When spirituality and pedagogy collide: acknowledging religious beliefs and values in the ESL classroom

<p>While cultural and ethnic diversity has been widely accepted and encouraged in the English classroom, training teachers in addressing religious beliefs and values has not been widely addressed. As a significant percentage of students and teachers alike identify with deeply-rooted beliefs, this thesis attempts to answer the important question of how we might incorporate such beliefs in a manner that promotes thoughtful dialogue and critical reflection for both teachers and students alike. This thesis includes a personal exploration of both spiritual and academic identities, and offers suggestions for how the two may converge rather than diverge in the classroom, which is found in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 reviews relevant literature about incorporating religious beliefs and values into pedagogical practices in both composition and TESL. Chapter 4 is a critical reflection on the author’s experience teaching at a small village school in rural Ghana as a novice ESL teacher. Chapter 5 offers example lessons for utilizing religious discourse in the English classroom, while also sharing the author’s experiences teaching such material in ENGL 112, a college-level course designed for multilingual learners. Lastly, this thesis concludes with the author’s final reflections and recommendations for further research in Chapter 6.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA) in English: Teaching English as a Second Language

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis: EWU Only

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year

2017

Author dc:creator

• Cumpston, Carli T.

• Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education
• Sociology of Religion

Statement dc:rights

• Access perpetually restricted to EWU users with an active EWU NetID

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/455

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dc.ewu.edu:theses-1455