1st Edition
From Language Skills to Literacy Broadening the Scope of English Language Education Through Media Literacy
The narrowing of English language education curriculum in many contexts has negatively impacted classroom teaching and learning. High-stakes standardized testing, scripted curricula, and the commodification of English have converged to challenge socially meaningful classroom literacy instruction that promotes holistic development. Although in different ways, these factors have shaped the teaching of English as both first and second language.
How can English educators respond? This book argues that the first step is to take account of the broader policy, political and cultural landscape and to identify the key constraints affecting teachers, students and parents. These will set the broad parameters for developing local pedagogic approaches, while still recognizing the constraints that actively push against them. Using Singapore English language teaching as a case study, this book illustrates how this process can unfold, and how media literacy principles were vernacularized to design English classroom pedagogies that stretched the bounds of what is acceptable and possible in the local context.
List of figures
List of tables
List of appendices
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: English language and literacy education: A historical overview
Chapter 3: Media literacy: Key ideas and connections to English literacy education
Chapter 4: Challenges to a literacy approach to teaching English
Chapter 5: Bridging theory, curriculum and pedagogy: Developing a framework for media literacy through English
Chapter 6: A contextual look at the media literacy dimensions in pedagogic practice
Chapter 7: Developing and implementing the media literacy unit in Eastridge Secondary School
Chapter 8: The question of authenticity: Students’ experiences with school media/literacy education
Chapter 9: Conclusion
Appendix
Index
Biography
Csilla Weninger is associate professor in the department of English Language and Literature at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Her research examines the imprint and impact of political and institutional ideologies on the conduct of schooling, including its material dimensions such as textbooks as well as everyday pedagogies. Her publications have appeared, among others, in Teaching and Teacher Education, Discourse, TESOL Quarterly, Linguistics and Education, and ELT Journal.
‘This book makes an important contribution to broadening our understanding of how culture shapes the practice of media literacy education in schools.’ - Renee Hobbs, Professor, Communication Studies, Harrington School of Communication and Media, The University of Rhode Island, USA
'In an era of fake news and digital ideologies, internet surveillance and espionage, with governments and corporations vying for our attention and privacy - Csilla Weninger's critical reworking of media literacy is essential reading. This is a timely reminder of the foundations of work in the field and the practical, ethical imperatives for working with teachers and young people.' - Allan Luke, Emeritus Professor, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
'Prime targets in the expanding, globalised commodity market for English language and literacy education are policymakers, school leaders, classroom teachers, and parents. English language and literacy skills are commonly connected to global cultural and economic participation, to national productivity, and increasingly, to internal cultural cohesion and harmony. Nowhere are these imperatives more evident than in Singapore – a multilingual and deeply multicultural Asian society, with largely human rather than natural resources, with an English-medium school system, with an ethos of rapid technology adoption, and in the lead position in OECD’s global literacy assessments. This setting presents Singapore-based media literacy educator Csilla Weninger with a set of intriguing challenges, and this book develops her response: that progressive and sustainable language pedagogies call for a richer account of the broader and rapidly developing policy, political, and cultural landscapes impacting educators, students, and parents – for a ‘zooming out’. Weninger’s book is based on designing innovative pedagogies that have the potential to provide educators with produc
