Pluriliteracies flyer

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

Literacies through Content and Language Integrated Learning: Effective learning across subjects and languages

(CLIL and Literacy)

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

The Team

Kevin Schuck; Teresa Ting; Oliver Meyer; Ana Halbach; Do Coyle

Oliver Meyer: Coordinator (Catholic University of Eichstatt-Ingolstadt, Germany) Do Coyle: Media Link Person (University of Aberdeen, UK) Ana Halbach: Second Working Language Documentalist (Universidad de Alcalà, Spain) Kevin Schuck: Website Correspondent (Penta College CSG Jacob van Liesveldt, The Netherlands) Teresa Ting: Associate Partner (The University of Calabria, Italy)

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

PLURILITERACIES FOR KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTION AND MEANING MAKING The Graz Group 2013

Literacy has been defined as the ability to use language appropriately in order to engage with and expand into respective communities of participation (Goldoni 2008, Gee 1989).

Literacy requires individuals to have ‘control’ over a wide range of primary and secondary discourses, which has implications for learning and language use.

Learning can be conceptualized as the process of making meaning, enabling understanding of the world and ways to function within: “All knowledge is formulated through semiotic systems, with language as the most central” (Mohan et al. 2010: 221). Linking language and learning thus becomes essential for building an individual’s meaning making potential which we define as the ability to engage in and to 'language' cognitive operations triggered by subject-­‐specific tasks/materials.

In school contexts, progression along the knowledge pathway towards deeper subject understanding calls upon a greater command of secondary discourse, evident as increasing mastery of disciplinary or subject-­‐specific literacies (Veel 1997, Coffin 1997). Polias (2006) has identified four major activity domains in, for example, school science:

1.

Doing (or enabling) Science

2.

Organising (or documenting) Science

3.

Explaining Science

4.

Arguing & Discussing Science

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

As illustrated in Figure 1, as learners progress up the conceptual continuum, delving deeper into the four respective domains and thus increasing their discipline-­‐understanding, their mastery of disciplinary discourse should likewise progress, thus empowering learners to position themselves appropriately along the communication continuum by responding to three key determinants: What is the context of the discourse, who is our audience and what is the purpose of our discourse production?

Figure 1: Mapping Pluriliteracies Development Progression in discipline understanding must therefore be accompanied by a progression in learners’ disciplinary literacies or subject-­‐specific literacies, i.e. the tools of meaning-­‐making and knowledge-­‐construction.

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

Language and text still dominate most disciplinary literacies within the context of education.

However, an increasingly digital and image-­‐based world where semiotics are multimodal and hybrid in nature, calls for an increasingly more pluri-­‐literate citizen. Therefore, the term pluriliteracies in our Model accommodates not only the fact that CLIL learners operate in an additional language, it encompasses the need for education to consider pluri-­‐modal semiotics.

In our model, pluriliteracies development results in the growing ability to 'express/verbalize' subject specific concepts or conceptual knowledge in an appropriate style using the appropriate genre and genre moves for the specific purpose of the communication in a wide variety of modes.

In other words, students make meaning by strengthening the connections between the conceptual continuum and the communication continuum.

Pluriliteracy progression is thus evident as novices increasingly develop their meaning-­‐ making potential, thus “pushing out” the “pluriliteracy-­‐arc” on the Model.

According to the Model, a pluriliterate “expert” is thus sensitive to the social and cultural contexts at hand, positioning themselves within the conceptual-­‐communication continua and responding appropriately by adapting their language to the specific purposes, modes and audiences, thus participating in, and constructing, meaningful social interactions.

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

Pluriliteracies in practice

Pluriliteracies are determined by social and cultural conventions that can be used and adapted, based on specific purposes, modes and audiences. Our research will therefore investigate how/if a pluriliteracies-­‐based approach to learning prepares students to navigate forms of texts and discourses in multiple contexts and modes for multiple purposes and multiple audiences in more than one language/an additional language. The evidence we will gather therefore, will seek to identify: -­‐ -­‐ -­‐

literacy practices in their appropriate sociocultural contexts, as influenced by different cultural contexts and various social interactions; the hybridity of literacy practices, especially those afforded by new technologies including the interrelationships of semiotic systems; the value of different literacy practices, including those which, until recently, had no place in formal schooling.

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

The Graz Group

(left to right: Helmut Vollmer, Gerrit-­‐Ian Koopman, Irina Hawker, David Lasagabaster, Ana Halbach, Do Coyle, Roy Lyster, Oliver Meyer; front row: Teresa Ting, Christiane Dalton-­‐Puffer, Rachel Whittaker, Ana Llinares, Kevin Schuck)

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

The Graz Group Manifesto The Graz Group unites a team of international experts and practitioners in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) who believe that attention to literacy development, be it in a foreign or first language, provides a pragmatic means to radically improve both subject as well as foreign language learning. To mainstream the integration of subject learning with language learning in different sectors of education, learning must be re-­‐modelled to not only support subject learning in cognitively challenging ways but to do so with pluriliteracies in mind.

To become pluriliterate learners, the role of language in literacies development must be brought to the fore: The Graz Group will critically evaluate existing concepts on literacy and pilot an alternative approach to language development in integrated learning contexts. In particular, we will evaluate how the incorporation of literacy-­‐driven and meaning making focused language development supports the acquisition of subject understanding and also the acquisition of disciplinary skills and competencies.

Shared ownership of evolving theoretical and practical perspectives with teachers and teacher educators will come through the implementation of a trans-­‐European classroom-­‐ based study. Data will be used to develop a working model and toolkit for transforming CLIL practice: both research process and product will thus be developed, evaluated, adapted and disseminated by practitioners.

The team believes that attention to language and literacy development can shift the focus of education away from “teaching” onto “learning”, thus catalyzing changes in classroom practice. The Pluriliteracies Model will provide classroom practitioners with relevant insights and guidelines, and hence be of wide interest to decision-­‐makers across Europe and beyond.

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

http://www.ecml.at/F7/tabid/969/language/en-­‐GB/Default.aspx

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

Glossary Cognitive discourse functions: “patterns that have arisen from the demand that participants within the institution school orient towards explicit or implicit learning goals and the fact that they have the repeated need for communicating about ways of handling and acting upon curricular content, concepts, and facts (cf. cognitive process dimension of Anderson et al. 2001). It is their very nature to provide speakers with schemata (discoursal, lexical and grammatical) for coping with standard situations in dealing with the task of building knowledge and making it intersubjectively accessible.” (Dalton-­‐Puffer 2013: 16) Reference Dalton-­‐Puffer, Christiane 2013. A construct of cognitive discourse functions for conceptualizing. EuJAL, Vol. 1 no.

2: 1-­‐38

Communicative purpose: “A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style.” (Swales 1990: 58) Reference Swales, J.M. 1990. Genre Analysis – English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Disciplinary literacies: “literacy skills specialized to history, science, mathematics, literature or other subject matter” (Shanahan & Shanahan 2008). Also called secondary literacy.

Reference Shanahan, T & Shanahan, C. 2008. Teaching Disciplinary Literacy to Adolescents: Rethinking Content-­‐Area Literacy. Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 78/1: 40-­‐59.

Discourse community: "The use of the term 'discourse community' testifies to the increasingly common assumption that discourse operates within conventions defined by communities, be they academic disciplines or social groups. The pedagogies associated with writing across the curriculum and academic English now use the notion of 'discourse communities' to signify a cluster of ideas: that language use in a group is a form of social behaviour, that discourse is a means of maintaining and extending the group's knowledge and of initiating new members into the group, and that discourse is epistemic or constitutive of the group's knowledge."

(Herzberg, B. 1986) Reference Herzberg B. 1986. The politics of discourse communities. Paper presented at the CCC Convention, New Orleans, La, March, 1986. (Quoted in J M Swales, 1990, Genre Analysis, Cambridge: CUP.)

Genre: “A genre is a culturally determined way of getting things done, with patterns that can be predicted, to varying degrees, by members of a particular culture. It is a social activity that has a purpose, is enacted through stages and is realised through language. In terms of the school subjects, the genres are the ‘practices‘ (actions combined with visual and verbal texts) that the teacher and students engage in.“ (Polias, 2006: 49) Reference Polias, J. (2006) “Assessing learning: a language-­‐based approach”. In Mikael Olofsson (ed.) Symposium 2006.

Stockholm, Sweden: Nationellt Centrum för SFI, HLS.

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

Language: “Systemic Functional Linguistics sees language as a means for learning about the world. It models learning as a process of making meaning, and language learning as building one‘s meaning making potential to make meaning in particular contexts. Knowledge is viewed as meaning, a resource for understanding and acting on the world. All knowledge is constituted in semiotic systems with language as the most central.” (Mohan et al.

2010: 221).

Reference Mohan, B. & Leung, C. & Slater, T. (2010) “Assessing Language and Content: A Functional Perspective”. In Amos, Paran/Sercu, Lies (eds.) Testing the Untestable in Language Education, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 217-­‐240.

Learning strategies: “Learning strategies are mental steps or operations that learners use to learn a new language and to regulate their efforts to do so.”(Wenden 1991: 18) Reference Wenden, A. 1991. Learner strategies for learner autonomy: Planning and implementing learner training for learner autonomy. New York: Prentice Hall.

Literacy: “Literacy is control of secondary discourses and uses of language” (Goldoni Francis 2008, 70; quoting Gee 1989), and “being literate in a wide range of private and public discourses and contexts is closely related to the notion of advancedness in a foreign language” (Goldoni 2008: 70).

Reference Goldoni, F. 2008. Designing a Foreign Language Curriculum in Postsecondary Education Drawing from the Multiliteracy, Functionalist and Genre-­‐Based Approaches. Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 5: 63-­‐85.

Making meaning: Language both constructs and interprets the meaning of content in the curriculum. The act of teaching a particular part of the curriculum content can be understood as a communication process, in which meaning realised by the use of language is the most salient.

Likewise, for students to learn any part of curriculum content means, first and foremost, to make sense of the language used by the teacher and other students in classroom activities, and in the teaching materials involving both spoken and written language. Thus learning curriculum content on the one hand cannot be accomplished effectively without learning and using the language that communicates the meaning of the content, while at the same time curriculum content learning can be used as a powerful means for language development (cf. EUCIM-­‐ TE project and IALT).

Metacognition: “Awareness and management of one’s own thought.” (Kuhn & Dean 2004: 270) Reference Kuhn, D. & Dean, D. (2004). A bridge between cognitive psychology and educational practice. Theory into Practice, 43(4), 268-­‐273.

Multiliteracies: “Multiliteracy is a meaningful social and collaborative experience where students can work together with and learn from their peers and more experienced mentors. Multiliteracy is determined by social and cultural conventions that can be used and adapted based on specific purposes, modes and audiences.

Therefore, a multiliteracy-­‐based curriculum […] prepar[es] students to analyse multiple forms of text, discourses […] in multiple contexts and modes for multiple pursposes and multiple audiences” (Goldini 2008: 67, after Kern 1995, 2000, 2004, 2005)

Pluriliteracies for Knowledge Construction and Meaning Making Graz Group 2013

Reference Goldoni, F. 2008. Designing a Foreign Language Curriculum in Postsecondary Education Drawing from the Multiliteracy, Functionalist and Genre-­‐Based Approaches. Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 5: 63-­‐85.

Multimodality: Meaning-­‐making and meaning-­‐taking in social communication (including communication in school) make use of symbolic resources which include verbal as well as non-­‐verbal (including gestures and bodily expressions) communication, visual/audio material, graphic representations and actions. In other words, communication is multi-­‐modal.

Knowledge representation nowadays is in no way limited to written texts, it is multimodal, e.g. visual representations on paper and on the screen increasingly play an important role (Kress 2010). All content subjects have their ways of using multimodality and it is important that teachers are aware of the multimodal nature of classroom communication, and that students learn how to use the various modalities effectively. This should be an important part of teacher education and continuous professional development.

Reference Kress, G. 2010. Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge.

Pluriliteracies “For us, a pluriliteracies approach captures not only literacy continua with different interrelated axes, but also an emphasis on Literacy practices in sociocultural contexts, the hybridity of literacy practices afforded by new technologies, and the increasing interrelationship of semiotic systems.” (García et al. 2007: 215) Reference Ofelia García, Lesley Bartlett, JoAnne Kleifgen. 2007. From biliteracy to pluriliteracies. In Auer, P. & Li Wei (eds.)

Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication. Berlin: De Gruyter: 207-­‐228.

Register: "A register is [...] a configuration of meanings that are typically associated with a particular situational configuration of field, mode, and tenor. But since it is a configuration of meanings, a register must also, of course, include the expressions, the lexico-­‐grammatical and phonological features, that typically accompany or REALISE these meanings." (Halliday and Hasan 1989: 38-­‐39) Reference Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R. 1989. Language, Context, and Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Translanguaging: “The term translanguaging, as originally proposed by Cen Williams (1994), refers to Welsh-­‐ English bilingual pedagogical practices where students hear or read a lesson, a passage in a book or a section of work in one language and develop their work in another […] input and output are deliberately in a different language and are systematically varied (Baker 2001, 281; 2003, 82)”. (Hornberger & Link 2012: 268) Nowadays translanguaging is often used to “describe the usual and normal practice of ‘bilingualism without diglossic functional separation’”. (Creese & Blackledge 2010).

References Creese, A. & Blackledge, A. 2010. Translanguaging in the Bilingual Classroom: A Pedagogy for Learning and Teaching. The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 94/1: 103-­‐115 Hornberger, N. H. & Link, H. 2012. Translanguaging and transnational literacies in multilingual classrooms: A biliteracy lens. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Vol. 15/3: 261-­‐278.