Supporting Young Learners Through a Multimodal Digital Storytelling Activity

This paper presents the results of a small-scale qualitative case study that explored a tutor’s role in supporting young learners through a digital storytelling (DS) activity through Microsoft PowerPoint. The two children who participated in this study were in grade one and attended private schools in Canada. Participatory observations, field notes, interviews, the children’s narratives, and observational narratives were the primary sources of data. The children carried out a DS activity during three separate sessions for each child that involved planning the story, enacting the story, creating and editing a storyboard with cameras and computers, and lastly, celebrating the stories they produced with their family members. We found that the tutor played an important role in making the activity purposeful, authentic, and passion-led (Anderson, 2016). We also found that the tutor helped the children represent and understand meaning through an integration of modes, supported their use of technology, engaged their interest throughout the activity, and encouraged self-reflection on their narrative writing skills. Our findings point to the need for future research on how digital storytelling activities can be carried out in mainstream classroom settings, where teachers can schedule one-on-one conference sessions to support children as they become multimodal composers

Exploring reader responses to young adult literature in the Malaysian English language classroom

This article presents the results of a study exploring the reader-responses of Malaysian young adults (YAs) to the literature texts used in Malaysian secondary schools, Dear Mr. Kilmer by Anne Schraff, Captain Nobody by Dean Pitchford, and Sing to the Dawn by Minfong Ho. The study aimed to determine the extent to which the YAs found these texts engaging and relevant, and how they identified aspects of their own young adulthood in the novels. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods through questionnaires completed by 30 Malaysian YAs, semi-structured qualitative interviews with a sub-group of six participants, and their journal reflections. Using reader-response literary theory as the guiding framework, the data were analysed quantitatively through descriptive statistical analyses, and qualitatively through inductive thematic analysis, in order to examine the extent to which Malaysian YAs could identify with the main characters, themes, issues, or events in the novels and determine the relevance of the novels to their lives. The findings showed that the participants identified with the characters’ conflict between being true to one’s self and conforming to societal and gender expectations. The themes of standing up for one’s beliefs and right to education, combating social inequities, and family relationships were also relevant aspects that surfaced in responses towards the novels. This study provides recommendations for the selection of literary texts for the English language classroom that connect to the developmental phase of young adults and allow learners to see themselves reflected in what they read

Sustaining Critical Approaches to Translanguaging in Education: A Contextual Framework

Translanguaging remains a timely and important topic in bi/multilingual education. The most recent turn in translanguaging scholarship involves attention to translanguaging in context in response to critiques of translanguaging as a universally empowering educational practice. In this paper, seven early career translanguaging scholars propose a framework for researching translanguaging “in context,” drawing on the Douglas Fir Group\u27s (2016) transdisciplinary framework for language acquisition. Examining translanguaging in context entails paying attention to who in a classroom wields power, as a result of their greater proficiency in societally valued languages, their more “standard” ways of speaking these languages, their greater familiarity with academic literacies valued at school, and/or their more “legitimate” forms of translanguaging. In our framework for researching translanguaging in context, we propose three principles. The first principle is obvious: (1) not to do so apolitically. The other two principles describe a synergy between ethnographic research and teacher-researcher collaborative research: (2) ethnographic research can assess macro-level language ideologies and enacted language hegemonies at the micro- and meso levels, and (3) teacher-researcher collaborations must create and sustain inclusive, equitable classroom social orders and alternative academic norms different from the ones documented to occur in context if left by chance

Translanguaging as an Agentive, Collaborative and Socioculturally Responsive Pedagogy for Multilingual Learners

The translanguaging turn in language education offers a new perspective on multilingualism by positing that multilingual learners have one linguistic repertoire rather than two or more autonomous language systems (García Li Wei, 2014). When learners engage in translanguaging, they draw on all the features from their repertoire in a flexible and integrated way (Otheguy, García, Reid, 2015). While many studies have advocated for the use of teacher-led pedagogical translanguaging, less research has documented the affordances of student-led collaborative translanguaging, and the factors that may constrain their use of translanguaging. My study is a step in this direction as it provides evidence of the potential of translanguaging as an intentional and agentive student-led collaborative pedagogy for multilingual learners. My research was a case study of two trilingual Grade 5 English language classes in a Malaysian elementary school – one class with an English-only policy, and one class without. Over 6 months, I recorded learners’ interactions as they worked in groups of 3-5 on collaborative learning activities. My data sources also included interviews with 55 learners and their two teachers, artefacts, field notes, and reflexive journal entries. Using sociocultural critical discourse analysis (Fairclough Wodak, 1997; Mercer, 2004), I conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of 100 30-minute to 1.5-hour long transcripts of learners’ interactions, and conducted a thematic analysis (Nowell, Norris, White Moules, 2017) of the interviews. The results revealed that learners in both classes used translanguaging agentively to fulfil 100 cognitive-conceptual, planning-organizational, affective-social and linguistic-discursive functions that supported their individual and collective learning. Even with an English-only policy in place, learners harnessed the affordances of translanguaging using multimodal resources such as symbols, images, videos, and gestures. However, their specific language choices and beliefs about language were influenced and at times constrained by the teacher’s language policies and practices, parental discourses about linguistic capital, and ethnic tensions in the country. My research positions translanguaging as collaborative and agentive, socioculturally situated and culturally responsive, and a resource for learning as well as a process of learning. As an outcome of this study, I provide recommendations for a collaborative translanguaging pedagogy approach.Ph.D

Potentials of the Multiliteracies Pedagogy for Teaching English Language Learners (ELLs): A Review of the Literature

This article presents the results of a review of published literature on the use of the multiliteracies pedagogy to teach English Language Learners (ELLs). A total of 12 studies were selected for the literature review based on three inclusion criteria: (1) studies using the multiliteracies framework or other aspects of the multiliteracies pedagogy such as multimodality; (2) studies with ELL participants; and (3) studies conducted within the last 10 years. Through a detailed review and analysis of these studies, five emerging themes related to the potential benefits of the multiliteracies approach were identified and discussed in this article: (i) student agency and ownership of learning; (ii) language and literacy development; (iii) affirmation of students’ languages, cultures and identities; (iv) student engagement and collaboration; and (v) critical literacy.

Responding to literature texts through films in English and the L1 within a multiliteracies pedagogy

This article presents the results of a study exploring the aesthetic and critical responses of English as a Second Language (ESL) learners when engaging in the multimodal design of literature texts through films in English and their first language (L1). Participants consisted of 25 culturally and linguistically heterogeneous first-year undergraduate students in a Literature in English Language Teaching program in a Malaysian public university. The participants engaged in a multi-modal design of the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine in three phases over a period of eight weeks based on the four components of the multiliteracies approach: situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice. The transformed practice component of this approach involved students making and presenting short films both in English and in a local Malaysian language or dialect. Data for the study came from six focal participants’ journal reflections throughout the project and semi-structured interviews with them. The findings showed that the multimodal design of texts through films in the L1 increased personal meaningfulness and intercultural understanding. It also allowed learners to function as language experts, take liberties with the text, and look beyond the text for inspiration from dramas and movies

Examining Teacher Candidates’ Pedagogical Practices and Stances Towards Translanguaging and Multimodality in Writing

This study examines pre-service teacher candidates’ (TCs) stances and use of translanguaging and multimodality to support K-12 multilingual learners’ writing. Data were drawn from a course on supporting multilingual learners in a teacher education program in Ontario. Data sources were responses to the Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Language- Inclusive Teaching (PeCK–LIT) Test, and TCs’ unit plans and lesson plans. Analytical codes were derived from the literature on translanguaging: monolingual and translanguaging stance, translanguaging as a scaffold and resource, teacher-directed and student-directed, intentional and spontaneous translanguaging, and supporting monomodality and multimodality. Findings demonstrate the use of translanguaging strategies such as multilingual word walls and online translation tools. However, there were constraints to TCs’ stances, such as allowing translanguaging as a temporary scaffold towards English-only instruction and approaching writing as a discrete rather than multimodal skill. The paper recommends ways TCs can be supported in developing a holistic understanding of translanguaging and multimodality.Cette étude explore les postures des personnes enseignantes en formation initiale et leur utilisation du translanguaging et de la multimodalité pour soutenir l'écriture des apprenants multilingues de la maternelle à la 12e année. Les données, recueillies dans le cadre d'un cours portant sur les apprenants multilingues dans un programme de formation des enseignants en Ontario, proviennent de réponses au test Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Language-Inclusive Teaching (PeCK-LIT) et des plans de cours de ces personnes enseignantes en formation initiale. Les codes analytiques qui ont guidé l’analyses sont : posture monolingue et translanguaging, translanguaging comme soutien et ressource, translanguaging dirigé par l'enseignant et par l'élève, translanguaging intentionnel et spontané, et soutien à la mono- et à la multimodalité. Les résultats indiquent le recours à des stratégies de translanguaging. Cependant, ces stratégies sont parfois misent en oeuvre de façon restrictive, notamment, permettre le translanguaging comme soutien temporaire vers un enseignement exclusivement en anglais ou encore aborder la didactique de l'écriture comme une compétence isolée plutôt que multimodale. Les auteurs proposent des moyens afin de soutenir les personnes enseignantes en formation à développer une compréhension holistique du translanguaging et de la multimodalité

Young Children’s Language Uses during Play and Implications for Classroom Assessment

This manuscript has been accepted for publication in the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood.This paper reports on research examining children’s use of language in dramatic play and play with construction materials in kindergarten classrooms in three Indigenous and two non-Indigenous northern rural Canadian communities. Underpinned by sociolinguistic theory, the research involves inductive analysis of video-recorded play interactions of five-year-old children’s play. We found that children used language for 36 different purposes in the analyzed videos. Children’s construction play talk often involved purposes within the categories of Language for Learning and Language for Own Needs. Children often used language for purposes associated with the Language for Learning category in dramatic play, along with purposes within the Language for Imagining category that might be expected within dramatic play. As part of collaborative action research, teachers and researchers have been using these findings to develop a formative oral language observation framework to gather information for parent-teacher conferences and for speech-language pathologists working with identified children, in addition to using the information to inform practice