Learning our Literacy Lessons: EAL/D Students, Critical Literacy, and the National Curriculum (original) (raw)
Related papers
2004
ABSTRACT: This paper reports on research into the challenges of implementing a critical writing pedagogy within a teacher education program in Australia. Participants in this study are student teachers enrolled in a compulsory subject, “Language and Literacy in Secondary School”, a subject requiring them to develop a knowledge of the role of language and literacy across the secondary school curriculum and to show personal proficiency in literacy as part of graduate outcomes for teacher education dictated by the State Government of Victoria. To develop an understanding of the way that language has shaped their lives, students write a narrative about their early literacy experiences – a task which they all find very challenging, especially in comparison with the formal writing of other university subjects. Rather than simply reminiscing about their early childhood, they are encouraged to juxtapose voices from the past and the present, and to combine a range of texts within their writi...
Published 2015 in P.N. Shrestha (Ed.), Current Developments in English for Academic and Specific Purposes: Local innovations and global perspectives. Reading, UK: Garnet Education. In Chapter 1, Cope reports on an Australian study that examined how cultural differences can affect the presentation of similar content in three countries in which English is the first language (Australia, the UK and the USA). She employs a critical discourse analysis approach to analyze the language used, and presents a pedagogical approach (with practical techniques) for raising learner awareness of cultural differences in language use. Such a pedagogical approach can be applied to other ESP or EAP settings.
A review of critical literacy beliefs and practices of English language learners and teachers
Critical literacy has been studied extensively for the four decades since the 1980s in varied contexts of schooling, vocational, higher and adult education in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. However, the application of critical literacy in countries whose native language is not English seems to have become evident only at the beginning of the 21st century, with empirical studies being conducted on the critical literacy beliefs and practices of English language learners (ELL) and teachers. This review first defines critical literacy in terms of both critical text and critical pedagogy. This review then identifies common theoretical frameworks and pedagogical foci in recent research involving secondary and tertiary ELLs. It highlights the possibilities and challenges experienced by both ELL students and teachers as they practise critical literacy in English language classrooms. Finally, this review gives recommendations for future studies on critical literacy that can strengthen the English language learning curriculum and enhance our understanding of the competing interests present in the teaching and learning of English.
Given the multimodal and multicultural character of modern English, English Language Teaching should meaningfully re ect this. Although some attempts have been made, adequate attention has not been paid to reforming writing pedagogy. This paper presents the ndings of a two-year research project on writing instruction in the Singapore English Language classroom, which caters for a mixture of EFL (English as a foreign language), L2 (second language) and L1 ( rst language) learners. Data were gathered from six secondary school teachers via observations and interviews through which their common practices and beliefs were established. Our ndings revealed an extensive use of examination-centred practices based on functional literacy, routine procedures and standardisation, rather than a pedagogy that promotes social equity and cultural and linguistic diversity as advocated by the New London Group. Following their work, we argue that student agency, critical literacy, and socially and culturally situated learning should be integrated into all writing classrooms for e ective learning to take place.
Empowering Potential of Critical Reading for Non-Native English Teacher Candidates
Freire (1970) argues that the oppressed internalize the views of the oppressor on them and they have "an existential duality": they are both themselves and the oppressor. While they feel an attraction towards the oppressed, they are engaged in self-depreciation and they lack confidence. These feelings of inferiority and helplessness are also common in non-native English teacher candidates, as they think their language proficiency is deficient when compared to their native English speaking counterparts. Although non-native teachers have many advantages over native speaker teachers of English such as being a better model, teaching language learning strategies more effectively and anticipating language learning difficulties (Medgyes, 2001), most of them are not able to see their strengths internalizing the views of native speakerist ideology (Holliday, 2005). This paper discusses how student-teachers studying English Language Teaching at a central public university in Turkey start transforming their unquestioned beliefs about themselves when engaged in critical reading on the relative strengths and weaknesses of native and non-native teachers of English and the changing status of English as an international language. Student reflections and online forum discussions indicate that through their assigned readings most of the junior students come to realize they may have positive attributes as non-native speakers of English in a rapidly changing world where the majority of speakers of English are non-native. While some of them find it hard to accept the idea that English does not only belong to inner circle countries (Kachru, 1985), they are more open to discovering their inner strengths as learners of English as a foreign language. This paper demonstrates that critical literacy is crucial in unveiling the native-speakerist understanding internalized by non-native student-teachers of English.
Critical literacy writing in ESP: perspectives and approaches
In John Flowerdew and Tracey Costley (Eds.), Discipline-specific writing: Theory into practice. London: Routledge., 2017
For teachers interested in using critical literacy writing approaches in their university-level discipline-specific/English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classes, there are precious few models that could serve as useful examples. This chapter illustrates one such practically-oriented discipline-specific approach drawing upon a variety of critical literacy perspectives including the model developed by Hilary Janks (2010). Janks’ critical literacy framework can be used in writing for specific disciplines in a number of important ways that address the model’s components of power, diversity, access, design and re-design. A wide range of critical literacy approaches with students can not only be utilised in traditional genres such as the essay, summary and business email, but also for multimodal applications in students’ video productions as a form of writing itself (see Miller and Richards, this volume), as well as the various social media now increasingly part of today’s university curriculum. The chapter first discusses what is meant by critical literacy, its dimensional aspects, and a brief review of its relation to functional grammar and critical genre analysis. It then argues for the role of critical literacy approaches in aiding in the instruction of ESP. The second part of the chapter will then introduce the critical literacy model developed by Janks and a classroom-based instructional framework in implementing a critical literacy approach to disciplinary-specific writing. By way of a practical illustration, a module based on an English for Business Purposes course in which students had to write a business memo in an email is then featured, along with pedagogical suggestions. These include addressing how ESP students can appropriate the required genre of writing a business email through a critical literacy perspective and implementation, and exploring how alternatives can help in the reshaping and redesign of such emails.
Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada
This paper aims to present a set of principles for the design of critically grounded activities for English classes in regular school settings. Such principles are based on the pillars of critical literacy according to renowned linguists and scholars of the area, as well as pre-established criteria proposed by Richards (2001) and adapted by Rashidi (2011) for critical-pedagogical practice. A brief contextualization will be presented, as well as theoretical foundations for the organization of such criteria. Following this moment, two practical examples, based on the Brazilian context, will be presented in order to demonstrate the applicability of these theories in language classes at regular schools. The directions hereby proposed are aimed at guiding ELT teachers’ reflections as they try to implement critically based activities in their classrooms.
English Education, 2005
Language is foundational to all learning. Whether it is the medium for the communication of our thoughts or whether it comes from the texts we consume and produce, there is little doubt that we are constructed and we construct ourselves through language. For these reasons and more, the most important participants in our most important institutions are those who teach language at the primary, secondary, and postsecondary levels. It is from the inspiration and genius of these individuals that our citizens, our workers, our social theorists, our artists, our scientists, and our leaders emerge. There is no higher social calling, no work more honorable than teaching critical approaches to the consumption and production of language. It is no accident, either, that English is a core subject required of the 69 million students enrolled in primary, secondary, and tertiary educational institutions in the United States. Our English teachers, however, face a myriad of challenges that threaten to intervene in the potentially symbiotic relationship between language pedagogy, social consciousness, and individual liberation. The changing nature of literacy, the technocratic demands on the K-16 literacy curricula from an information-based economy, the fragmentation of college English departments, and external constraints imposed by the latest testing regime leave these educators alienated, ambivalent arbiters of a hotly contested and highly ambiguous discipline. At the same time, the proliferation of new literacies; the development of women's studies and cultural studies; and the emergence of semiotics, discourse, and critical literary theories have made the study of language, literacy, and literature as relevant and desirable as ever.
Heteroglossia: A space for developing critical language awareness?
This paper reports on research into the challenges of implementing a critical writing pedagogy within a teacher education program in Australia. Participants in this study are student teachers enrolled in a compulsory subject, "Language and Literacy in Secondary School", a subject requiring them to develop a knowledge of the role of language and literacy across the secondary school curriculum and to show personal proficiency in literacy as part of graduate outcomes for teacher education dictated by the State Government of Victoria. To develop an understanding of the way that language has shaped their lives, students write a narrative about their early literacy experiences -a task which they all find very challenging, especially in comparison with the formal writing of other university subjects. Rather than simply reminiscing about their early childhood, they are encouraged to juxtapose voices from the past and the present, and to combine a range of texts within their writing. Later in the semester they revisit these accounts of their early literacy experiences and, in a separate piece of writing, endeavour to place these accounts within the contexts of theories and debates they have encountered in the course of completing this unit. The students' writing provides a small window on how they are experiencing their tertiary education and their preparation as teachers, including the managerial controls that are currently shaping university curriculum and pedagogy. We argue that such heteroglossic texts prompt students to stretch their repertoires as language-users, enabling them to develop a socially critical awareness of language and literacy, including the literacy practices in which they engage as university students.
Critical English for Academic Purposes
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, 2018
With the emergence of critical English language teaching (CELT) in the past 25 years, primarily in the English for academic purposes domain, there have been significant implications for English language learning. ELT approaches have drawn on major premises and assumptions in second language acquisition research from the past several decades, particularly in the institutional context of intensive English language programs in North America in which the dominant conventions and traditional approaches in English language teaching have been enacted. The first incarnation of CELT occurred in the early 1990s, which eventually prompted a key debate over critical pedagogy in English language teaching during the 2000s. The second wave of CELT began in the mid-2000s and addressed the continuing challenges facing students in the context of neoliberal spaces of universities worldwide. New approaches have emerged that address the importance of CELT in the current nationalist and racist backlash against increased global mobility of job-and refuge-seeking immigrants to Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.