This study aims to seek to demonstrate how explicit teaching of SFL metalinguistic and multimodal “grammars” enhanced 8-9-year-old children’s deeper understanding and production…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to seek to demonstrate how explicit teaching of SFL metalinguistic and multimodal “grammars” enhanced 8-9-year-old children’s deeper understanding and production of multimodal texts through critique of the construction of mini-documentaries about animals: the information, language of narration, composition of scenes and resources to engage the viewer. It also seeks to demonstrate how a knowledge of metalinguistic and multimodal “grammars” contributes to students achieving both content knowledge and understanding of the resources of semiotic modes.
Design/methodology/approach
A design-based approach was used with the teacher and author working closely together to implement a unit of work on mini-documentaries, including explicit teaching of the metalanguage of information reports, mini-documentary narration (aka script) and multimodal resources deployed to scaffold students’ creating their own mini-documentaries.
Findings
The students’ mini-documentaries demonstrate how knowledge of SFL written and multimodal SFL-informed “grammars” assisted students to learn how meaning was created through selection of resources from the written, visual, sound and gestural modes and apply this knowledge to creating multimodal texts demonstrating their understandings of the topic and how to make meaning in a multimodal mini-documentary.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to the outcomes from one group of students in one class. Generalisation to other contexts is not possible. Further studies are required to support the results from this research.
Practical implications
The linguistic and multimodal SFL-informed grammars can be applied by educators to critique multimodal texts in a range of mediums and scaffold students’ production of multimodal texts. They can also inform assessment criteria and expand students’ conception of what is literate practice.
Originality/value
Knowledge of a linguistic and multimodal metalanguage can provide students with the tools to enhance their critical language awareness and critical multimodal awareness.
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Patience Sowa, Katina Zammit and Lori Czop Assaf
This chapter explains how the idea of this book occurred, and introduces readers to Tierney's multidimensional framework for global meaning making. It describes the organization…
Abstract
This chapter explains how the idea of this book occurred, and introduces readers to Tierney's multidimensional framework for global meaning making. It describes the organization and structure of the book and the contents of each chapter and calls on readers to transform international language and literacy research through global meaning making.
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Katina Zammit, Patience Sowa and Lori Czop Assaf
This chapter provides some final thoughts on global meaning making as exemplified by the authors in the book who interrogated literacy research, policies, and pedagogical pursuits…
Abstract
This chapter provides some final thoughts on global meaning making as exemplified by the authors in the book who interrogated literacy research, policies, and pedagogical pursuits applying the tenets of global meaning making with the ultimate goal of transforming how we engage in global language and literacy endeavors. We consider their work associated with the three dimensions of interrupting existing practices and policies, decolonizing spaces for learning and indigenizing curriculum and pedagogy. In addition, we raise questions that require further investigation related to global meaning making that is emancipatory and promotes the cultural capital of the locals.
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The teaching of reading in English is fraught with challenges that influence teachers' practices in Papua New Guinea (PNG). There are a plethora of linguistic issues regarding…
Abstract
The teaching of reading in English is fraught with challenges that influence teachers' practices in Papua New Guinea (PNG). There are a plethora of linguistic issues regarding teaching in both the vernacular languages and English. Postcolonial education in PNG has continued to promote English as the medium of instruction while also promoting the use of vernacular and mother tongue. The outcomes-based education reform in the Language and Literacy Policy (1993–2014) supported the use of vernacular languages in the elementary years with the gradual bridging to English in Grade 3. In 2015, the Language and Literacy policy changed to standards-based education. One major shift was from the use of vernacular languages to English as a medium of instruction at all levels of formal education.
In this chapter, we use Tierney's concept of decolonizing spaces to investigate teachers' perspectives on implementing the English standards-based curriculum and the role the vernacular, mother tongue, and translanguaging plays in the classroom as Year 4 teachers grapple with the teaching of reading. It will problematize the colonization of English, the place of translanguaging, and the benefits and challenges for teachers when the classroom teacher most likely is not a native speaker of the children's dialect or English.
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Jessica Cira Rubin and David Taufui Mikato Fa'avae
The New Zealand Teaching Council recently published Tapasā, a touchstone document to support non-Pasifika teachers in considering how their practices might be more culturally…
Abstract
The New Zealand Teaching Council recently published Tapasā, a touchstone document to support non-Pasifika teachers in considering how their practices might be more culturally sustaining for Pasifika students, signaling continued national recognition of the need for teachers to inquire into their teaching practices as culturally informed and situated. In this chapter, we see this call as an invitation to look critically at the content of our initial teacher education literacy classes, and also to look critically at the methods of instruction and assessment. In our framing and analysis, we draw on several aspects of Tierney's (2018) framework for global meaning making, including “interrupting existing frames.” Despite Aotearoa New Zealand's official foundation in biculturalism, Indigenous ways of knowing have been historically marginalized in official schooling spaces, so there is a continuing need for rigorous interrogation of curriculum and practices that continue to privilege settler colonial perspectives and values. Using diffractive text analysis and talanoa vā, we explore the processes and first wave of insights to arise through a collaborative effort to decolonize some aspects of literacy teacher education curriculum.