Over the past two decades, postsecondary language programs have experienced a shift away from an emphasis on oral communication toward more text-based curricula and the development of students’ multiple literacies. This “literacy turn” prioritizes overlapping language modalities, interpretation and creation of multimodal texts of various genres, and linguistic, cognitive, and sociocultural dimensions of learning. Numerous curricular and course-level models of multiliteracies curricula exist and empirical research documents the feasibility, linguistic outcomes, and perceptions of multiliteracies approaches (e.g., Byrnes, Maxim, & Norris, 2010; Maxim, 2002, 2006; Paesani, 2016, 2017; Warner & Michelson, 2018). After overviewing this research, I discuss what multiliteracies pedagogy entails and how it can be applied to simultaneously develop students’ language proficiency and engagement with textual content. In particular, I illustrate how to move beyond the kind of experiencing (i.e., surface-level comprehension) activities typical of communicative language teaching by incorporating a range of activity types that encourage textual interpretation and other higher-order thinking skills. Examples provided during the presentation can serve as models for projects developed during the remainder of the Instructional Innovation Workshop.
Transforming Teaching through Multiliteracies Pedagogy: From Comprehension to Interpretation - by Guest Speaker Kate Paesani (IIW Opening Lecture)
Event time:
Monday, May 13, 2019 - 3:00pm
Location:
CLS, Dow Hall - Room 100
370 Temple Street
New Haven, CT
06511
Event description:
Kate Paesani (Ph.D., Indiana University) is Director of the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) and affiliate Associate Professor in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on literacy-based curriculum and instruction and foreign language teacher development, couched within the frameworks of multiliteracies pedagogy and sociocultural theory. Her work has appeared in journals such as Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Foreign Language Annals, L2 Journal, Language, Culture, and Curriculum, Modern Language Journal, and Reading in a Foreign Language. She is co-author of the book A Multiliteracies Framework for Collegiate Foreign Language Teaching (Pearson, 2016), and is co-editor of Issues in Language Program Direction, the annual book series of the American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators (AAUSC).
IIW 2019 Opening Lecture will be followed by a wine and cheese reception.
RSVP at maria.ideliu@yale.edu
Admission:
Free but register in advance