?

I have a suggestion. Replace " How do you feel?" with "What do you think?"

Tarheel said:

What's bias training?

Click to expand...

You can read more HERE. It's sometimes called "unconscious/implicit bias training". It is (or, at least, it was) very popular in a lot of companies and government departments, alongside "inclusion and diversity training", to help employees learn how to recognise and avoid their personal biases when dealing with customers.

I'm not aware of any EFL schools in my region of southern and south-eastern England ever having provided any unconscious bias and discrimination training. To be honest, there isn't a lot of bias and discrimination in the EFL school world—we take anyone's money non-discriminately! I always thought this kind of thing was mainly confined to the world of the HR departments of large corporations. It's really about giving equal employment opportunities to people.

My own opinion on this is that this kind of training course is not necessary in EFL schools (or at least not a priority when you consider all the other things schools need to spend training money on), not particularly appropriate in EFL schools anyway, and probably more importantly, ineffective at what it claims to do in the first place.