Migrant Adult Learners and Digital Literacy: Using DBR to Support Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This research explores the difficulties faced by many migrant, refugee, and immigrant adults confronted with technological ubiquity in economically developed countries. Preparing migrant adult learners for the digital world by building digital literacy skills can help to maintain home language proficiency, support English language learning, and open paths to resources needed to support migration. In the United States, Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs engage in this work, supporting learners through the guidance of teachers trained to integrate digital literacy instruction into language proficiency development. However, because the need is great and the capacity of formal ABE programs to provide service is limited, much instruction happens in community technology labs situated in libraries, public housing facilities, and community based organizations (CBOs). CBOs provide critical educational opportunities; however, the teachers working there, often minimally trained volunteers or national service corps members (i.e., AmeriCorps), struggle to support the learning needs of adults for whom English is not a first language. This alternative dissertation unfolded in three stages in order to define instructional challenges common in basic computer classes labs and answer this overarching question: What support is needed to help teachers provide quality digital literacy instruction to English language learners who are struggling to resettle and integrate in a technologically rich society? Design Based Research (DBR) was used to collaboratively and iteratively research, define, build, and implement an instructional intervention while contributing to knowledge regarding issues of digital literacy and language learning. Three complementary theoretical frameworks guided this research. Meeting the overarching research goal of both investigating and supporting instruction, this study drew heavily on sociocultural view that environmental factors mediate learning. Engeström’s (1987; 1999) Activity System model served as an aid to making sense of the impact on instructional strategies and resources in the classroom. Also providing guidance was Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory of language focusing on functions and meaning of language in social context (Halliday, 1978; Schleppegrell, 2004), which supported the investigation of the language employed in instruction. Finally, this work was motivated by the theoretical perspective that learners’ contexts of interaction (in this case, a digital literacy lab), and the interlocutors and their ideologies encountered therein, mediate language and other learning. This post-structuralist view holds that learner identity and language learning, rather than being informed solely by psychological or cognitive constructs, are shaped through interaction and relationships within the larger social world (Norton-Peirce, 1995). Findings from the three areas of study showed the following: a.) Participant AmeriCorps members over employed teacher-centered large group instruction, which alienated learners and impacted persistence. They, therefore, determined that they needed a digital homeroom to support differentiated instruction and expand learning out of classroom; b.) When the corps members made use of a digital homeroom stocked with relevant learning activities, they relied on the structure afforded by the website to provide the control they perceived as required in their workshops, which in turn provided opportunity for them to observe learner engagement. This ultimately served as motivation for the corps members to further explore and respond to learner needs and created opportunities for differentiated instruction; c.) Knowing a word in the context of basic computer skills workshops included accomplishing a physical embodiment of the skills associated with it, and learners needed multiple exposures and ample practice with both the vocabulary and the skills to progress. The research demonstrates the value of using DBR as a tool for education research. Through the process of developing a local resource, the participants learned about teaching and created a curriculum, the development of which suggests a shift in Engeström’s Activity System model from linear conceptualization with all components shaping the object and the outcomes to an emphasis on the relationship between mediating artifacts and the subject, in addition to the object. Further, the resulting resources, which are in place for future corps member, will serve as an educative curriculum that can mitigate lack of training and prior experience for them. These observations suggest an imperative for engaged researchers working in collaboration with educators in naturalistic settings.