Yesterday, I presented with my colleague Gretchen Clark on Workplace Orientations of Teachers with ADHD at the Diversity and Inclusivity in English Language Education conference at Soka University. It was an interesting conference, and I met a lot of people doing interesting research that intersects a lot with my teaching interests, even if not always with my research agenda.
Our presentation was based upon interviews that we did to follow up a questionnaire study, with results to be published very soon. Our interview study should also, hopefully, be earmarked for a journal incredibly soon and I will link to it here.
Anyway, we interviewed nine language teachers in higher education in Japan, who were not Japanese nationals, who had ADHD, either medically or self diagnosed. We asked about what supports they have, what supports they would like at work. A lot of the best support comes from flexibility with structure. If clear communication channels are added, teachers can thrive.
We would like to thank all of the participants in the study who gave their time freely and willingly; we hope that we have shared your stories and that we can help to make positive change in education. All attendees, also many thanks for your positive feedback. I know that I get very shy about positive feedback, so if I may have appeared a little standoffish, or just otherwise weird, that is why.
Slides are here.