Search Results (13)

Background/Objectives: This paper introduces a pedagogically grounded framework for transforming canonical literary texts in primary education through generative AI. Guided by multiliteracies theory, Vygotskian pedagogy, and epistemic justice, the system aims to enhance interpretive literacy, developmental alignment, and cultural responsiveness among learners aged 7–12. Methods: The proposed system enables educators to perform age-specific text simplification, visual re-narration, lexical reinvention, and multilingual augmentation through a suite of modular tools. Central to the design is the Ethical–Pedagogical Validation Layer (EPVL), a GPT-powered auditing module that evaluates AI-generated content across four normative dimensions: developmental appropriateness, cultural sensitivity, semantic fidelity, and ethical transparency. Results: The framework was fully implemented and piloted with primary educators (N = 8). The pilot demonstrated high usability, curricular alignment, and perceived value for classroom application. Unlike commercial Large Language Models (LLMs), the system requires no prompt engineering and supports editable, policy-aligned controls for normative localization. Conclusions: By embedding ethical evaluation within the generative loop, the framework fosters calibrated trust in human–AI collaboration and mitigates cultural stereotyping and ideological distortion. It advances a scalable, inclusive model for educator-centered AI integration, offering a new pathway for explainable and developmentally appropriate AI use in literary education. Full article

In this article, we document our experiences as teacher educators as we designed and implemented two courses that scaffold primary preservice teachers to engage critically with postmodern picture books and to explore a range of pedagogical practices for using postmodern picture books in classrooms with young children. Initially, our preservice teachers told us they did not have many experiences with postmodern picture books. Postmodern picture books are a special form of children’s literature that showcase some unique characteristics such as breaking boundaries, excess, indeterminacy and parody. In this article, our research investigation includes two case studies which draw on Schon’s classical approach to exploring the epistemology of our own practice through a reflective lens that brings together academic theory and professional practice. Firstly, we each recount our preservice teachers’ most adverse reactions to postmodern picture books. In response, we use the multiliteracies framework of the New London Group, that of situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing and transformed practice, to describe how we designed the learning activities and assessment tasks at two different universities in Australia. We do not attempt to generalise from our findings; rather, we explore the pedagogical framework that takes our preservice teachers from places of not knowing, resistance, and critique to one where they can articulate their understandings of postmodern picture books as social and cultural commentary and demonstrate a range of effective pedagogical applications. Full article

This study proposes Tewahedo epistemology, an Ethiopian knowledge system grounded in the Ge’ez language, as a decolonial framework for re-visualizing academic literacy in higher education. Tewahedo, meaning “oneness” or “unity”, integrates multiliteracies—written, oral, spatial, and visual—within a communal and culturally embedded ethos through its Tergwame (ትርጓሜ) epistemes and Andǝmta (አንድምታ) traditions. The aim of the article is to challenge the dominance of skills-based literacy models by positioning Tewahedo as a decolonized alternative, emphasizing contextualized knowledge, communal meaning-making, and epistemic belonging. Through a literature review, the study explores Andəmta as a communal and dialogic system of knowledge sharing, rooted in Ge’ez and Amharic hermeneutics. This framework serves as a template for Africanizing and decolonizing contemporary academic literacy development. Findings reveal that Tewahedo epistemology offers ancient yet innovative strategies for fostering interpretive, explanatory, and multimodal competencies in academia. The study argues that adopting a unified Tewahedo-based academic literacy framework can cultivate intellectual agency, decolonize educational spaces, and center Indigenous Knowledge Systems. It calls for educational reforms that promote cultural diversity, legitimize Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and nurture academic belonging for students in multilingual and multicultural contexts. Full article

With an increased number of multimodal texts being read, viewed, or designed by young adolescents ages 10–15 years, classroom instruction requires a focus on current research related to multimodal pedagogy. This integrative literature review sought to determine how instruction based on multimodality has been implemented in middle school classrooms. Educational databases were searched to locate empirical quantitative and qualitative studies describing instruction focusing on reading, viewing, or designing multimodal texts. The authors reviewed 37 research studies published between 2013 and 2023 to update the MLER Research Agenda. An analysis of the studies revealed three themes related to multimodal pedagogy: promoting language and literacy development; enhancing content learning; and providing opportunities for empowerment, personal expression, and identity development. Three gaps in the literature were also noted: no studies were conducted in mathematics classrooms, few studies examined multimodal pedagogy and students with learning or language differences, and few studies investigated the impact of multimodal pedagogy on students’ learning. Based on our findings, we conclude with a series of questions for a research agenda. Full article

The formulation of the construct of communicative competence (CC) was the consequence of the perceived “inappropriateness” of the theory of linguistic competence and performance. To obtain a comprehensive understanding of second language (L2) CC, a systematic review of 85 studies was conducted to assess how empirical studies have defined and operationalized the construct in the context of L2 learning and assessment. Four main themes emerged from the papers: (1) beliefs and perceptions about CC, (2) expansion of CC, (3) mixed specifications of CC, and (4) tests and measures of CC and communicative language ability (CLA). The analysis of these themes foregrounded several significant findings. First, the construct of L2 CC was significantly more prevalent in the body of research compared to L2 CLA. Second, CC has been perceived as a multifarious construct that has been researched from varied perspectives. It was found that older studies were more consistent with traditional approaches to defining CC and CLA, while the construct shifted focus to technology and self-appraisals in more recent studies. Third, there is no consensus amongst the reviewed studies about tests and methods of operationalization of CC, suggesting that the evidence provided is sample-specific and non-replicable. Importantly, it was found that over the years, CC has undergone a gradual evolution. With the multimodal and intercultural turn, CC has branched into new concepts namely intercultural and multimodal communicative competencies. Pertaining to these concepts, new notions such as telecollaboration, digital literacies, and multiliteracies have emerged. CC has also been, for long, analogous to performance, proficiency, social rules of language use, rules of appropriateness, willingness to communicate, self-perceptions of CC, and the goal of being a native speaker, which can add to the confusion surrounding the construct. The implications of the present research synthesis are two-fold. It becomes imperative to adapt world language classrooms to the rising trend in intercultural and multimodal communicative competencies. In addition, further replicable investigations should focus on developing optimal methods of operationalization that are in line with the new contemporary theoretical frameworks of language in the age of digital technologies and artificial intelligence. Full article

This article emerged from my study of three alternative-certification teachers, or teacher learners as they tried to enact culturally responsive practices while navigating their first year of teaching and taking graduate courses for initial certification. These teacher learners worked to develop their understanding and capacities to enact a culturally responsive pedagogy but found that standardization of content and conceptions of what constitutes “good students”, appropriate classroom conduct, and micro-managed professional learning communities all created environments hostile to their attempts to develop as equity-minded educators and culturally responsive practitioners. However, their experiences changed once the COVID-19 pandemic closed these teacher learners’ schools to in-person instruction and sent them home to instruct online for the remainder of the spring 2020 semester. Free from the constrictive macro-structures and socio-political contexts in their physical workplaces, their planning showed them employing more culturally responsive practices and considering those practices more deeply. Once outside the cultures of practice, formed around neoliberal conceptions of success and measuring learning, these teacher learners became the sole mediators of the conflicting knowledge sources of their jobs and their university methods courses. On their own they began to confront the ways educational institutions stubbornly cling to hegemonic concepts of their communities and valorize work centered on concepts of knowledge and ways of knowing that bear little resemblance to society’s current reality. Away from the wider cultures of their schools during the COVID-19 lockdown and aided in mediating their own development using a dialogically structured lesson planning template inspired by—the Heuristic for Thinking About Culturally Responsive Teaching (HiTCRiT)—the teacher learners focused their instruction on their students making both their students’ learning and their own conceptions of CRP more real and their students’ learning more equitable. Full article

University students are expected to develop the skills required for their disciplines, especially those who have learnt English as a foreign language and study at English-medium instruction (EMI) universities. This study investigates the disciplinary literacy needs of students of veterinary medicine. The data were collected using a large-scale survey (n = 122) of students and interviews with five practitioners of veterinary medicine. The findings show that the student vets were trained to carry out highly demanding duties during their clinical placements, such as reading medical case histories, making diagnoses, elaborating on treatment plans for their clients, and composing referrals and medical reports. However, they were exposed to a challenging EMI environment where the requirement to speak and write in English significantly hindered the effectiveness of their learning. A discrepancy in disciplinary tasks between school and the workplace was also revealed. Therefore, it is crucial that researchers and educators at veterinary schools address students’ learning challenges to ensure they have the effective English language skills (including reading, writing, and speaking) they need to meet the language demands of their future clinical work and an understanding of the academic genres of veterinary medicine. This study also showcases the types of multi-literacies (i.e., academic genres and communication skills) needed to fulfil certain clinical duties, and the pedagogical implications are discussed. Full article

This essay examines two fourth-grade students’ task-based read-aloud interviews on the biblical text of Numbers 13. Taking up the New London Group’s call for a pedagogy of multiliteracies this article examines how educators and adults might sensitize themselves to the interpretive identities children bring to their reading of biblical texts. This work is intricately tied to child development, as we move religious education from a deficit model and perspective towards the child to a more welcoming asset model and perspective. Full article

Couched in theories of translanguaging, multimodality, and multiliteracies, this article explores digital compositions (i.e., digital collages) as spaces for identity representation through the proyectos finales produced by 22 students in a Spanish composition class for heritage/native speakers in a U.S. university. Each digital collage was accompanied by two written documents: one describing the processes leading to its creation, and another one explaining the meaning of the collage and its components. Qualitative content analysis was used to investigate the submissions, with particular attention paid to instances of identity, experience, and self-representation through complex orchestrations of flexible multilingual and multimodal meaning- and sense-making. The proyecto final is discussed in terms of the curricular innovation for courses designed for racialized language-minoritized multilingual students, describing the nature and affordances of translanguaging in this context, and advancing an approach to digital composing as showing–telling. Full article

This piece explores the need to provide better training to graduate student instructors by first conducting a needs analysis of current graduate students and recent graduate students regarding their conceptualizations of writing, multiliteracies, and second (L2) and heritage language (HL) pedagogies. Based on this survey, it is evident that with just one teaching methods course as the typical training graduate student instructors receive it behooves us to implement innovative pedagogy in other ways to develop graduate students’ abilities to navigate new technological tools and reconsider how they can teach writing in the L2/HL courses. Based on previous research as well as practical experience, this paper discusses several approaches for training and preparing graduate students to reconsider their preconceived notions of what it means to learn to write in an L2 or HL to include more focus on multiliteracies and technological skills to prepare students for 21st century communication. Full article

Literacy is a broad term that includes reading and writing abilities, as well as cognitive skills that are socially and culturally constructed. Thus, it is essential to take the family context and home literacy environment (HLE) into consideration when discussing literacy. HLE affects reading and writing development via (in)formal literacy experiences focused on the development of oral language and code skills via exposure, child-centered and instructed activities. In this study, we investigated the effect of the family type (intermarriage/exogamous and co-ethnic/endogamous) and HLE on the development of literacy in bi-/multilingual children in Cyprus. The results of the study, which was based on qualitative methodology (questionnaires, interviews and observations), showed that there was a close relationship between the family type, family language policy (FLP), the HLE and the development of children’s language and literacy skills which, in addition, depended on their socioeconomic status (SES), the level of the parents’ education, life trajectories and experience, linguistic and cultural identities, status in the society, future plans for residency, and the education and careers of their children. Overall, Russian-speaking parents in immigrant contexts realized the importance of (early) child literacy experiences at home, as well as of multiliteracy and multimodality, and attempted to enhance these experiences both in Russian and in the majority language(s), mainly via formal, didactic activities focused on code skills. Full article

The aim of this research was to investigate the role of smartphones in teaching the English language to a population of fifteen, visually-impaired Brazilian students. Classroom ethnography was chosen as the methodological design and data generated from classroom observations, didactic materials that were made and posted on apps, and two questionnaires were used. We resorted to descriptive and interpretive analyses as we intended to find linguistic and behavioral patterns regarding the use of information and communications technology (ICT), focusing on smartphones, for communication and learning English. Results show that, at the beginning of the course, students had little to no ability to use smartphones, including apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook mobile. After two years of formal language and smartphone instruction, all students learned how to use their mobile phones, and were able to post and listen to podcasts and written texts on WhatsApp and Facebook mobile in both their native language and in English. The students also engaged in real-life communication events with peers in Brazil and other parts of the world. Mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) helped these students enhance their social and cultural capital. Full article

The purpose of this study is to present a multimodal languaging model for mathematics education. The model consists of mathematical symbolic language, a pictorial language, and a natural language. By applying this model, the objective was to study how 4th grade pupils (N = 21) understand the concept of division. The data was collected over six hours of teaching sessions, during which the pupils expressed their mathematical thinking mainly by writing and drawing. Their productions, as well as questionnaire after the process, were analyzed qualitatively. The results show that, in expressing the mathematical problem in verbal form, most of the students saw it as a division into parts. It was evident from the pupils’ texts and drawings that the mathematical expression of subtraction could be interpreted in three different ways. It was found that the pupils enjoyed using writing in the solution of word problems, and it is suggested that the use of different modes in expressing mathematical thinking may both strengthen the learning of mathematical concepts and support the evaluation of learning. Full article