Multimodal Transition for Language Developing Purposes

Author(s):

Anna Lyngfelt(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching

Format:

Paper

Session Information

27 SES 05 B, Multimodality and Digital Resources in the Classroom

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

11:00-12:30

Room:

202.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Carol Taylor

Contribution

The focus of this presentation is multimodal transition for language developing purposes. Could multimodal transition be regarded a literacy competence and used for language developing purposes, especially for students excluded from communication by the use of the majority language in the classroom?

The findings presented emanate from work within the frames of the research project Digital Arenas in Literacy Practices in Early Primary School (DILS), initiated in 2012 and ending in spring 2015, funded by Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation. During the work with the project especially the meaning of digital tools for L2 students was interesting.

Theoretical framework

Literacy development among L2 learners should be paid more attention. One is that reading literacy scores decline in particular for L2 learners from socially deprived groups (Skolverket 2007, Skolverket 2010). This raises the question of whether students get adequate support at school. For instance, although it is well known that primary language schooling plays an important role in the acquisition of the majority language (Teleman 1991, Hyltenstam 1996, Thomas & Collier 2002, Tuomela 2002, Parszyk 2007, Lindberg 2009), the primary language is rarely used in the classroom when developing literacy in the second language (Axelsson et al. 2002, Lyngfelt 2013, Lyngfelt 2014). This is crucial, since it appears that disregard of pupils’ prior knowledge – as competence when it comes to the use of digital tools and multiliteracies - may impair not only the development of literacy but also motivation and commitment in the classroom. What matters, according to Cummins (2001), is to affirm L2 pupils’ cultural and linguistic identities, since this encourages students to put effort into their own linguistic development. For developing literacy it is crucial to use the knowledge of multi-competence that bilingual students’ have (Abu-Rabia, Share & Said 2003, Cook 2008, Salameh 2011). It is well known that multilingual speakers ability to shuttle between languages - treating diverse languages that form their repertoire as an integrated system – is important to increase learning effects (Canagarajah 2013, Hornberger 2005), and it is in accordance with this multiliteracies – offering a variety of ”languages” for the students to express themselves by – is interesting.

Method

The DILS project involves students and teachers from three school classes and four teachers at primary school, with access to laptop or tablet computers for each student. The students represent varying socio-economic backgrounds. In this presentation the class that consists of L2 students will be focused. What is being presented here is the result of classroom observations, video-recordings and interviews with the students. Especially, the result by the observations of the twelve focal students gets attention.

Expected Outcomes

A variety of the collected material shows a wide range of multiliteracies, dependant on contextual factors like media habits and possibilities for the students to express themselves verbally by the use of the majority language in the classroom. Socio-economic factors appeared to have a greater impact than expected in the project: the students from socio-economically strong environments with a developed verbal language and advanced use of digital technology at home used their text productions not only to communicate but to position themselves socially, while the students suffering from linguistic constraints on the majority language used their text productions for inventive multimodal communication to express themselves. The latter group of students also tended to use multimodal assets for cognitive reasons, i. e. to explore the content of a topic while producing their texts. Also, this latter group of students shows that the use of digital technology at home should not be taken for granted; even if they proved to be inventive when it comes to the use of digital tools for communication they tended to suffer from lack of multimodal digital literacy when it comes to navigating on (for instance) a web page. Unexpected but interesting is the discernability of individual students’ literacy development while using digital tools, which opens up for information on the variety of literacy approaches that is being used in the classroom (bottom-up and top-down reading, etc.). This, in turn, means that the study of digital text production has potentials as a basis for the support of reading and writing skills, especially for students not having the majority language as their first language; multimodal transition could therefore be regarded a literacy competence and used for language developing purposes, especially for students excluded from communication by the use of the majority language in the classroom

References

Abu-Rabia, S., Share, D. & Said, M. (2003). Word recognition and basic cognitive processes among reading-disabled and normal readers in Arabic. In Reading and Writing, 17:6, pp. 423-442. Axelsson, M., Lennartson-Hokkanen, I. & Sellgren, M. (2002). Den röda tråden. Utvärdering av Stockholms stads storstadssatsning – målområde språkutveckling och skolresultat. Stockholm: Språkforskningsinstitutet i Rinkeby och Stockholms stad. Cangarajah, S. (ed.) 2013. Literacy as Translingual Practice. Between Communities and Classrooms. London: Routledge. Cook, V. (2008). Multi-Competence: Black Hole or Wormhole for Second Language Acquisition Research? In Z. Han (ed.) Understanding Second Language Process. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Barton, D. (2007). Literacy. An Introduction to the Ecology or Written Langage. MA: Blackwell. Creese, A. & Blackledge, A. (2010). Translanguaging in the Bilingual Classroom: A Pedagogy for Learning and Teaching? The Modern Language Journal, 94, pp. 103-115. Cummins, J. (2001). Second language teaching for academic success. A framework for school language policy development. In: K. Nauclér (ed) Symposium 2000. Ett andraspråksperspektiv på lärande. Stockholm: Sigma förlag. Hyltenstam, K. (ed.) (1996). Tvåspråkighet med förhinder? Invandrar- och minoritetsundervisning i Sverige. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Lyngfelt, A. (2006a). Skönlitterära texter som pedagogisk fostran. Om skönlitterära texter i läromedel, med critical literacy-begreppet som utgångspunkt. In Ellvin, M. (ed.): Ord och bild ger mening. Om literacy i förskola och skola. Stockholm: Svensklärarföreningen, pp. 108- 122. L yngfelt, A. (2006b). Utanförskap som loggboksreflektion. Analys av en skönlitterär läromedelstext om etnisk tillhörighet, avsedd för grundskolans senare år. In Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap 3-4, pp. 139-153. L yngfelt, A . (2013). Om andraspråkselevers läsning av skönlitterära texter och textproduktion. Literacy i læringskontekster. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk, pp. 155 - 169. Murphy, L. & Roca de Larios, J. (2010). Searching for words: One strategic use of the mother tongue by advanced Spanish EFL writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 19, pp. 61- 8.1 Salameh, E. Lexikal utveckling på svenska och arabiska vid tvåspråkig undervisning. Educare, 11:3, pp. 205-225. Thomas, W. & Collier, V. (2002). A National Study of School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students’ Long-Term Academic Achievement. Berkeley: Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence (CREDE). Tuomela, V. (2002). Modersmålsundervisningen – en forskningsöversikt. Stockholm: Regeringskansliet. Skolverket (2007). Vad händer med läsningen? En kunskapsöversikt om läsundervisningen i Sverige 1995-2007. Rapport 304. Stockholm: Fritzes. Wang, L. (2003). Switching to first language among writers with different second-language proficiency. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12, pp. 347- 375.

Author Information

Anna Lyngfelt (presenting / submitting)

University of Gothenburg

Dep. Of Swedish

Göteborg

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