Learning by Design and Second Language Teaching

Theory, Research, and Practice

Gabriela C. Zapata

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367617349
• eBook ISBN: 9781000596038
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Learning by Design and Second Language Teaching establishes theoretical, research, and practice connections between the multiliteracies framework Learning by Design and L2 teaching and learning.

A comprehensive introductory chapter presents the theoretical tenets of the approach and is followed by four chapters devoted to the establishment of connections between the framework and L2 instruction, information on evidence-based pedagogical practices and suggestions for their implementation, and task examples that can be adapted for use in a variety of educational contexts. Each chapter links theory and research to practical steps instructors can take to select authentic materials and create tasks in each of the framework's knowledge processes with the objective of developing L2 students' performance in the interpersonal (speaking), interpretive (reading and listening), and presentational (writing) modes of communication. A selection of guidance charts, figures, templates, and extra digital resources are included within the text to support learning and teaching.

The book will be of interest to graduate students and in-service and future L2 teachers in all levels of instruction.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com.

1 Introduction to Learning by Design

DOI: 10.4324/9781003106258-1

Learning by Design: Theoretical and Pedagogical Bases

The global crisis brought about by the COVID pandemic affected all aspects of our lives, including the way in which we communicate, work, teach, and learn. In 2020, the majority of our activities were carried out virtually, and most of us were forced not only to learn how to use a myriad of digital tools, but also how to create a variety of new kinds of texts. This was particularly true in education, where both educators and learners needed to adapt to new instructional environments with different expectations, forms of communication, and overall ways of doing things. Of course, we had lived in this technology-based, new media world for at least two decades (Green & Beavis, 2013), but the health crisis exacerbated our reliance on digital forms of interaction and action. Another crucial aspect of our recent social experience was the civic movements, such as Black Lives Matter, that once more brought to light the realities faced by countless minoritized communities, and the effects of systemic racism and discrimination on people’s lives. These movements reminded us that we all have a role to play in making this world more inclusive and equitable, and that the diversity of our societies should be celebrated and valued, and be the norm in all aspects of our lives. Everyone should have a seat and a voice at the table, and opportunities and conditions should be present for this to happen. And this cannot be truer than in education, a crucial site for societal change (Kalantzis et al., 2016, 2019).

In the mid-1990s, a group of scholars anticipated what we experienced in the past two years, though I am quite sure they could not have predicted the COVID crisis or envisaged the extent to which their predictions would hold true. The scholars belonged to the New London Group (NLG)—ten international educators who met in New London, New Hampshire, in 1994 (Cope & Kalantzis, 2006, 2009; NLG, 1996) with the purpose of focusing on literacy. Based on current trends in globalization and technology at that time, the NLG posited that the traditional concept of literacy, tied to the printed medium and to “a single, official, or standard form of language” (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015, p. 1), and the way in which it was taught, were inadequate for a generation for whom learning already involved much more than the printed, “official word.” The NLG believed that what was needed was a pedagogy that would encompass not just printed language, but also other modalities of communication present in the everyday reality in which the new generation was growing. In addition, this new approach would have to address and incorporate learners’ diverse identities and life experiences (Kalantzis et al., 2005). For the NLG scholars, it was evident we were living in a diverse, globalized world, and we were becoming both multimodal and multilingual meaning-makers. The traditional concept of “literacy” was no longer relevant. We needed

a kind of learning which [would] facilitate [learners’] active engagement with new and unfamiliar kinds of [multimodal] texts, without arousing a sense of alienation and exclusion, [and would focus on the] increasing complexity and inter-relationship of different modes of meaning.

(Cope & Kalantzis, 2006, pp. 37–38)

To refer to this new type of educational approach, the NLG introduced the concept of multiliteracies.

But what exactly did the NLG scholars (1996) have in mind when they coined this term? What does the multi in multiliteracies refer to? Broadly speaking, the term multiliteracies makes reference to the multiple ways in which we create and convey meaning. These encompass two dimensions of meaning-making: The social (context/function) and the modal (form) (Kalantzis et al., 2016, 2019). The first one is connected to the diverse social contexts in which communication takes place, which shape what and how we communicate. The social multi might comprise the personal experiences, cultural or “community setting[s], social role[s], interpersonal relations, identit[ies], subject matter, etc.” that are “significant to the ways in which we make and participate in meaning” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, pp. 1–2). The second dimension, the modal, refers to the variety of communication modes or semiotic systems to which we might resort to create meaning, such as the linguistic (written and oral), visual, gestural, or auditory. These modes are directly connected to the new media (and the tools and practices associated with them) which we experience daily, and which we have come to rely on in today’s world. Lister et al.’s (2009) characterization of new media denotes this current multimodal nature of meaning, and it encompasses the following (also embedded in the concept of multiliteracies):

New textual experiences: new kinds of [genres]¹ and textual [multimodal] forms, entertainment, pleasure, and patterns of media consumption (computer games, simulations, special effects cinema).

New ways of representing the world: media which … offer new representational possibilities and experiences (immersive virtual environments, screen-based interactive multimedia).

Computer-mediated communications: email, chat rooms, avatar-based communication forums, voice image transmissions, the World Wide Web, blogs, [vlogs and vodcasts], etc., social networking sites, and mobile telephony.

New ways of distributing and consuming media texts characterized by interactivity, [multimodality] and hypertextual formats.

A whole range of transformations and dislocations of established media (in, for example, photography, animation, television, journalism, film, and cinema).

(pp. 12–13)

When applied to educational contexts, the concept of multiliteracies, which encompasses both multis, the social and the modal, entails the need to establish educational contexts that allow learners to understand, create, and be able to appropriately and effectively participate in multimodal meaning-making involving new media in a multiplicity of diverse social contexts (Anstey & Bull, 2006; NLG, 1996). Thus, a pedagogy whose goal is to develop students’ multiliteracies relies on students’ exposure to and work with multimodal texts and technologies reflective of a variety of social and literate practices. Based on their existing body of work (e.g., Anstey, 2009; Anstey & Bull, 2006), Bull and Anstey (2019) posit that instructional approaches based on the notion of multiliteracies need to prepare learners to:

• Be strategic, creative and critical thinkers who can engage with new texts in a variety of contexts and audiences.
• Understand that … texts that have differing purposes, audiences and contexts will require a range of different behaviors that draw on a repertoire of knowledge and experiences.
• Understand how social and cultural diversity affect literate practices.
• Understand, and be able to use, traditional and new communication technologies.
• Be critically literate … to determine, [in every literate practice], who is participating and for what reason, who is in a position of power, who has been marginalized, and what is the purpose and origin of the texts being used and how these texts are supporting participation in society and everyday life.

(p. 7)

Though not articulated precisely in Bull and Anstey’s (2019) terms, these goals were present in the NLG’s (1996) proposal for a pedagogy of multiliteracies.

This new instructional approach was theoretically grounded in Halliday’s (1985) Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). This theory’s overarching principle is that language is a semiotic system that cannot be separated from its social function, as it expresses meaning according to the different social contexts in which it is used. That is, SFL “treats linguistic systems and structures as intrinsically organized with respect to the … kinds of meaning they construe, enact, and compose” (Martin, 2016, p. 44). Language use in specific social contexts can be analyzed in terms of the three aspects present in all meaning-making: The field, the tenor, and the mode, or, simply put, “what is happening [subject-matter, situation]; who is taking part [participants]; and what it is that the participants expect language to do for them [language form, communication channel]” (Halliday & Hasan, 1985, p. 12). These aspects of meaning will be realized through language, fulfilling three types of semantic functions (or metafunctions)—the ideational (or experiential), the interpersonal, and the textual. That is, the field or what we are experiencing/noticing in the world will be expressed through the ideational metafunction; the tenor or aspects of our communication with others (e.g., emotions, attitudes, type of relationship, etc.) will be expressed through the interpersonal metafunction; and the mode or the way in which we structure/organize/express our message will be expressed through the textual metafunction (Halliday & Hassan, 1985; Martin, 2013).

In the pedagogy of multiliteracies, SFL’s three situational features and metafunctions are first embedded in the importance that the approach bestows upon the connections among language, sociocultural context (including participants), meaning, and text. Nevertheless, the pedagogy goes beyond a focus on only language, to include other modalities of communication, as they are realized in different multimodal meaning-making manifestations beyond printed texts and speech (Cope & Kalantzis, 2006). Additionally, the multiliteracies approach guides learners in the understanding of the how and why of meaning-making based on th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1  Introduction to Learning by Design
• 2  Learning by Design and Second Language Education
• 3  Learning by Design and Second Language Teaching Practices
• 4  Genre- and Project-Based Instruction Grounded in Learning by Design
• 5  Sample Second Language Tasks Grounded in Learning by Design
• Appendix A: Template Questions and Foci for the Analysis of Multimodal Texts
• Appendix B: Recommended Websites and Digital Tools
• Appendix C: Multimodal Product Assessment
• Index