Kangaroos on the main street? Using resources to break down stereotypes

There are people in this world who are convinced that kangaroos hop down the main street of major Australian citites every day. While we may get a chuckle out of someone else’s misunderstanding of Australian life, Beryl Exley explores the effects such stereotypes have on children’s understandings of the other and offers practical strategies for carers to consider as they attempt to foster in children respectful attitudes to cultural and language difference

Balancing the equation: New times and new literacies = New LOTE teaching knowledge base demands

I was invited to the MLTAQ Conference, not as a LOTE specialist, nor even as a (competent) LOTE speaker, but to offer some perspectives and participate in conversations about the teaching of LOTE, in particular, the complexities that arise from ‘New Times’ (Hall, 1996a; Anstey, 2002) and ‘New Literacies’ (The New London Group, 2000; Anstey, 2002; Kalantzis & Cope, 2005). My presentation was founded on empirical research undertaken as part of my doctoral thesis (Exley, 2005) where I examined the knowledge bases of three Queensland teachers (two LOTE teachers and one Studies of the Society and Environment – SOES - teacher) providing EFL (English as a Foreign Language) instruction to secondary students in a village area of Indonesia. This research found that in current times, teachers drew on four interrelated professional knowledge bases: content knowledge, pedagogic knowledge, and knowledge of their own and their students’ pedagogic identities. The currency of the study’s findings for present debates in and about LOTE teaching in Queensland were explicated through an analysis of (i) Education Queensland’s frameworks for literacy, ‘Literate Futures: Reading’ (Anstey, 2002), (ii) pedagogic knowledge, ‘Productive Pedagogies’ (Education Queensland, 2002), (iii) my experiences as the Japanese Internship coordinator, and (iv) data from the three language teachers that focused on their own and their students’ pedagogic identities. The plenary was presented as an auditing framework for LOTE teachers’ professional knowledge bases. Teachers were invited to consider both their strengths and possible gaps and from this identify topics for future school- or association-based professional development

Connecting communities - Contextualising literacies

Over time, the Meanjin local council of ALEA, has been running a series of Key Teacher inservice days for teachers in the Brisbane and Ipswich area, and more recently further north in Yandina for Sunshine Coast teachers. Teachers who are ALEA members or whose schools are institutional members are able to attend up to three of these inservice days each year for a nominal cost. In the first part of this article Beryl Exley reviews the sessions presented on Friday 17 October, 2003 at Ipswich, a region mentored by ALEA Queensland State President, Nikki King. The sessions all dealt with the theme of connecting communities and contextualising literacies. In the second part Sandra Wright, a key teacher at Hatton Vale State School, details the experiences of her school’s attempt to connect with its community and to contextualise children’s multiple literacies

Hearing silences: Aboriginal Australians using literacy to have a voice. Review of five IFTE 2003 Sessions

With the recent push for schools and teachers to play an active and positive role towards reconciliation between Australia’s traditional land owners and the more recent arrivals, it is more necessary than ever for teachers to better understand the multiple viewpoints and the complex issues that surround such a topic. IFTE 2003 provided many sessions where literacy teachers could hear from a diverse range of Aboriginal Australians. For me, such an opportunity was a crucial part of developing a better understandings about my role as a literacy teacher in these New Times. I have titled my review of five of these sessions as ‘Hearing Silences’. This was because IFTE 2003 provided a forum for Aboriginal Australians to talk about what literacy teachers should do for Aboriginal students in particular and for non-Aboriginal students in general

"Does violence breed violence?" and other sensitive and problematic themes: An upper primary multiliteracies project based on the award winning novel "Someone Like Me" by Elaine Forrestal

The range of activities presented here is designed to engage all students using a range of literacies, and provide a forum for their varying viewpoints on the themes of violence, schoolyard bullying, friendship, international terrorism, death and (dis)ability. The novel, ‘Someone Like Me’, written by Elaine Forrestal, is the stimulus resource rather than the focus of study. As with all of Forrestal’s work, readers will reach junctures where they are deeply affected by events, and perhaps confused by their complex moralities. You can pick and choose between the activities presented depending upon available time, students’ interests and hardware resources

Using Sophisticated Picture Books & Process Drama to Engage Early Years Students with the Critical Strand

This paper examines how sophisticated picture book resources and process drama strategies enable early years students to demonstrate their learning outcomes within the Critical Strand of the Queensland English Syllabus: Open Trial (QSA, 2005). In the introductory section, sophisticated picture book resources and process drama strategies are defined and their strengths as resources and strategies in early years classrooms are highlighted. The paper then overviews the three strands and each of their three substrands of the Queensland English Syllabus: Open Trial (QSA, 2005) document. In addition, specific Foundation level and Levels One and Two core learning outcomes from the Critical Strand are identified. Finally, a range of process drama activities, based on the popular Anthony Browne (1996) text ‘Piggybook’, are outlined, and their articulation with specific core learning outcomes are made known

Using Culturally Relevant Texts and Grant's Holistic Framework to Connect Indigenous Early Readers to SAE Print-Based Texts

In an attempt to better understand some of the issues at-risk Indigenous early readers faced in learning to read Standard Australian English (SAE) print-based texts, one group of Education Queensland Reading Recovery teachers embarked upon a one year project. This was not because Aboriginal English or the students' local dialects of English were not valued; rather that competencies of SAE were also valued and seen as fundamental to giving the students skills to participate in the wider society where they might be able to access different forms of power. At its most general level, their research explored why it was that Indigenous students tended to spend longer in Reading Recovery Programs than their non-Indigenous counterparts

Early years activities for NLNW 2012 - Pearl Barley & Charlie Parsley

This Early Years unit is designed to engage students in a sequence of activities that use a range of literacies which explore feelings, friendships and personality traits. The text, Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley, is the focus of this unit. Suggested activities promote participation through simple and effective strategies, using technology, process drama, graphic ogranisers and critical literacy. This unit allows for flexibility so teachers can select activities that best suit time, resources and students' needs and interests. Students are asked to make connections between the text and their own friendships, understanding that the best of friends can be different in almost every way

Review of B. Burnett, D. Meadmore & G. Tait (Eds) (2004) ‘Contemporary Questions’. Pearson Education, Australia: Sydney.

Literacy & Education: Understanding the New Literacy Studies in the Classroom (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005) advances an approach to multiliteracies education that has application from the middle years of schooling. Pahl & Rowsell add to the call for teachers & curriculum planners to build programs around local & individual difference as opposed to a standardized, one-size-fits-all approach. The authors argue that commonplace autonomous models of literacy dictate terms for the reader, whereas in an ideological model of literacy the reader & the context dictate the terms of how a text is read & understood. ‘Such a shift in thinking gives more power to the reader & the context as carriers of their own meanings, discourses & ideologies (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005, p. 79). As Jim Cummins (2005, p. 151) summarises in the afterwords, Pahl & Rowsell provide a radically different image of the literacy student, an image that is intelligent, imaginative & linguistically talented. This text also outlines pedagogies & strategies for building on students’ individual cultural & linguistic capital, promoting cognitive engagement & identity investment where students are able to employ a range of technical tools to be constructors & researchers of knowledge. As Allan Luke argues in the foreword, such provision is essential if we are to abide by our commitment to literacy as a means of social transformation

Activities for Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley by Aaron Blabey Puffin Books 2007 Target group: Upper Primary

An upper primary multiliteracies project based on the children’s book “Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley” by Aaron Blabey. The main theme explored is same and different