Session Information
27 SES 05 A, Teaching Literacy: Relationships with Contextual Literacy Practices
Paper Session
Contribution
Content based language learning/instruction/teaching in different manifestations has been discussed through the last four to five decades, most often as a relevant and important scaffold when it comes to second language learners (1). During the same time there has also been a similar focus for first language learners in e.g. genre pedagogy (2) and in the area of writing across curriculum (3). Some problems that have been discussed are that the language teachers’ gets a lower status than the subject teacher, and that the students get less interested when the focus is shifted to formal aspects of the language use (see e.g. Arkoudis or Creese in (1)). As Barwell (in 1, p. 146) states that there is a “need for a better understanding of the contingent decisions that teachers make as lessons unfold, and a need for a better understanding of how students make sense of their lessons.”, which is in this paper is termed as “to seize the didactic moment”.
In this presentation a model will be proposed, exemplified, and discussed in order to find a scaffold for how teachers can reflect on the contingent decisions that they make as lessons unfold. Three aspects of these above presented approaches to teaching the subject specific language will be expanded on. The first aspect concerns the curricular content of teaching which is seldom in focus in these kinds of studies. The second aspect concerns the use of the often quite narrow perspective on language most often focusing on formal aspects of language. This will be replaced by the concept of literacy in order to expand the view on what is or may be going on in teaching and learning. The third aspect concerns the dichotomy Language based content learning/instruction/teaching and Content based language learning/instruction/teaching. This dichotomy will be resolved by showing shifts that are possible to take in a motion back and forth between what will here be suggested as Literacy based subject teaching and Subject based literacy teaching.
The study is firstly based on a curriculum theoretical perspective in order to identify types of curricular content (see e.g. 4, 5, 6, 7). Furthermore, the study is based on Ivanič (8) multi-layered view of language where the textual aspects of language are “embedded within, and inseparable from, mental and social aspects” (8, p. 222). The ‘text’, which consists only of the linguistic substance of language, is at the center of this multi-layered view of language. It includes visual and material as well as linguistic characteristics (layer 1). The next layer includes what happens in the minds of people. It focuses “on ‘languaging’: the mental processes of meaning-making, and in relation to multimodal meaning-making, the focus is on ‘design’” (8, p. 223) and what type of content that is created in the meaning-making (layer 2). The next layer (layer 3) encloses the immediate social context in which language is being used, the purposes for language use as well as the social interaction. The last layer (layer 4) “goes beyond the material facts of language and language use (represented by layers 1–3) to identify why they are the way they are, sometimes also with a sociopolitical agenda for contestation of the status quo and action for change.” (8, p. 224). It involves a critical eye on traditions, norms and values and thereby the identities, power positions and privileges associated with different situations of speaking, reading and writing. In this way the view of language is broaden to be conceptualized as social practices, culturally situated and ideologically constructed. This is how the concept of literacy will be used in this presentation.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
References (1) Linguistics and Education, Vol 16 No 2, 2005, Special issue: Language and content in mainstream classrooms (2) Rose, David & Martin, Jim R. (2012). Learning to Write. Reading to Learn. Genre, Knowledge and Pedagogy in the Sydney School. Sheffield (UK) and Bristol (USA): Equinox Publishing Ltd. (3) Condon, William & Rutz, Carol (2012). A Taxonomy of Writing Across the Curriculum Programs: Evolving to Serve Broader Agendas. In: College Composition and Communication, Vol 64, No 2, pp. 357-382, Dec 2012. (4) Englund, Thomas. (1986). Curriculum as a Political Problem. Changing Educational Conceptions with special reference to Citizenship Education. Uppsala Studies in Education 25. Lund: Studentlitteratur. (5) Liberg, Caroline (2015). Content, Voices and Writer Positions in Students’ Written Informational Texts in Early School Years. In: Towards a reflective society: synergies between learning, teaching and research (Conference paper at Earli 2015.16th Biennial Earli Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction. 25 - 29 August 2015, Limassol, Cyprus). See: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A866452&dswid=-4287 (6) Liberg, Caroline, Wiksten Folkeryd, Jenny, af Geijerstam, Åsa (2012). Swedish - An updated school subject? Education Inquiry, 3(4), 471-493. (7) Roberts, Douglas A. & Ostman, Leif (Eds) (1998). Problems of Meaning in Science Curriculum. NY and London: Teachers’ College Press, Columbia University. (8) Ivanič, Roz (2004). Discourses of Writing and Learning to Write. In: Language and Education Vol 18, No 3, pp. 220-245.
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