Process and Product: High School English Learners Redefined

Despite 21st Century technology, our nation’s high schools deliver a print-centric curriculum driven by high-stakes tests. A majority of states have adopted Common Core State Standards that incorporate producing and consuming multiple media texts. Some teachers have begun to include multimodal activities but few are exploiting the affordances of multimodal composition specifically for the benefit of English learners. Public high school teachers hold deficit views of English learners and fail to offer them challenging, creative tasks. Framed by the complementary sociocultural theories of ecological linguistics (van Lier, 2004), multimodality (Kress, 2010), and identity (Gee, 2001; Norton, 2000), this qualitative case study examined the process and product of high school English learners composing multimodally with digital video. Four questions guided the study: 1) What can we learn from adolescent English learners engaged in composing with video? 2) What identities do adolescent ELs explore while engaging in multimodal communication? 3) What processes do ELs engage in as they compose multimodally? 4) How do their multimodal compositions contribute to our understanding of ELs? Participants were enrolled in an elective English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) class at a public high school during Spring semester of 2012. Data included student generated lesson artifacts, audio/video recordings, researcher journal, and participants\u27 video compositions. Data were analyzed through an ongoing, recursive cycle to determine themes, categories, and trends. Visual and video data were examined through visual discourse analysis (Albers, 2007b; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) and multimodal interaction analysis (Norris, 2004). Addressing the process and product of learning to read and compose visual and video texts, this dissertation examines 3 pairs of student participants and their video compositions. It reveals English learners working collaboratively and creatively, exploring imagined identities, showing investment in learning, engaging in critical analysis, and effectively communicating through multiple modes. Multimodal analysis of three student videos revealed four patterns of multimodal design; less is less, layered modes, less is more, and overlapping modes. The study redefines English learners as multilingual, multimodal communicators. It illustrates the complexity and reveals the benefit of incorporating multimodal activities and provides a model for fostering multilingual, multimodal communicators

L'alternanza all'Università: un progetto

This article reports on a project aimed to highlight the importance of raising language awareness in school curricula, with particular reference to languages for specific purposes. Focus of the project is the LSP of law: starting from the analysis of the Italian Constitution, students of two secondary schools have been trained to use the tools of linguistic research to develop and consolidate metalinguistic competences and language skills both in their mother tongue and foreign language studied at school.Questo articolo tratta di un progetto il cui fine è quello di sottolineare l'importanza di ampliare la conoscenza linguistica nei curricula scolastici, con particolare attenzione ai linguaggi specialistici. Il progetto si concentra sulla lingua del diritto: partendo dall'analisi della Costituzione Italiana, gli studenti di due scuole superiori hanno imparato ad utilizzare gli strumenti di ricerca linguistica per sviluppare e consolidare le competenze metalinguistiche e le abilità linguistiche sia nella loro lingua madre sia nella lingua straniera studiata a scuola.&nbsp

Le dimensioni dell'intercomprensione. Dalla definizione alla valutazione delle compentenze

The Dimension of Intercomprehension. From Definition to Skills Assessment. The studies on intercomprehension that have been produced in the last few years are numerous and analyse this discipline in all its facets. Nonetheless, the amount of research carried out to find a definition for the phenomenon has often highlighted the impossibility of fully defining it. The aim of this review is to analyse the attempts to describe intercomprehension through the studies that have been carried out on its definition, its use in teaching and, consequently, the assessment of learners.The Dimensions of Intercomprehension. From Definition to Skills Assessment. The studies on intercomprehension that have been produced in the last few years are numerous and analyse this discipline in all its facets. Nonetheless, the amount of research carried out to find a definition for the phenomenon has often highlighted the impossibility of fully defining it. The aim of this review is to analyse the attempts to describe intercomprehension through the studies that have been carried out on its definition, its use in teaching and, consequently, the assessment of learners

L’intercompréhension pour les étudiants non spécialistes de langues à l’université : l’expérience d’UNITA

Nel vasto campo di studi sulla didattica dell’intercomprensione (IC) sono pochi quelli che si focalizzano sulle formazioni specifiche per pubblici non specialisti in contesto universitario. Questo studio ha lo scopo di analizzare e comparare tre formazioni di introduzione all’IC, con obiettivi specifici e modalità di insegnamento differenti, erogate all’interno del progetto UNITA La valutazione dei percorsi e degli apprendenti verrà svolta attraverso i quadri di riferimento per l’IC e verrà utilizzato il REFIC (Référentiel de compétences en Intercompréhension) per la valutazione dei percorsi, ed EVAL-IC per la valutazione degli apprendenti. Nel primo capitolo introduttivo verrà collocata la ricerca nell’ambito disciplinare in cui si ascrive, verrà presentato il contesto di riferimento, ovvero quello del progetto UNITA, si declineranno le domande di ricerca che questa tesi intende sviluppare e infine, si tratterà della metodologia con cui il corpus dei dati è stato trattato. Nel secondo capitolo verrà presentato il quadro di riferimento che ha costituito questa analisi. Partendo dalla definizione di IC verranno proposti gli studi e le considerazioni degli studiosi su cui si basa questo studio che si incentrano sul funzionamento dell’IC e sulle dimensioni che la compongono. Verrà fatto riferimento ai progetti da cui UNITA ha preso spunto per la creazione dei corsi di IC e infine, si tratterà la questione della valutazione. L’analisi verrà sviluppata nei capitoli tre e quattro che si articoleranno come segue. La prima parte di analisi (capitolo tre) si incentra sulla valutazione dei percorsi attraverso i descrittori del REFIC e sulla valutazione preliminare degli apprendenti basata sulle attività svolte in modalità asincrona sulla piattaforma MOODLE (piattaforma di supporto per tutti i corsi del progetto). La seconda parte è costituita dall’analisi delle sessioni in sincrono dei corsi presi in esame e si focalizza sull’interazione tra il tutor e lo studente per verificare i dati ottenuti nel capitolo precedente. Il quinto e ultimo capitolo presenta una sintesi generale della ricerca con la conseguente risposta alle domande di ricerca e la presentazione di tutte le criticità riscontrate durante l’analisi dei dati. Infine, verranno proposte delle linee guida per il superamento degli ostacoli riscontrati durante sia durante la valutazione dei percorsi sia durante la valutazione degli apprendenti.In the realm of research on the didactics of intercomprehension (IC), a limited number of studies focus on specific training courses designed for non-specialist audiences within a university setting. This study aims to compare and analyze three introductory courses in intercomprehension, with different specific objectives and teaching methods, provided as part of the UNITA project. The content of the syllabus and the learners will be evaluated using the reference frameworks for intercomprehension. The REFIC (Référentiel de compétences en Intercompréhension) will be used for the evaluation of syllabuses, and EVAL-IC for the evaluation of learners. The first introductory chapter will situate the research in the disciplinary field to which it belongs, present the reference context, that of the UNITA project, outline the research questions that this thesis sets out to develop, and finally discuss the methodology with which the corpus of data was processed. The second chapter will present the framework that constituted this analysis. Starting from the definition of intercomprehension, the studies and considerations of the scholars on which this study is based will be proposed, focusing on the functioning of intercomprehension and the dimensions that it is composed of. Reference will be made to the projects from which UNITA took its cue for the creation of the IC courses, and finally, the issue of evaluation will be addressed. The analysis will be developed in chapters three and four as follows. The first part of the analysis (chapter three) focuses on the evaluation of the courses by means of the REFIC descriptors and the preliminary evaluation of the learners based on the activities carried out asynchronously on the MOODLE platform (support platform for all courses in the project). The second part consists of an analysis of the synchronous sessions of the courses examined and focuses on the interaction between the tutor and the learner in order to verify the data obtained in the previous chapter. The fifth and final chapter presents a general summary of the research with the consequent answer to the research questions and the presentation of all the critical points found during the data analysis. Finally, guidelines will be proposed for overcoming the obstacles encountered during both pathway and learner evaluation.Dans le domaine des études sur la didactique de l'intercompréhension (IC), peu de recherches s'intéressent à des formations spécifiques destinées à des publics non spécialisés dans un contexte universitaire. Cette thèse vise à analyser et à comparer trois formations d'introduction à l'intercompréhension, ayant chacune des objectifs spécifiques et des méthodes d'enseignement différents, mais étant toutes dispensées dans le cadre du projet Unita. L’évaluation des parcours et des résultats obtenus par les apprenants sera réalisée sur la base des cadres de référence pour l'intercompréhension. Le REFIC (Référentiel de compétences en intercompréhension) sera utilisé pour l'évaluation des parcours, et EVAL-IC pour l'évaluation des apprenants. Le premier chapitre, introductif, situe l'étude dans le champ disciplinaire auquel elle appartient, présente le contexte de référence, celui du projet Unita, expose les questions de recherche que cette thèse se propose de développer, et enfin, discute de la méthodologie d'analyse du corpus de données. Le deuxième chapitre présente le cadre théorique de cette recherche. À partir de la définition de la notion d’intercompréhension, les études et considérations des chercheurs sur lesquelles s'appuie ce travail sont proposées, en se concentrant sur le fonctionnement de l'intercompréhension et sur les dimensions qui la composent. Il est fait référence aux projets dont Unita s'est inspiré pour la création des cours d’IC et, enfin, la question de l'évaluation est abordée. L’analyse est développée dans les chapitres trois et quatre. La première partie de l'analyse (chapitre trois) porte sur l'évaluation des cours au moyen des descripteurs du REFIC et sur l'évaluation préliminaire des apprenants sur la base des activités réalisées de manière asynchrone sur la plateforme Moodle (plate-forme de soutien pour tous les cours du projet). La deuxième partie présente une analyse des sessions synchrones des cours examinés et se concentre sur l'interaction entre le formateur et l'apprenant afin de vérifier les données obtenues dans le chapitre précédent. Le cinquième et dernier chapitre présente un résumé général de la recherche avec les réponses aux questions de recherche qui en découlent et la présentation de tous les aspects critiques apparus au cours de l'analyse des données. Enfin, des lignes directrices sont proposées pour surmonter les obstacles rencontrés lors de l'évaluation du parcours et des apprenants