Multiliteracies Pedagogy in Second Language Learning: Examining How Canadian Elementary ESL Classrooms Can Empower Diverse English Language Learners

Canada\u27s socio-cultural landscape is changing every day due to the transitional migration of demographics from all over the world. The immigrant and refugee populations who enter Canadian society are mostly allophones who do not speak English or French- Canada\u27s two official languages as their mother tongue. The allophone students who belong to this migrator group must learn the official languages to get equal access to the country\u27s social and economic sectors. Thus, Canadian schools are entitled to provide adequate support in teaching English and French to these immigrant students to ensure their merging in broader society. But these immigrant students have diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, they are essentially various in their second language learning needs. For this reason, it is challenging for educators to support these learners considering their linguistic and cultural diversity. The given research paper conducts a systematic literature review with authentic, peer-reviewed resources to examine how multiliteracies pedagogy can inform second language teaching and learning in elementary classrooms of Ontario, Canada. This study deals with the English language learning of multilingual and multicultural allophone English Language Learners (ELLs) in the English as a Second Language (ESL) programs of Ontario elementary schools. This research paper reflects upon different aspects of multiliteracies approaches. It concludes that multiliteracies pedagogy has numerous potentials to address ELL’s diversity and the educators of Ontario elementary ESL programs can offer a better English language learning environment to the ELLs by ensuring proper implementation of multiliteracies pedagogy in their teaching-learning process

Action research to reassess the acceptance and use of technology in a blended learning approach amongst postgraduate business students

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cogent Education on 18/11/2022, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2331186X.2022.2145813Although the pedagogy of blended learning in higher education has been well-accepted since 2000, its dimension has been changing, mainly due to the incessant technological innovations. The impact recorded on students’ experience has been reliant on various factors. Some of these factors are cultural diversity, technical abilities, level of organisational support, language difficulties, educational background, learning environment, and instructional design, among others. In this study, the acceptance and use of technology by international MBA students have been reassessed in the blended learning environment. The motivation for the selection of the cohort of international MBA students as a sample was to enable the inclusion of diversity as one of the focal points of the study. A two-cycle model of action research was adopted to reassess the use of technology and compare the attainment of learning outcomes between the blended and traditional learning approaches. Moreover, multiple regressions were employed using the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to test the significance of each variable collected from the survey on the students’ learning experience and engagement. Our results have suggested that students’ engagement is determined by positive learning experience without any bias toward traditional or blended learning approach. Students’ age group was found to be relevant in the determination of behavioural intention, social influence, effort expectancy, performance expectancy and facilitating conditions towards the effective use of technology and blended learning. Students’ gender was an irrelevant factor in the success of a blended learning approach

International education, educational rights and pedagogy:Introduction

With increased globalization, travel and mobility, international student education has become an academically and economically important part of tertiary education around the world. The increased commodification and marketization of higher education complicate the present challenges in ensuring culturally sensitive and competent pedagogies and enabling international students’ educational rights and equal access to opportunities and knowledge. Linking the multifaceted concept of educational rights to international student education and pedagogy, we explore issues related to cultural diversity, safety, vulnerability, welfare, peaceful co-existence in a changing global environment. Opening up further discussions on inclusive, culturally competent and accountable teaching in an unstable and frequently vexed geopolitical space, this introduction argues for an inclusive education that puts learning and social justice at its centre

Typifying conservation practitioners’ views on the role of education

Education is an established tool to enhance human-environment relationships, despite the lack of empirical evidence to support its use. We used theories of change to unpack assumptions about the role of education in conservation. We interviewed practitioners from 15 conservation organizations in Madagascar to typify implicit pathways of change and assess whether emerging pathways echo theoretical advances. Five pathways were drivers of change: increasing knowledge, changing emotional connection and changing traditional cultural practices, fostering leaders, diversifying outcomes, and influencing community and society. These pathways reflect existing sociopsychological theories on learning and behavioral change. Most interviewees' organizations had a predominant pathway that was often combined with elements from other pathways. Most pathways lacked culturally grounded approaches. Our research reveals assumptions about the role of education in conservation and indicates that organizations had different ideas of how change happens. The diversity of practices reflects the complexity of factors that influence behavior. Whether this diversity is driven by local sociocultural context, interaction with other conservation approaches, or contingencies remains unclear. Yet, typifying the pathways of change and reflecting on them is the first step towards comprehensive evaluation of when and which pathways and interactions to promote.Peer reviewe

THE INFLUENCE OF STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS ON THE PREFERRED WAYS OF LEARNING OF ONLINE COLLEGE STUDENTS: AN EXAMINATION OF CULTURAL CONSTRUCTS

The ongoing popularity and increased availability of online college courses and programs has attracted a greater diversity of students. Along with continued female-majority enrollment, increasing numbers of students of traditional college age and students from a variety of ethnicity groups are taking online courses. The prevailing guiding assumptions that have informed much of the online pedagogical and instructional practices have primarily come from theories of adult learning, particularly andragogy, which has been heavily criticized for not acknowledging student diversity. As online education becomes ever more established in higher education, it is vital to examine the diversity of contemporary student populations and their learning preferences. This study investigated whether and how student characteristics influence students’ preferred ways of learning on (1) Ke and Chávez’s (2013) individuated-integrated Cultural Constructs of Teaching and Learning analysis model, (2) online interaction, synchronous vs. asynchronous, and (3) learning environment, online vs. face-to-face. The student characteristics studied were age, gender, ethnicity, class level, and prior experience. This study expanded on Ke and Chávez’s qualitative work on cultural constructs in the following ways: (1) Development of a quantitative instrument to test their findings - Preferred Ways of Learning Survey (PWLS), (2) Examination of additional student characteristics (age, gender, class level, and prior experience), and (3) Addition of two research questions to examine whether and how student characteristics influenced online college students’ online interaction and learning environment preferences. The study researched 140 online students at the University of New Mexico in Fall 2014. The explanatory sequential mixed methods approach chosen entailed quantitative data analysis based on descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and means comparisons, and qualitative data analysis that used coding, theme, and category identification. The results were then merged and compared. The quantitative results did not support Ke and Chávez’s findings. Rather than culture, age, gender, and class level were the primary student characteristics that influenced student preferences. Students’ cultural backgrounds in the current study were based on their self-selection into one or more ethnicity groups such as Hispanic, Native American, and White. Culture, or ethnicity, was statistically significant on one cultural construct, however, the quantitative results only partially supported Ke and Chávez’s findings. Statistically significant differences for gender were identified on the online interaction preference construct with higher asynchronous preference scores for female students. Statistically significant differences for prior online experience were identified on the learning environment preference construct with higher online preference scores for students who had completed four or more online classes. Student interviews provided greater insight on the overall results, but lacked full representation of the quantitative sample to adequately address all statistically significant group differences. This study illustrates the importance of building an awareness of the changing student population in postsecondary online education. It provides insight into some intriguing learning preferences, and notes some beneficial ways to improve online instruction. Future researchers can use the findings as an impetus to delve more deeply into the learning preferences of contemporary online college students, and they can use the PWLS to identify these preferences. It is hoped that both the instrument and the results add to the literature on creating equitable learning environments that meet the needs of diverse learners, ultimately, to foster student satisfaction, success, and retention

Global Awareness of Marketing Students

Undergraduate and MBA Marketing programs typically include education goals such as: “To prepare students for a changing domestic and global business environment characterized by organizational and cultural values, diversity, opportunity, and growth.” They also include learning objectives such as: “Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to think strategically about the global business environment.” Presumably this approach to educating undergraduate and MBA students will prepare them to become ‘global citizens.’ The question may be asked about what undergraduate and MBA marketing students know about changes in global extreme poverty, education access for women around the world, and number of people killed in natural disasters annually? This research utilizes the work of Hans Rosling, with his famous charts of global population, health and income data (TED Salon, Berlin June, 2014). Rosling demonstrates in his presentation that people have a high statistical chance of being wrong about what they think they know about global events. This research is designed to assess marketing students’ global knowledge on three aspects of the world they will work in

Literacies

With the rise of new technologies and media, the way we communicate is rapidly changing. Literacies provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy pedagogy within today's new media environment. It focuses not only on reading and writing, but also on other modes of communication, including oral, visual, audio, gestural and spatial. This focus is designed to supplement, not replace, the enduringly important role of alphabetical literacy. Using real-world examples and illustrations, Literacies features the experiences of both teachers and students. It maps a range of methods that teachers can use to help their students develop their capacities to read, write and communicate. It also explores the wide range of literacies and the diversity of socio-cultural settings in today's workplace, public and community settings. With an emphasis on the 'how-to' practicalities of designing literacy learning experiences and assessing learner outcomes, this book is a contemporary and in-depth resource for literacy students

The impact of diversity in Queensland classrooms on literacy teaching in changing times

The intent of the paper is to identify possible inhibitors to best practice for literacy teaching and learning and to identify key considerations for a responsive, relevant and constructive curriculum and pedagogy for the teaching of literacy in diverse classrooms. A review of relevant research and pedagogical frameworks such as sociocultural constructivism, productive pedagogies and multiliteracies pedagogy, will provide the basis on which to argue some possible classroom practices for teachers to consider for the as ways forward in diverse classrooms. This paper will be contextualized within the current political agenda in regard to literacy education and recent research into literacy teaching and learning in Australia, reported in 'The National Inquiry into Literacy' and consider the issues together with the assessment demands placed on teachers in classrooms

The biological origin of linguistic diversity

In contrast with animal communication systems, diversity is characteristic of almost every aspect of human language. Languages variously employ tones, clicks, or manual signs to signal differences in meaning; some languages lack the noun-verb distinction (e.g., Straits Salish), whereas others have a proliferation of fine-grained syntactic categories (e.g., Tzeltal); and some languages do without morphology (e.g., Mandarin), while others pack a whole sentence into a single word (e.g., Cayuga). A challenge for evolutionary biology is to reconcile the diversity of languages with the high degree of biological uniformity of their speakers. Here, we model processes of language change and geographical dispersion and find a consistent pressure for flexible learning, irrespective of the language being spoken. This pressure arises because flexible learners can best cope with the observed high rates of linguistic change associated with divergent cultural evolution following human migration. Thus, rather than genetic adaptations for specific aspects of language, such as recursion, the coevolution of genes and fast-changing linguistic structure provides the biological basis for linguistic diversity. Only biological adaptations for flexible learning combined with cultural evolution can explain how each child has the potential to learn any human language

A changing world : the internationalisation experiences of staff and students, home and international, in UK higher education

This is a selection of internationalisation resources produced by ESCalate to support the project A Changing World: the internationalisation experiences of staff and students (home and international) in UK Higher Education. Fifteen focus groups were run with staff and with students, both home and international, to listen to their views on what internationalisation meant to them, how it had influenced teaching and learning, and what challenges and successes they had experienced. Participants came from a range of disciplines and from across the UK. Staff in particular showed great awareness of the issues surrounding internationalisation with an appreciation of some of the complexities. Topics raised by participants included recruitment strategies, entry requirements for non-native speakers, PMI, fees, the British degree, higher education institutions (HEIs) competition for students in the global marketplace, and internationalising the curriculum. Staff and students described various techniques and strategies for creating inclusive learning environments. Many said how students and staff from across the world had enriched their lives, both personally and professionally. Staff discussed the difficulties of meeting the needs of culturally diverse groups, and both students and staff talked about how far we still have to go in encouraging some students to break out of their familiar cultural groups to socialise cross-culturally. Home students were the hardest group to recruit for this project. Given that they have so much to gain from learning in a culturally diverse environment it is suggested that more work needs to be done in the research area of Internationalisation at Home (Teekens, 2006, Joris, van den Berg & van Ryssen, 2003), and within institutions, to engage not only staff but also home students so that all students and staff can gain maximum benefit from the changing higher education landscape. A Changing World: the internationalisation experiences of staff and students (home and international) in UK Higher Education is a report produced by ESCalate and LLAS, that is made available as a PDF file of some 40 page