Stating the obvious yet silent here. As many English as a second language (ESL) academic colleagues in the Higher Educ. sector, which employs +/-220,000 in total in the UK, I had my last round of classes, presentations & supervision sessions this week. 1/ https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/staff/working-in-he

And the extra amount of work created by the pandemic PLUS the constant effort and agony of communicating in a language that is not yours has been truly exhausting. 2/

The fact that this year - in addition to everything we all have to do in the HE sector - ESL academics have found themselves on camera and being recorded all the time has added an extra layer of drama and stress to each day. 3/

I've been an academic for +/-20y, and I'd never experienced the volume of work that we all, English as a first language & ESL colleagues, had to do in 2020. But I want to hear a recognition of the extra burden that this Zoom-pandemic world has brought to ESL academics. 4/

In the field of international law, the debate about English-centrism, and its association to the field's colonial past and its role in entrenching centre periphery socio-economic inequalities, was revitalised by the brilliant @justinauriburu this year. 5/ http://opiniojuris.org/2020/11/02/between-elitist-conversations-and-local-clusters-how-should-we-address-english-centrism-in-international-law/

These debates around English-centrism in the academic world and beyond resonate, I am sure, with colleagues in other disciplines. 6/

We must reckon with the fact that this English-centrism is about the organisation of the world along particular lines, from the most public to the most intimate. 7/

The intimate here is crucial, and this Zoom-pandemic year has demonstrated it rather too well. SO... NEXT TIME anyone sees an ESL academic colleague on a Zoom meeting, remember that that person is going through (at least) a double performative act. 8/

That ESL colleague on Zoom (or Teams, Panopto, etc) is trying to convey a complex academic point in away that is both accurate and intellectually persuasive. 9/

And, AT SAME TIME, that colleague is doing a phenomenal number of internal acrobatic contortions in order to covey her/his message in a foreign language. 10/

And if this double performative act wouldn't be enough(!!!), that colleague is almost for sure saying to her/himself that her/his accent is too strong, that s/he sounds stupid, that people are missing her/his point because her/his inability to express her/himself succinctly. 11/

SO... PLEASE ALWAYS BEAR IN MIND that this is the drama each time an ESL academic colleague is giving a presentation, teaching a class or intervining in a staff meeting. 12/

And this should be even more the case when the colleague is a woman, an LGBTQ academic, a colleague with a disability, an academic of colour, and/or a junior member of staff. 13/

Much of what I have said here applies, of course, to our ESL students as well as to ESL administrative colleagues who composed 50% of the Higher Education sector in the UK. 14/