Multiliteracies in the Secondary English Classroom: Becoming Literate in the 21st Century (original) (raw)
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Challenges Texts are never culturally neutral, but rather are embedded in, and shaped by, histories and contexts, language, speech communities, modes, and text types. How does such a multi-literacies approach enable learners to explore not only new words, but new worlds, and to view reading and writing as complementary linguistic processes? Abstract In recent years, literacy has emerged as a key critical term in foreign language (FL) teaching and learning. This essay reflects on the history of literacy and on current developments , in particular those related to the development of multiliteracies paradigms. The article concludes with a discussion of emergent topics related to literacy and language teaching and suggests ways in which research in these domains is posing new questions for the field of FL education.
Expanded Territories of " Literacy " : New Literacies and Multiliteracies
Facing the radical change in society in the 21st century, the conventional view of literacy and literacy education may no longer satisfy students' needs in working and social lives, especially beyond classroom settings. Therefore, expanded territories of literacy have been proposed to better support teachers' and students' literacy education and practices. This paper conceptualized two expanded perspectives of literacy that are important and useful to understand literacy and literacy education in the modern society, which provide theories and frameworks for scholars, educators, and practitioners in the field of education. 1. Introduction An important mission of teaching and learning literacy is to equip students with literacy skills so that they can fully participate in social and cultural activities in the modern world. The conventional view of literacy, however, is limited to the mastery of " page-bound, official, and standard forms of the national language " (The New London Group, 1996). In other words, the meaning of literacy is restricted to paper-based, formalized, and standardized forms of language that only reflects the dominant language and culture. However, along with the rapid change of technology and social life, the language skills needed to make sense of the world are also changing. The radical changes that occur in people's lives brought up new requirements for developing literacy skills that are much more complicated and various than before. Since the conventional view of literacy is too narrow to satisfy people's needs to fully participate in social and cultural activities, scholars attempt to broaden the scope of literacy so that the expanded understanding of literacy can better support researching, teaching, and learning. In this paper, two perspectives of literacy are introduced and discussed: New Literacies theory and Multiliteracies theory.
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A study focused on ways in which literature might be used to support the literacy learning of English language learners in classrooms of diversity where a number of cultures and mother tongues were represented. The framework guiding the study (as in earlier work) is based on a sociocognitive view on literacy where literacy learning is socially based and cognition grows out of those socially based experiences. One researcher worked with a preschool teacher and another with an adult education teacher. The "field" researchers "lived" in the classroom continually planning and debriefing and revising each day's plans with the teachers. Data were gathered by performing ongoing analyses and making constant comparisons of classes in action. Data were first examined for emerging patterns. In the day care center, stories and the verbal interactions around them became the focus. Storytelling, performing, and sharing stories in a story circle appeared as a daily routine, and a literature-and literacy-rich environment was created. In the adult English as a Second Language class, 20 students took part in the project to tap their cultural and linguistic resources. The students decided to write a book of stories, with multiple drafts and drawings. From a prototypical student it was learned that a broad-based writing activity can tap students' rich cultural and experiential knowledge while engaging them in a meaningful, rich literacy environment and that interweaving oral and written texts assisted students in literacy activity. (Contains 15 references.) (NKA)