013. Teaching Multiliteracies in the classroom

With the rapid changes in technology and its infiltration into our daily lives, there is a need to re-look at how literacy practices are taught and practiced in the classrooms and make it relevant to the society of today.

The traditional view of literacy that is valued in schools are rooted in linguistics - reading and writing. However, with new technologies being used, its affordances has changed what it means to read. The way information is presented these days is different from before and thus, the way we read has to reflect such changes.

An example that I thought of is the section of graphic stimulus that can be found in most primary levels' examination papers. Pupils have to extract information from a text that has accompanying images. However, more often than not, the images used in the text does not provide additional meaning or information. These texts are usually presented in the form of advertisements, bulletins etc

However, as most of us know, images complement in meaning making in most authentic and functional texts that are used these days. Therefore, the graphic stimulus used in those papers should be an authentic version of how texts are in the 'real world' so that pupils are able to read when multimodal aspects of reading and writing are presented. Thus, schools should also consider teaching pupils to read advertisements and other texts not only in 'paper' form but also in other modes, like moving visuals etc.

012. C. Jewitt's Reading - Multimodality, reading and literacy

011. Stein & Tan's readings and how it relate to Singapore

From Stein & Tan's articles, I understand that meaning making is not limited to language alone. Instead, using multimodal pedagogies, meaning can be derived through the different modes. Also, the use of multiliteracies pedagogies in our classroom can help to bridge the differences between students of different cultural and linguistic abilities.

Most mainstream schools in Singapore have students of varying abilities. The continuum ranges from students who can read and write beyond their age of development to students who can barely recognise the letters of the alphabet. For some, this continuum can exist in a classroom. However, having low linguistic abilities do not mean that a student is unable to make meaning or understanding. For example, a low ability student who is presented with the movie 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' (which has been adapted from a book) with subtitles may not be able to read the subtitles or the book itself but he/she is still able to make meaning of the content through the visuals and audio presented in the movie. Thus, the adoption of multiliteracies in our local classrooms may then help to bridge the differences in abilities. This means that teachers should explore the use of images, video, audio etc in their lessons, beside the traditional written form.

However, I also note that the current school system is examination-based, which means that students still have to be able to make meaning through printed text and express themselves through written text. Therefore, we also need to question that though multiliteracies is beneficial in the literacy development of our students and that the education system is slowly moving into this area, how well do we prepare our students with varying linguistic abilities for the examinations they face each semester. Unless the mode of assessment changes, I suspect that the teaching and use of multiliteracies in the classroom will not be fully embraced by teachers and parents.

010. Youth Participation in Shaping the Textual Landscape

Students can only recognise their 'true selves' when they are able to detach themselves from society's general stereotypical view of them by labelling them into certain 'categories'. Thus to begin, students can be asked to think of some categories that has been labelled unto them.

Moving on, students have to be taught critical reading and thinking skills so that they are able to decipher the ideologies that society has of them. If one is uncritical, he/she may fail to recognise that texts can be biased or present a distorted view. Thus, with the categories that the students have taught of, they can be given a few texts to critically read and analyse it, and see if there are underlying ideologies in the text.

Next, students can discuss if these ideologies or categories that were presented is true of them, true of the class etc and justify why it is or not so.