003. Video - Critical Need for Media Literacy

Taken from http://louann-multiliteracies.blogspot.com/2008/03/tree-octopus-and-critical-need-for.html

002. Metaphors of Literacy in Singapore

To my relief, this week’s reading was a much easier read than the previous =). It seemed like some of the metaphors that were used to describe literacy could be applied in Singapore and I shall attempt to do so in this week’s reflection.

Literacy in Singapore definitely plays a functional role. In a matter of a few decades, Singapore has moved from a position of a developing country to the position of a developed country and I believe this achievement has a lot to do with literacy acquirement. Due to the education opportunities available in the country, a large part of the population are literate in terms of being able to read and write (albeit it was mentioned in the reading that “what counts as literacy in our technological society is a matter ‘not very well-understood’” – Scribner (1984), we shall discuss that later). With these literacy skills, they were able to contribute to nation building through job opportunities that ensured the survival of the nation, and subsequently the blooming of the nation's economy. This is aligned to the desired outcomes of education, whereby 'an educated person is someone who is responsible to his community and country'.

Although Scribner (1984) mentioned that the notion of literacy as a resource for social transformation proposed by Freire (1970) remains to be established, I thought the notion was relevant to the context of Singapore. Scribner (1984) said that the expansion of literacy skills is often viewed as a means for poor and politically powerless groups to claim their place in the world and perhaps that was the reason why most missionaries would set up schools when they reach a land where people are not literate (of course, literate in this sense means to be literate in English as it is the international language - the language of power). The first schools in Singapore (e.g. Poi Ching School, Methodist Girls' School, Anglo Chinese School etc) that were established were funded by the various dialect associations and missionaries. They had the same collective goal, to improve the life of the people in Singapore and society be transformed. This is the same goal that the government has and we have seen how the vision has come to pass. Literacy in Singapore has definitely played a role in community or rather, nation advancement.

Adding on, to ensure that all Singaporeans are able to be productive citizens in a knowledge-based economy of today, they have to be equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge. Thus, the compulsory education act was implemented in 2003. This is aligned with the government's belief in equality and progress whereby all citizens, regardless of race and social economic status are entitled to an opportunity to be literate, and contribute to the community and country, being responsible so to speak. There is also a ‘decided’ syllabus which determines the necessary and optional literacy tasks that Singaporeans have to acquire during the years of their compulsory education. As mentioned earlier that it is hard to count what is literacy in our technological society, the syllabus is revised from time to time to ensure that Singaporeans are equipped with the literacy skills for tomorrow. This is the aim of the Ministry Of Education (MOE), that they will prepare the next generation of Singapore for the future. That’s why students now had to learn to use the computer and produce project presentations with various software when, in the past, students only had to learn to read and write with paper and pen.

Lastly, I believe that the small geographic scale of Singapore has faciliated literacy acquirement and development as it was much easier for the government to implement literacy and education polices that were uniform and highly flexibile to suit the changing needs of society today.

From the discussion above, it appears that the goals of literacy – to be adaptative and socially empowering have been applied and met in the context of Singapore.

Last note, have a blessed Chinese New Year and happy holidays to all!!

001. A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies

Getting started with the article ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies’ by The New London Group was a breeze but getting through the whole article was totally not. It seemed like a love-hate relationship. Albeit the interesting and relevant content, it was hard to understand and digest. And now, I shall attempt to make some sense out of what has been boggling my mind for the past few days.

What is the point that this article attempts to make?
In the past (like the olden days of China….), children were sent to school with the hope that they would become literate, this meaning being able to read and write. Fast forward to the twenty-first century, where one is surrounded by many stimuli that tease and engage our senses and mind, the meaning of ‘being literate’ seems to have taken on a new form.

As mentioned by the author of the article, the three realms of our existence: our working lives, our public lives and our personal lives are radically changing and this has resulted in paradigm shifts in the way people think, speak, work and relate to one another. These paradigm shifts have birthed forth new languages of work, citizenship and lifeworlds. Productive diversity, civic pluralism and multilayered lifeworlds are the social futures that our students will be living in. Thus, as educators, it is our responsibility to ensure that our lessons, our curriculum, our pedagogy are constantly re-designed to grant our students access and empowerment to these social futures. This means that we have to equip them with the appropriate literacy skills that are needed for today’s world (eg. writing emails instead of letters). Only then can we say that our students are truly literate.

What aspects of 'multiplicity' does multiliteracies attempt to accommodate?
In my opinion, ‘mulitiplicity’ refers to the multiple types of discourses and text forms that are present in society today. These discourses and text forms do not exist or can be solely interpreted on the basis of linguistic design alone, but rather in a combination of more than one designs (visual, audio, spatial and gestural) or rather, multimodal. Thus, multiliteracy seek to ensure that one is able to make meaning and interpret a message that the sender is trying to deliver multimodal-ly. For example, an interpretation of the message of an advertisement does not rely solely on the text message, but also the colours used, gestures of the models, music etc.

What do the NLG mean by the ‘design’?
‘Design’ is an active, cyclical and generative process of meaning making. This process includes choosing from ‘Available Designs’ (eg. materials, knowledge, other resources), and recreating and recombining these to produce new designs or resources. This process of recreating and recombining is known as ‘Designing’ and the product of this process is known as the “Redesigned”. This process of ‘design’ is meaningful and purposeful, to suit the communication needs of the designer and audience.

How do you imagine multiliteracies pedagogy, as the NLG describe it, might operate in the contexts in which you have taught?
I taught English to the Primary 2 level during both practicum stints and the curriculum of the Primary 2 English syllabus in my school revolved largely around the use of narrative texts (namely, Big Books). One way of incorporating the multiliteracies pedagogy into my lesson could be the use of digital versions of the narrative text which is multimodal (audio, visual, gestural, linguistic). Alternatively, if the digital version of the book is not available, I can produce my own digital version by using images, animation and audio files.
Instead of asking the students to write their reflections in a journal, they could post their reflections online, and use images or audio files to accompany and complement the content of their writing.

Alright, enough of my ramblings 001 for now..

Ciao!!

Getting Started!

My first post to get started on this weblog. =)

A big hello to all of you who will be reading and commenting on this blog of mine!!

Let's vrrrrrooom, enjoy and move ahead as we journey on this multiliteracy journey together!!