Reading the newspaper in the morning, chatting with friends in the afternoon, and watching a show in the evening seem to have nothing in common except for being a part of our daily routine. But they share an important quality: They are all a part of multiliteracies. Although we are often unaware of it, multiliteracies are a huge part of our everyday life. However, it is questionable whether we are handling this smartly and safely.
A significant part of our population was probably not prepared to live in a world of modern technologies and globalization. Neither was it prepared to deal with all the consequences of these innovations like multimodality. People are often unable to cope with this new situation and, as a result, miss out on a lot of things. For example, they do not know how to communicate with family and friends via social media and are not able to shop important products online. This is why it is of utmost importance that teachers integrate multiliteracies into their classroom. Only this will enable our future generations to participate fully in social and economic life.
Writing is often directly linked to multiliteracies. It is a way of expressing your own ideas and opinions and of communicating with other people. This is why we do not only have to teach our students how to read and understand multimodal texts but also how to produce and write them. Students have to be seen as designers and have to be encouraged to actively create their own meanings. They need to get the chance to feel comfortable around multiliteracies and to practice the writing skills which are required in our world. There are several different ways how teachers can include multiliteracies in the foreign language classroom. Newspapers, songs, and textbooks seem to be the usual multimodal texts one can find in an English classroom. However, there are also multimodal texts which students are confronted with more often in their daily life like graphic novels, comics, music videos, movies, and social media.
Multiliteracies surround as anywhere we go but we are often unaware of it. Therefore, learning about reading and writing multimodal texts is an important part of education. It allows students to get a good job and to participate in economic life. However, multiliteracies are about so much more. They are about getting to know other cultures and languages, about valuing your own social background and mother tongue, and about embracing differences. They are about communicating with foreign people, about becoming a member of a new community, and about sharing your own, unique perspective on the universe with the whole world. They are about enriching our planet and breaking new grounds.
– Anna
Sources
Elsner, Daniela and Viebrock, Britta. Developing Multiliteracies in the 21st Century: Motives for New Approaches of Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages. 2013.
The New London Group. A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies. 1996.
I really enjoyed reading your post from the beginning to the end. I chose your post because the title instantly attracted me. It is really inviting to a reader and it sounds quiet deep. What I also liked while reading is your holistic approach to address the topic of multiliteracies. Rather than instantly focusing on multiliteracies in teaching English at school you guide the reader to understand the topic by indicating how multiliteracies influence our everyday life. Your text is structured in a great manner with a clear introduction, main part and conclusion.