Risks and Mitigations

Early on in our project, we identified the significant challenge of making our lessons accessible to English language learners without making them seem patronizing or simplistic. We also recognized that words like “decolonization” may at first appear overly academic, not relatable or be intimidating to English language learners. While we recognized the value and necessity of bringing decolonization efforts out of the realm of academia, we also struggled with the challenge of doing so in an accessible manner.

We were also aware that many people may have already embedded stereotypes regarding Canada’s Indigenous peoples. We hoped to challenge these stereotypes, without over-simplifying or generalizing and thereby reinforcing the exact stereotypes we aimed to dismantle. We explicitly addressed the myths that participants may have heard about Indigenous peoples relatively early in our programming and received feedback that many people had heard (and believed) these myths previously. We also provided plenty of opportunities for participants to ask questions or clarify misunderstandings in a safe environment, in both large and small groups, and using anonymous message boards.

It wasn’t possible for us to offer multiple levels of our conversation club during the pilot project, but we hope this is something that the eventual stewards of our program, such as Neighbourhood Houses, may want to take on. The amount of positive response and dire need for this type of service within Vancouver and beyond amazed us. Diverse individuals were intrigued by our project; from PhD candidates at UBC to parents hoping to be able to help their children with homework assignments. We received feedback from some participants that they were nervous to contribute to the conversations due to their lack of confidence in their speaking skills. Accommodating all learners and serving their diverse needs was one of our key priorities, but we concluded that offering at least two different language levels may be a better path forward.

Similarly, we knew it was important to balance our foundational aim of contributing to decolonization efforts with the English language learning needs of our participants. After engaging in user-testing and reflecting upon our own group member's experiences, we understood that many folks were primarily interested in the club in order to have an opportunity to practice and improve their English skills. User-testing revealed that a major criticism of other similar English conversation clubs was a lack of structure, clear language aims, opportunities for all members to speak and opportunities for participants to practice and improve their writing skills. Balancing these desires with our own content and learning objectives was a struggle and focus on collaboration within our group.

Finally, much of our scholarly research has led us to want to tread extremely carefully, while still taking action and recognizing that decolonization should be the responsibility of non-Indigenous peoples--the mess is ours to clean up. Tuck and Yang (2012) point out, however, that decolonization is frequently misused or overused as a metaphor for other social justice activities without explicitly addressing “the repatriation of Indigneous land and life” (p. 1). We aimed to design our lessons in such a way that encourages newcomers (and all settlers) to critically view colonial history and take tangible actions to contribute to decolonization goals, as defined by Indigenous peoples.