Heather Lotherington Faculty of Education York University hlotherington@edu.yorku

1. Creating opportunities for multilingual literacies in elementary school: Teacher education through collaborative action research Heather Lotherington Faculty of Education York University hlotherington@edu.yorku.ca

2. research agenda:designing a pedagogy of multiliteracies • what are multiliteracies? • how do we teach multiliteracies? • what literacies should we be teaching (& testing) in a diverse urban context?

3. research context:Joyce Public School • inner city elementary school in northwest Toronto • mixed housing and light industry • 96% of parents are immigrants to Canada • 98% of children live in apartments

5. designing a pedagogy of multiliteracies: stakeholders and perspectives • school principal & SSHRC grant collaborator: Cheryl Paige • narrative learning • technology-enhanced language and literacy education • developing a learning community • welcoming research partnerships • sharing across school borders

6. designing a pedagogy of multiliteracies: stakeholders and perspectives • selected, interested teachers • individual research agendas have emerged organically • the children • kindergarten, grades 1, 2, 4 • educational success

7. designing a pedagogy of multiliteracies: stakeholders and perspectives • my research agenda: multiliteracies in theory and practice

8. theorizing multiliteracies(NLG, 1996) • additive multilingualism(Cenoz & Genesee, 1998; Cummins, 2000; Lambert, 1974) • digital literacies(Gee, 2003; Kellner, 2002; Kress 2003) • digital epistemologies(Lankshear & Knobel, 2003) • problem-posing critical literacy education(Freire, 1998/1970)

9. collaborative action research • regular workshops with participating classroom teachers • learning • guest talks (ESL; web design; blogs) • internal professional development • sharing • narrative interventions • end of year “show and tell” • trouble-shooting problems • pedagogical / technological / research expertise • planning • presentation and publication

10. teachers’ stories:Goldilocks, Sandra’s grade 2 • multiculturalism • developing voice and agency • including children’s notions of culture (Lotherington & Chow, 2006)

11. teachers’ stories:The three little pigs, Shiva’s grade 1 • multimodality • physical (atoms) and digital (bits) (Negroponte, 1995) • physical storyboards digitized through photography • multilingual narration possible in iMovie

12. teachers’ stories:The lion and the mouse, Michelle’s kindergarten multilingualism

13. designing a pedagogy of multiliteracies: our emerging lessons • what are multiliteracies? • language, culture and media are complexly inter-related • how do we teach multiliteracies? • new technologies require new pedagogies: how we are teaching is more important than what • we are accumulating multiliteracies pedagogies through our research methodology (Lotherington & Chow, 2006) • what literacies should we be teaching (& testing) in a diverse urban context? • technology as motivation; and as content • need places for community languages in the contemporary classroom

14. designing a pedagogy of multiliteracies:discoveries and directions • multilingualism • translation requires human resources; machine translation is not feasible • inclusive translation is functionally challenging: languages are not equal in the community • LATC is difficult when international languages are marginalized in curriculum • multiculturalism • the digital world is part of multiculturalism • Disney as cultural mediator is problematic • multimodalism • moving from atoms to bits is easy • how to reach gate-keeping literacy tests that encourage subtractive ESL?

15. acknowledgements

16. references • Cenoz, J. & Genesee, F. (1998). Psycholinguistic perspectives on multilingualism and multilingual education. In J. Ceñoz & F. Genesee (Eds) Beyond bilingualism: Multilingualism and multilingual education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. • Cummins, J. (1981).The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In California State Department of Education (Ed.) Schooling and minority language students: A theoretical framework (pp. 3-49). Los Angeles: Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State University. • Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M.B. Ramos, Trans.) (20th anniversary edition). New York: Continuum. (original work published 1970). • Kellner, D.M. (2002). Technological revolution, multiple literacies, and the restructuring of education. In I. Snyder (Ed.), Silicon literacies: Communication, innovation and education in the electronic age. London: Routledge. • Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge. • Lambert, W. (1974). Culture and language as factors in learning and education. In F.E. Abour & R.D. Meade (Eds.), Cultural factors in learning and education (pp. 91-122). Bellingham, Washington: 5th Western Washington Symposium on Learning. • Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2003). New literacies: Changing knowledge and classroom learning.Buckingham: Open University Press. • Lotherington, H. & Chow, S. (2006). Rewriting Goldilocks in the urban, multicultural elementary school. The Reading Teacher, 60 (3), 244-252. • Negroponte. N. (1995). Being digital. NY, NY: Vintage Books. • New London Group (1996) A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social factors. Harvard Educational Review, 66 (1), 60-92. (Reprinted in Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp 9-37). London: Routledge.

17. thank you! σας ευχαριστούμε πάρα πολύ Muchas gracias Merci Beaucoup большое спасибо