Professional Documents
Culture Documents
literacies: a new
perspective to language
learning and teaching
(progress report)
Esperanza Vera & Diego Sánchez
Universidad Pedagógica Nacional
Research Background
● Sánchez, D. (2015)- Maestría UPN
● Vargas. N. (2017)- Maestría UPN
● Olivos, N. (dic. 2017) – Pregrado UPN
● Velasco. E, (2015)
● Mora, R. (2014)
● Sidaway, R. (2006)
● Lea & Street, (1997)
● Bathia, V. (1993)
● Steele, V. (1992)
● White, R. and Arndt, V. (1991)
XXIV SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS & VI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES
Critical literacy problems
● No recognition of author´s position or arguments in a text.
● No identification of multiple perspectives and voices within texts.
● No challenge of the status quo.
● Absence of their own voices.
XXIV SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS & VI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES
Academic literacy problems
● Text structure.
● Cohesion, coherence and unity.
● Writing process: from outlining to proofreading.
● Argumentative fallacies.
● Language use.
● Plagiarism.
XXIV SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS & VI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES
RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
XXIV SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS & VI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES
Research Questions
To what extent does the use of a model of critical and academic literacies have an
impact on the EFL pre-service teachers’ literacy?
1. How do pre-service English teachers perceive the critical and academic literacy
model?
XXIV SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS & VI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES
RESEARCH DESIGN
Participants:
4th and 5th semester pre-service EFL
teachers
Type of study:
Mixed Methods
XXIV SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS & VI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES
XXIV SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS & VI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES
Critical
Critical literacy
literacy approach
approach
Reading,
1. Readingwriting,
and writingspeaking
from activefrom an active
and resistant and resistant
perspective. perspective
questioning asideologies
the text and the well as
underlying those text since any text is neutral.
questioning a variety of texts and the ideologies, values and dominant assumptions
underlying
3.It promotesthem.
reflection, action, and transformation.
It4.To
alsolearn
tries
howtotounveil
read andwhich interest(s)
write questioning thedo theand
values text serveassumptions
dominant and why?onItwhichchallenges
texts the
are supported.
status quo and it tries to identify which voices are silenced or marginalized within a
text.
5.It questions dominant assumptions in a text and in a culture. It also tries to unveil which interest(s)
do the text serve and why?
It goes beyond coding and decoding words ( reading and writing skills). It is multimodal
6. Ititchallenges
and the status
deals with quo and
reading theidentify
“word which
andvoices
the are silenced
world” or marginalized
(Freire, 1987).within a text.
7. It deals with issues of power, inequality, social justice, and the social construction of the self.
It deals with issues of power, inequality, social justice, and the social construction of
the self.
8. It goes beyond coding and decoding words ( reading and writing skills). It is multimodal and it
deals with reading the word and the world.
It promotes reflection, action, and transformation.
Academic literacies approach
STAGES (based on models) (Street & Lea, 2006)
Academic Literacies: meaning making, identity, power and authority, situated ( highlighting
the institutional nature on what is recognized as knowledge at particular academic and
social contexts… epistemological issues and social processes including power relations
among people and institutions and social identity” Lea (2004)
“.. Examines how literacy practices from other institutions (government, business, university
bureaucracy, etc) are implicated in what students need to learn and do.”
XXIV SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS & VI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES
PEDAGOGICAL DESIGN
XXIV SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS & VI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES
PEDAGOGICAL DESIGN
Critical Literacy
IMMERSION
● To establish the text structure
DECONSTRUCTION
● To recognize the text context ● Problem posing
● To infer the audience and purpose of the ● (Resisting) Binaries
text. ● Alternative perspectives
STUDY SKILLS
ACADEMIC
SOCIALISATION
ACADEMIC
LITERACIES
B4“The internet is an excellent tool for learning and teaching, not only languages but also maths, biology or
music. In addition, you can know many people with different with different cultures and thoughts by means
of social networks. As a teacher, I would planning my classes in a website and come it to my students. In the
same way, many people take virtual classes for coming at their life goals”. (Final Written Exam)
1.2. Improving language skills through the model
“the transcriptions of the recordings allow as to determine that the low proficiency level of
most of the participants and their low lexical competence becomes a barrier for them to
express their ideas”
(Research assistants Report- First General Report)
“ The use of language is more understandable in most of the students in terms of oral and
written skills”
(Third Lesson plan analysis report)
B4:“The internet is an excellent tool for learning and teaching, not only languages but also
maths, biology or music. In addition, you can know many people with different with
different cultures and thoughts by means of social networks. As a teacher, I would planning
my classes in a website and come it to my students. In the same way, many people take
virtual classes for coming at their life goals”.
(excerpt from Final written Exam)
2.2 From discovering partial aspects from the text to elaborating conclusions,
questioning the author and identifying absent voices
G2:“The intention of the author is to persuade the audience to make them reflect
and reform about being in agreement with euthanasia”.
G6:“The texts has the purpose to influence the audience to decide or think in a bad
way about euthanasia. For instance, the article refers that in the Second World
War, Hitler regime use the euthanasia to end with the life of disable people”.
(Midterm Written Exam)
G1:“The silent voices are, for example, those of people who has fulfilled life goals
through the internet such as those who have an online related job and also people
who studies/learn through platforms. In addition, people who have a different
perspective on the Internet ”.
(Final Written Exam)
CATEGORY 3: FROM REFLECTION TO SOCIAL ACTION
3.1 Using deconstruction and reconstruction strategies to speak their
minds
B1 “… NO, I want to(bis) have a baby eh: I (bis) gone with my responsible of the children
and all of that " but the women said I don't want it because is my body, is my decision, is
my, all of that. yeah, eh: so that eh: I-- in the other case when is the WO-woman who are
trying to conceive the baby and the man has not responsible. the men say " I want abortion
but the women say is my body , I want to had a- to has a baby " so, eh: in that case I think
that men area voice silenced.” (Second lesson Plan Transcription. Binaries: Men Vs.
Women)
“how I decided to reconstruct the original one was using setting switching by changing the
story about how the parents are related into this situation and how kids are immerse on
YouTube, on Facebook using electronic devices and I decided to use the time that they
spend on it and I decided to use color around them for emphasize how children spend time
on it and how parents don’t care about what their children do. And that’s all. ”
(Video Transcription- Posters on Electronic devices presentation-lesson plan 3.)
3.2 From reflection to social action
• “The homeroom teacher thanked for the activity and mentioned the
importance of the university approaching the schools in that way, since
those were significant activities for the girls that led them to reflect upon
a problematic they are currently facing such as the use of electronic
devices in teenagers.”.
( Socialización of Posters at Liceo Femenino de Cundinamarca Report- June 1/2018 1.40
p.m.)
Research Question 2: Which are the future language
teacher’s perceptions about the implementation of
the critical literacy model?
“para mí el más importante del proceso de inmersión era el contexto del autor, saber ehhh, el
contexto socio-cultural de la persona que estaba escribiendo este texto y hacia quién iba
dedicado tal escrito, ¿sí? Porque pues es diferente un escrito de una persona de nacionalidad
colombiana hablando de violencia, ¿sí? A una persona no sé, de Canadá y que obviamente no ha
sufrido, entre comillas, el mismo conflicto armado en el país, entonces son como diferentes
perspectivas y diferente posición social y geológica pues que permitan que el texto tenga
diferentes matices, entonces escomo chévere identificar el contexto de la persona que escribió o
que dibujó, o que tomó l la fotografía, es chévere”.
(Focus group,G6)
1.2. Reading through a critical literacy lens
“Lo que sucede con literacidad crítica nos lleva no solo a leer el texto en inglés a no solo
ver el texto por encima lo que compete al área gramatical, sino lo que realmente está
detrás de la líneas del texto obviamente teniendo en cuenta que pueden ser otros textos
imágenes y otros tipos mejor dicho todo en el mundo es un texto y se puede leer”.
(Focus group,G4)
“Pues digamos que si yo tengo un acercamiento al texto con una cotidianidad, ¿sí? Con
algún asunto que digamos yo tenga cerca, me ayuda como a entenderlo mejor, entender
mejor la intención del autor, y lo que se quiere explicar en el texto”.
(Focus group, G7)
1.4. Exploring multiple perspectives to create new texts
“ (…) la parte de la reconstrucción digamos que de las actividades es la más difícil porque
lo ayuda a uno a mirar las perspectivas así como la ideología de uno está muy guiada o
digámoslo así tiene un sentido por decir único en cierto modo lo hace a uno entender
ehhh. y abrir la mente (…) ”.
(Focus group, B8)
Bueno, yo me sentí muy bien en la clase, eh… siento que tocamos temas
que de verdad eh…nos conciernen como sociedad y como jóvenes que en
un futuro vamos a seguir educando a otros jóvenes y otros niños. (G5,
Focus group 3)
Category 3: Impact of the model on participants
3.3 Impact on participants’ intrinsic motivation towards their career and
future research project
G4: “Bueno con respecto haciendo una reflexión acerca del proceso
definitivamente me desacomodo, me saco de la zona de confort de la clase
de inglés en la cual simplemente se escribe y se pasa y ya. Me hizo ver un
poco más allá de lo que realmente puedo hacer ... Pero esta
específicamente esta materia me hizo re-enamorarme y realmente perder
muchos miedos. Poder entender el inglés no solamente como una materia
que se enseña, sino realmente como algo que se puede explorar y como
que me da alas digámoslo así para poder decir muchas nuevas cosas que se
pueden hacer …Esta materia me empieza a dar como una perspectiva
mucho más amplia de pensar en mi proyecto de grado y no hacer lo que
siempre se hace de cómo enseñar el vocabulario a los niños de tercer grado
no sé porque esos son finalmente muchos de los proyectos que se hacen
sin pensar realmente en un proyecto innovador que realmente aporte me
permita crecer pero también deje algo productivo para los estudiantes”.
Category 3: Impact of the model on participants
3.4 Impact on participants’ learning
Sí, la verdad sí. Si porque uno se piensa las cosas antes de hacerlas, y me
gusta que cada uno siente cómo llevó su proceso; yo en lo personal siento
que sí crecí, que sí me pude expresar mucho más con las demás personas y
pues sí, siento que funcionó mucho para vencer esa timidez y todo esto.
(G6, focus group 2)
Nosotros ya tenemos, (bis) entonces las herramientas desde, de este curso
para expresar nuestras opiniones y para enriquecer nuestro discurso,
nuestro propio, nuestro propio aprendizaje en frente, frente al inglés, a la
lengua inglesa. (B3, focus group 3)
“…en vez de sentir miedo de hablar y expresar sentí que mejoró mi nivel
de inglés y ya logro como organizar las ideas que quiero presentar (G4,
focus group 1)