Nelson, Cynthia. “Sexual Identities in ESL: Queer Theory and Classroom Inquiry”

Nelson, Cynthia. “Sexual Identities in ESL: Queer Theory and Classroom Inquiry.” TESOL Quarterly: Critical Approaches to TESOL, 33.3 (1999), pp. 371-391.

Nelson’s central argument is that a queer theoretical framework—which builds on poststructuralism—may be more useful pedagogically than a lesbian and gay one because it shifts the focus from inclusion to inquiry, that is, from including minority sexual identities to examining how language and culture work with regard to all sexual identities. In short, the work of queer theorists may be well suited to support the work of ESL learners and teachers, as these groups share an interest in analysing cultural and discursive practices. Whether the intention is to critique these practices or to learn them (or a combination of the two), the task is to investigate the workings of language and culture in order to make them explicit, and queer theory can enable both teacher and learner to achieve this end.

Area Cluster: 103 Theory & 108 Language

Methodology: case study or teacher ethnography; field notes and transcripts from one class discussion

Valuable Citations: Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak, Deborah Britzman, Michael Warner, Cynthia Nelson

Money Quote$:
Queer serves to protest, or at least blur, clear-cut notions of sexual identity, but it also can be used as shorthand for the somewhat lengthy phrase lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenderal (Warner, 1993) (374).

To them, gay-friendly teaching is at best of marginal importance, of interest only to a small minority of learners and teachers (gay ones), and at worst invasive, inserting a discourse of (homo)sex into a field in which that discourse is neither relevant nor appropriate.2 These colleagues do not always recognise that sexual identity is already an integral part of ESL (373).

Queer theory shifts the focus from gaining civil rights to analysing discursive and cultural practices, from affirming minority sexual identities to problematising all sexual identities. Pedagogies of inclusion thus become pedagogies of inquiry (following Nelson, 1998)  (373).

In fact, following queer theory, even when sexual identities are not being discussed, they are being read, produced, and regulated during the social interactions of learning and teaching (388).