Academic Programs - MIIS

Abstract: Critical Language Awareness (CLA) Pedagogy is an approach to language/literacy education that engages students in deep inquiry about language, identity, power, and privilege. This approach is rooted in critical pragmatism—i.e., a commitment to making schools and societies more linguistically just while also helping students to navigate the (often linguistically unjust) status quo. In this talk, Shapiro briefly describes how and why CLA emerged as a grassroots movement in the U.K in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Abstract: In this talk, I take a praxis-oriented approach to teacher learning around multiliteracies pedagogy. First, after briefly introducing key multiliteracies principles, I summarize research findings related to teachers’ understandings and applications of multiliteracies pedagogy in postsecondary language programs. This research base then serves as a point of departure for identifying teachers’ professional development needs.

Abstract: In an age now marked by social and cultural supercomplexity, local conflicts with a global reach, and unprecedented levels of regional and global migrations of people and the resulting struggles and suffering, being able to use more than one language can be regarded as an affordance on a global scale, an affordance for the alleviation of suffering in the world through expanded modes of communication among people.

The language teacher’s interaction with students shapes stances like ambiguity and authority, participation frameworks, and learner identities. Both what the teacher says and the discourse structure have direct implications for the learner’s language development. We will examine discursive features like sequential deletion, collaborative completion, revoicing, and routinized sequences. Data will be drawn from college-level Chinese language classes and communit-based Chinese heritage language classes.