Literacies in Language Education
initiativ卡拉的文化在语言教育e gives teachers research-based tools, resources, and experiences that help them effectively apply multiliteracies pedagogy and engage students with authentic texts in secondary and post-secondary classrooms.
How Do We Define Foreign Language Literacies?
Traditional definitions of literacy focus on language users’ ability to read and write accurately. Yet in the 21st century, being literate in a language entails other abilities such as:- understanding and creating multimodal texts like web pages;
- 美军陆军nicating across cultural and geographical contexts; and
- using language for a range of social, professional, academic, and everyday purposes.
Definitions of other key terms are available in theliteracies glossary. We continue to update this list, so be sure to check back regularly!
Why Adopt a Literacies Approach to Language Education?
It is important for language classrooms to reflect the dynamic, socially-determined, and multidimensional uses of language encountered in daily life. Adopting a literacies orientation helps meet this goal and has a number of advantages for teachers, students, and language programs, including:- equipping students with the tools necessary to navigate the complex world of foreign/second languages and cultures;
- engaging students with various types of written, audio, audiovisual, and visual materials in the target language that provide a window into the products, practices, and perspectives of the target cultures they study;
- providing a point of articulation between secondary and post-secondary contexts; and
- bridging the language-content divide that characterizes many postsecondary language departments.
Literacies Resources for Teachers
- Literacies Bibliography: thematically organized list of scholarly publications.
- Text Resources: links to written, audio, and audiovisual texts in multiple languages.
- Lesson Analysis Checklist: a tool for analyzing and adapting existing text-based lessons.
- Activity Repository: examples of activities for enacting the knowledge processes of multiliteracies pedagogy - experiencing, conceptualizing, analyzing, applying
- Infographics: presentation of literacies-related concepts in jargon-free, teacher-friendly language
- Research: findings from studies conducted by the Literacies in Language Education project team