MULTIPLE LITERACIES THEORY AND TEFL

DAVID R. COLE

WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

WHAT IS MULTIPLE LITERACIES THEORY (MLT)?

• Literacies are actualized according to a particular context in time and in space in which they operate. Given the nomadic tendencies of literacies; they are not wed to a context, but are taken up in unpredictable ways across various contexts. Reading is both intensive (disruptive) and immanent. Literacies involve constant movement in the process of becoming other. There is potentiality in releasing literacy from its privileged position as the printed word by not allowing it to govern all other literacies. In this way, literacies open themselves to what is not already given. In short, literacies are about reading, reading the world, and self as texts (Masny, n.p.).

DEFINITION OF MLT (II)

• Multiple literacies refer to literacies as a construct - machinic assemblages: social, medical, economic, etc. Literacies consist of words, markings, gestures, attitudes, ways of communicating, human and non-human. Accordingly, literacies constitute ways of becoming: becoming with the world. They involve texts in the virtual that actualize as sense emerges. They are taken up as visual, oral, written, tactile, olfactory, and in multimodal digital. Literacies constitute texts, in a broad sense, for example, music, visual arts (painting, sculpting), physics, mathematics, digital remixes. Texts are assemblages of events. Moreover, literacies fuse with socio-political, cultural, economic, political, gendered and racialized contexts. This is how literacies are coded. These contexts are not static. They are fluid and transform literacies, and produce speakers, writers, artists, digital avatars: communities

Key A** - Affective literacy. Everything about reading, writing, speaking and listening that activates desire, and relates to power in the individual and the group.Family literacy – close to affective literacy, relates to early influences on the individual and ways in which their desires are channelled through family experiences.Technologically mediated literacies – We live in a technologically mediated epoch. From an early age children watch TV, listen to music and interpret ideas through these processes. These literacies, including visual and aural literacy develop quickly in most individuals.Print literacies – These are dealt with through traditional schooling and home environments where the parent takes an active role in encouraging reading and writing with their child. They relate to technologically mediated literacies in that they are secondary processes

Multiliteracies vs. MLT

Multiliteracies MLT

Philosophy phenomenology transcendental materialism

Technology of primary importance of equal importance with every other contemporary literacy practice

Power work towards the globalisation of literate behaviours and ultimately the power of corporations

emphasis is on local interactions causing changes and micro-systems that directed power from the bottom-up

Multiliteracies vs. MLT

Multiliteracies MLT

Community meanings for communities of learners aim towards a standard democratic direction

meanings are communal but not fixed nor defined by any pre-conceived agenda

Creativity organised and structured projects; interdisciplinary curricula link knowledge areas

random collisions of affects; local knowledge produces inspiration and art (Deleuze, 1995).

Otherness tend to shut out such considerations through communities of practice

strangeness and alienation may be explored through personal literacy and affect

MLT PRACTICE

• Literacies are multiple yet completely inter-related

• In any given content there are multiple micro (personal) and macro (political) literacies: MLT goes beyond such dualism

• For example, students will exhibit literacies from their L1 + culture, hybrid (global) literacies and emerging Taiwanese-English literacies + any literacies picked up during schooling

• The skill of the EFL teacher using MLT is to encourage the different flows and execution of multiple literacies.

• Choose examples for pedagogy that offer affordances to these multiple literacies

MLT EXAMPLE FOR TEFL

MLT AND TEFL - ISSUES• How can your students understand the multiple literacies in the classroom context?

• Take a pertinent issue for your cohort: e.g., school resourcing, staffing issues, national identity, colonialism, environmental degradation …

• There are multiple literacies associated with this issue (micro and macro):

• Questions:

1) How does the issue affect me/us?

2) Why is the issue important?

3) What do we have to learn about in order to express ideas about the issue?

4) What are the different modes of expression that are possible with respect to this issue?

5) What is a clichéd, obvious way to express myself about this issue? What usually does not get expressed? How can I express myself otherwise?

MLT AND CINEMA

• An example of multiple literacies …

A Pedagogy of Cinema

CINEMA EXAMPLES, SPECIFIC IMAGES FOR ANALYSIS

CINEMA IMAGES (II & III)

MLT, CINEMA AND TEFL • Choose specific images from films (5-10)

• Describe what you see

• How can you describe the atmosphere of the shot?

• What does the image ‘do’ – how does it make you feel?

• How does the image imply material processes beyond the obvious, representational level; e.g., decay, deprivation, realisation, depression, confusion ….

• How does the image work in space & time?

• Can you relate the images/make them work in a different way?

• What other elements are present in the images; e.g. music/dialogue/plot/tension …

WHY DELEUZE & GUATTARI?• A break from the past – for a ‘people yet to come’

• Non-reductive/non-normative/post-positivist (emergent-coded-reciprocating)

• Allows for/encourages methodological arrangements depending on context and requirements

• Pushes research to the ‘nth’ degree

• Always posing further questions

• The concepts that may be evolved from a context/particular study are unknown/open …

• Political-social-cultural-ethical (immanent)

• Have an array of previously evolved concepts for deployment; e.g. assemblage, BwO, desiring-machines, plane of immanence

• The use of these concepts depends on the study undertaken (toolkit) …

• Are Deleuze/Guattari primarily non-conventional?

MLT AND RESEARCH• Every teaching and learning context is different.

• How do we make sense of the complexity that confronts us in the modern world?

• What is the best way to separate and work with the different literacies in our context?

• How does MLT work with:

1) Language teaching and learning (TEFL)

2) Assessment (formative & summative) - examinations

3) Curriculum matters/textbooks/knowledge progression?

4) Behaviour management

5) Social mores, e.g. class

• MLT includes the impetus to continuously do research and to understand the context in which we teach and learn (cartography)

MULTIPLE LITERACIES THEORY

A complex practice of literacies

Do not assume that literacy is fixed or understandable as a linear process of improvement

Literacy relates to non human objects and things in the world: e.g., computers, art-forms, music

Literacy is a political ‘micro’ practice that can make subjects areas and knowledge ‘take on life’

Literacies are akin to organic life…

Masny, D & Cole, DR, Multiple Literacies Theory: A Deleuzian Perspective, Sense Publishers (2009)

MAPPING MULTIPLE LITERACIESTeachers and students can map literacies

The mapping of literacies should take account of: affect, power, group dynamics, digital technology, etc.…

Multiple literacies will increase the affordances and opportunities that the subject areas represent

The mapping of multiple literacies is cross-disciplinary, e.g. using mathematics to understand music.

Masny, D & Cole, DR, Mapping Multiple Literacies: An Introduction to Deleuzian Literacy Studies, Continuum (2012)

EDUCATIONAL LIFEFORMS Educational lifeforms: Deleuzian Teaching and Learning Practice

FURTHER READING• Cole, D.R. (2010). Educational Lifeforms: Deleuzian Teaching and Learning Practice. Rotterdam: Sense

Publishers.

• Cole, D.R. (2013). Deleuze and Narrative Investigation. The Multiple Literacies of Sudanese families in Australia. Literacy, Volume 47, Number 1, April, 35-41.

• Cole, D.R. (2012). Latino families becoming-literate in Australia: Deleuze, literacy and the politics of immigration. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Vol. 33, No. 1, February, 33-46

• Cole, D.R., & Bradley, J.P.N. (2016). A Pedagogy of Cinema. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

• Masny, D., & Cole, D.R. (2012). Mapping Multiple Literacies: An Introduction to Deleuzian Literacy Studies. London: Continuum.

• Masny, D., & Cole, D.R. (2009). Multiple Literacies Theory: A Deleuzian Perspective. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers .