Pedagogy & Professional

Sun-Young Kim (McGill University)

Alejandra Barriales Bouche (McGill University)

Participation is one of the key factors in student engagement in higher education. At the same time, assessing participation in foreign language and literature classes can be extraordinarily challenging. This is because of its subjective dimension and the growing demands on instructors to accommodate students’ needs. After participation was generally put into question as a mandatory class component during the COVID 19 pandemic due to technical difficulties (e.g., problems with Zoom) and the potential burden on student mental health, it is crucial to revisit the meaning and role of participation and the participation grade in the post-pandemic foreign language classroom.

We invite papers that deal with the following topics related to participation:

· The impact of the pandemic in (re)defining class participation in university courses

· Learners’ perspective vs. instructors’ perspective

· Methods to make the assessment of participation more objective

· Lessons learned from the pandemic regarding the significance of participation

· Transferable achievements between online and in-person classes

· Strategies to enhance learning through participation

· Approaches to facilitating participation in the face of challenging logistics

· Creating a more inclusive and accessible class that encourages all students’ participation

· Involving students in the assessment of participation

This panel will revisit the meaning and role of participation and the participation grade in post-pandemic foreign language and literature classes.