The textuality of learning contexts

A significant aspect of learning contexts is the way in which semiotic artefacts mediate learning within them. The Literacies for Learning in Further Education (LfLFE) project is researching the role of texts and associated communicative practices in constructing and mediating teaching and learning, in shaping communities, in constructing and sustaining relationships, and in helping students to achieve their goals. A particular aim of the project is to identify ways in which people can bring literacy practices from one context into another to act as resources for learning in the new context. In this paper we explain what we mean by ‘literacy practices’, demonstrate the textuality of learning contexts through examples from contrasting curriculum areas, and show how learning can be enhanced by mobilising literacy practices from one context to another

Possibilities for pedagogy in Further Education: Harnessing the abundance of literacy

In this report, it is argued that the most salient factor in the contemporary communicative landscape is the sheer abundance and diversity of possibilities for literacy, and that the extent and nature of students' communicative resources is a central issue in education. The text outlines the conceptual underpinnings of the Literacies for Learning in Further Education project in a social view of literacy, and the associated research design, methodology and analytical framework. It elaborates on the notion of the abundance of literacies in students' everyday lives, and on the potential for harnessing these as resources for the enhancement of learning. It provides case studies of changes in practice that have been undertaken by further education staff in order to draw upon students' everyday literacy practices on Travel and Tourism and Multimedia courses. It ends with some of the broad implications for conceptualising learning that arise from researching through the lens of literacy practices