Identifying and Reducing Stress and Trauma Responses in Language Classrooms

Heritage language learning and teaching can be joyful and exciting - it can also feel stressful and overwhelming, especially when learners care deeply about the language and feel a lot of pressure to reclaim it and use it with their loved ones and community. Teachers can better understand what students are experiencing and demonstrating through recognition of the ways that the historical traumas and wounds which have separated people from their languages and cultural practices are being carried into language learning spaces. In this workshop, participants will unpack how trauma is carried in our bodies, how our bodies are designed to process stress, and the ways this can show up in language classes. Together, participants will practice regulation techniques that teachers can use with themselves and their students in order to reclaim safety in language spaces and access the healing possibilities of remembering and strengthening heritage and family language.

After this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Describe collective and intergenerational language trauma and ways that can show up in language classrooms;
• Identify examples of students expressing extreme stress or trauma responses in their own classrooms;
• Practice self-regulation and co-regulation techniques with themselves and their students; and
• Apply trauma-informed understandings when students are showing signs of emotional stress in language classes.

Instructor: Jenna Cushing-Leubner is an Associate Professor at University of Wisconsin - Whitewater, where she coordinates and teaches the licensure programs for World/Heritage Language teaching, Bilingual/Bicultural teaching, and TESOL. She has worked with heritage and less commonly taught language teachers for more than a decade, using community-based design research to understand and develop programs, resources, and professional development to support language reclamation, heritage language teachers, and learners.

Target Audience: This workshop is designed specifically for K-16 heritage and Indigenous language reclamation teachers and includes examples from these contexts. However, it can be applied to teachers in other settings, particularly ESL. This is also suitable for educational assistants and family/cultural liaisons.