Contribution by Dr. Thorsten Merse to the edited volume "International Perspectives on Diversity in ELT"

Dr. Merse's contribution has been published in the new volume "International Perspectives on Diversity in ELT" edited by Darío Luis Banges, Griselda Beacon, Mercedes Perez Berbain (Palgrave Macmillan).
Abstract of "Task Typologies for Engaging with Cultural Diversity: The Queer Case of LGBTIQ+ Issues in English Language Teaching": The overall trajectory of this chapter is two-fold: (1) to (re)negotiate the engagement with cultural diversity in English language teaching (ELT) from a queer-informed vista, and (2) to suggest a much-needed task typology for classroom practice to engage learners in exploring diverse sexual, gender, and body identities (often abbreviated to LGBTIQ*). As will be shown, such lives, identities, and experiences have long remained — and very often continue to remain — absent from the scope of cultural learning within English language education, causing an odd mismatch with more general and euphoric proclamations of cultural diversity often articulated in the global ELT world. Before the chapter dives more deeply into this particularly contentious issue, it develops a critical stance on discourses of intercultural learning to provide a reflective backdrop for unfolding the issue of sexual and gender diversity within the world of ELT later in this chapter.