Formative assessment: Intervention summary proposal

As a non-native English speaker and migrant, I relate to the linguistic and cultural challenges international students face. However, my European background—being Italian—has offered a degree of cultural proximity to British culture that many of my students, particularly Mandarin speakers, do not share. Their experience is often far more isolating.

In my teaching of Climate Justice within the BA Product and Industrial Design course, I’ve observed how language barriers can silence students who struggle to express complex ideas in English. As a result, they often withdraw from group discussions or communicate only with peers who share their language. Translation tools—phones, apps—are used quietly, sometimes with embarrassment, reinforcing feelings of inadequacy and exclusion.

This proposal presents a 2 ideas of inclusive teaching interventions that I can use when I teach Climate Justice within the BA Product and Industrial Design. They are designed to normalise linguistic diversity, integrate translation tools into classroom practices, and empower Mandarin-speaking students as active, visible contributors to shared knowledge.

1.Multilingual glossaries (Intersectionality, decoloniality, design justice)

• Hold a collaborative Multilingual glossary-building session. Introduce core terms and ask non English speaking students to build a glossary where they include not only English words but also words from their native language. Then ask them to work in small groups to translate form English to their native language a vice versa. Then ask them to find a product design case study from each terminology.
• Rotate glossary “editors” each week to expand or refine entries. 
• Make glossary use part of reflective journals or concept presentations, encouraging students to cite and expand definitions.

2. Normalising translation tools: designing for multilingual futures

As part of my Climate Justice module in BA Product and Industrial Design, I focus on how speculative methodologies offer a critical space to rethink language—not just as a medium of communication, but as ‘a material’ that shapes how we imagine justice. Many students, especially those who are Mandarin-speaking, rely on translation tools like Pleco or Google Translate to engage with course material. Rather than seeing this as a barrier, this workshop reframes translation as a creative and speculative design practice.

Activity: Lost (and Found) in Translation: Designing for Multilingual Futures

This activity invites students to treat linguistic ambiguity as a design opportunity. Translation becomes not a fallback, but a tool to explore how meaning shifts across cultures and contexts—especially in imagining postcolonial or climate-altered futures.

Aims:

• To explore how language influences the framing of justice in design.
• To normalise the use of translation tools as valid and creative instruments.
• To present translation as a speculative, interpretive, and imaginative act.

1: Translation chain

• Translate:
  • English → Mandarin (or Spanish, Korean, etc.)
  • Mandarin (or Spanish, Korean, etc.)→ English 
• Observe how the term morphs—e.g., climate justice might become “weather fairness” or “sky balance”
• Reflect on:
  • What meanings were lost or gained?
  • What cultural connotations emerged?
  • Could these shifts open new paths for design thinking?

2: Quick speculative scenario building

Using the translated term, students imagine a future in which this new phrase is taken literally.

• Design a product, system, or ritual that emerges from this imagined world.
• Consider: If “sky balance” were a legal concept, what policies or tools would support it?
• Deliverables:
  • A rough concept sketch
  • A title and a brief (2–3 sentence) description of the context and design purpose

3: Reflective response

• 5 minutes of individual reflection 
• Pair up for short discussion
• Full group sharing and dialogue
• Discussion prompts:
  • What did this process reveal about how language frames our thinking?
  • What challenges or surprises emerged in translation?
  • How might this shift your approach to inclusive, post-Western design?

These interventions are especially important in Year 1, when many students are still adjusting—not just to a new language, but to academic norms shaped by Western assumptions. We welcome them into our institutions and benefit from their presence, so we have a responsibility to offer more than support; we must create learning environments that are not solely Eurocentric and more inclusive by design. Normalising practices like translation apps, multilingual resources, and slower reflective dialogue isn’t just about accessibility. It’s about recognising that linguistic and cultural diversity brings value—and that inclusion, in this context, is not an add-on, but an act of decolonising education. By creating space for difference, rather than demanding conformity, we move toward classrooms that reflect the justice we aim to teach.

References

Schneider-Mayerson, M. and Bellamy, B.R. (eds.) (2019) An Ecotopian Lexicon. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Huang, R. (2012). International Students and Cross-Cultural Teaching and Learning. Teaching in Higher Education, 17(6), pp.567–573. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2012.658562

Pedagogies for Social Justice (2021). Episode: Decolonising the Curriculum. [Podcast] Available at: https://pedagogiesforsocialjustice.org/podcast/

Ryan, J., & Viete, R. (2009). Respectful interactions: Learning with international students in the English-speaking academy. Teaching in Higher Education, 14(3), 303–314.