Nahal Akbari: Towards Critically Engaged Practice in Teaching Persian as an Additional Language

The 70th episode of Parse is an excerpt of a talk given by Nahal Akbari on the challenges that Persian language instructors might face in their commitment to inclusive and equitable teaching to a diverse group of heritage, non-heritage, and underrepresented students in their classrooms. Particular attention will be given to gender inclusiveness, linguistic diversity, and attitudes and identities from the theoretical perspective of critical language pedagogy. 
 
Nahal Akbari is a Clinical Assistant Professor and the Director of the Persian 
Language Programs at the University of Maryland. She has a PhD in second language education from the University of Ottawa, Canada. She has been leading and contributing to various teacher training workshops and collaborative projects in instructional materials development, assessment, and program evaluation at different institutions of higher education across the US and beyond. Her research interests include intercultural rhetoric, second-language writing, and teacher education.  
To watch the full talk, click here: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTQ_AC_ngeM&t=1341s⁠