Multiliteracies-Enhanced Practices as Empowerment Pedagogy for Teaching Transnational English Language Learners in a CLIL-Based EAP Course in Canada

Abstract

The growing emphasis on institutional internationalization has been noticeable in Canadian higher education and has contributed to the increasing enrolment of international students and created heterogenous socio-linguistic institutional landscapes across the nation, as discussed by Guo and Guo (Studies in Higher Education, 42(5), 851-868, 2017). Viewing international learners’ linguacultural diversity as a resource and a source of empowerment, this paper demonstrates how multiliteracies-enhanced teaching practices can empower learners’ linguistic, cultural, and intellectual strengths and their transnational identities in a content and language integrated learning (CLIL)-based English for academic purposes (EAP) course in a Canadian university. Drawing upon frameworks of multiliteracies/pluriliteracies pedagogy, the article showcases how three researchers structured their innovative and inclusive instructional course design to facilitate learners’ multiliteracies development through a two-year action research project. To facilitate learners’ in-depth discussions with course materials and connect them with their own transnational journey and cross-cultural experiences, learners were invited to participate in a series of experiential education (EE)-integrated and multimodal tasks such as identity texts and multimedia blog reflections. With evident testimonies from interviews, questionnaires, and student work samples, the study highlights that these innovative and inclusive tasks that center on multimodality for multiliteracies engagement create inclusive space for learners to serve as both knowledge-providers with their familiar intellectual fields and knowledge-seekers for new information. The study implies that critical teaching needs to orient learners to critical perspectives in their learning as global citizens, who move away from colonial relations of power dominated in EAP learning around the world and advocate for their plurilingual and pluricultural selves by embracing diversity in their academic endeavors.

摘要

加拿大的高等教育對機構國際化的重視越發明顯，促使國際學生的入學率不斷提升，並在全國形成了異質性的社會語言機構現象(Guo & Guo, 2017)。本文將國際學生的語言文化多樣性視為一種資源和賦權的來源，展示了加拿大大學中內容和語言整合學習(CLIL)學術英語(EAP)的課程，強化多元素養的教學實踐如何增強學習者的語言、文化和智力優勢及其跨國認同。本文以多元素養的教學法框架，展示了三位研究人員透過一個為期兩年的行動研究計畫，建構其創新與包容的教學課程設計，以促進學習者的多元素養發展。為促進學習者對教材的深度討論，並將其自身跨國旅程和跨文化經驗連結起來，學習者被邀請參與一系列的融合式體驗教育(EE)和多模態的任務，例如身份認同的文本和多媒體部落格的反思。本研究透過訪談、問卷調查和學生的作品樣本清楚地證明這些標榜多模態的多元素養參與之創新、包容學習任務，為學習者創造了包容性的空間，使他們既是其熟悉知識領域的知識提供者，也是新訊息的知識尋求者。本研究指出批判性教學需要引導學習者在學習成為全球公民時，朝批判性的角度邁進，擺脫世界各地EAP學習中佔主導地位的殖民權力關係，並透過學習者在學術上的努力來擁抱多樣性，以提倡其多語言及多文化的自我。

Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 1

Table 1 Students’ perspectives on the course: excerpts from the interviews

Appendix 2

Table 2

Table 2 Participants’ perspectives on the multiliteracies-enhanced course components