Promoting Multimodal Literacy Pedagogies in Elementary Immersion Classrooms with Refugee-Background Students
2023-07
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Promoting Multimodal Literacy Pedagogies in Elementary Immersion Classrooms with Refugee-Background Students
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2023-07
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Young students learn and communicate via various modes, including writing and the arts. Multiple modes coupled with teachers’ instructional assistance can facilitate language learning for students having diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and surrounded by multilingual environments, including language immersion contexts. This is because multimodal literacy encourages students to engage in meaning making exploring and using multiple texts and mediums to generate and communicate meanings (Jewitt, 2006, 2008; Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996; Serafini, 2014, 2015; Walsh, 2007). In other words, multimodal literacy involves everyday practices enacted by individuals so that they bring their own perspectives, knowledge, and experience to understanding and interpreting texts and generating new meanings. Teachers in language immersion settings, especially those with refugee-background students, have multiple considerations when teaching students whose first language is different from an immersion language (e.g., Korean) and the dominant language of the society (e.g., English). Depending on students’ first language and culture, for example, students would better learn an immersion and/or second language through a variety of modes and complex combinations of diverse modes beyond time-honored print platforms, such as singing and body movements. Unfortunately, current institutional practices and policies still privilege oral and written language, including word-based platforms, for language and literacy instruction. While students of diverse backgrounds are a growing part of today’s classrooms, including in language immersion contexts, research has yet to pay attention to how such students engage in language learning through multimodal texts. The contexts for this study are first- and second-grade classrooms in a Korean immersion school in a Midwestern region of the United States. Hangul School (pseudonym), the Korean immersion school, is a local public Korean immersion charter school with grades preK-12. To provide students with Korean immersion education, most teachers at Hangul have academic and/or professional backgrounds in Korea and speak Korean and English fluently. Among the total student population in Hangul, 90 percent of students have a refugee background with a Karen ethnicity speaking Sgaw Karen. The first- and second-grade classrooms have twenty students each, and more than 85 percent of the enrolled students in each classroom (17 out of 20 students in the first-grade classroom, 18 out of 20 second-grade students) were Karen refugee-background (RB) students. Although the reasons for Karen RB students enrolling in this immersion school vary, such as parents expecting their children would get more attention from caring and dedicated teachers, a supportive school atmosphere and teachers who legitimize students’ prior experience were likely to have the RB students enrolled in this school. As a Korean-English bilingual with several years of teaching experience in the U.S. and Korea, I negotiated a role as a teachers’ assistant over the span of three years. While working in the classroom, I was able to participate in community building based on a firm rapport with the teacher and students. The strong bond with the class community naturally enabled me to be involved in students’ immersion language learning, including access to material development and instructional practices. This three-part research project examines the ways in which teachers enact multimodal literacy pedagogies to help young Karen refugee-background (RB) students’ immersion language learning in an elementary language immersion classroom. This study is grounded in the understanding that students in the twenty-first century gain literacy skills through multimodal texts that are socially and culturally constructed (Jewitt, 2008a). Study 1 investigates types of teacher scaffolding used to support RB students’ learning of an immersion language, including content knowledge. Study 2 draws on multimodal creative artwork, such as a silhouette identity project, to examine the ways in which young RB multilingual students explore and navigate their linguistic and cultural identities. Study 3 uses critical discourse analysis to delve into teacher decision-making surrounding multimodal text selection and use to facilitate students’ language learning. Findings of the present research project illustrate that the teachers take into consideration complex elements (e.g., standardized tests, school language policy) that impact their instructional decision-making and practices. In addition to teachers’ consideration, teachers provide RB students with a variety of verbal, procedural, and instructional scaffolding to promote their comprehension and language production, such as acting out shapes of vowels through body movement, while remaining attuned to their socioemotional learning. Moreover, respecting students’ various levels of strengths and comfort with and expression, students are provided with opportunities to engage in exploring and navigating their RB students’ linguistic and cultural identities. This dissertation research suggests that teachers serving young RB students consider and implement transformative instructional approaches, such as multimodal literacy pedagogies, to not only cater to learners with diverse linguistic and cultural repertoires and backgrounds, but also help students maintain and/or develop their bi-/multilingual abilities.
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University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. July 2023. Major: Education, Curriculum and Instruction. Advisor: Martha Bigelow. 1 computer file (PDF); ix, 156 pages.
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Heo, Saem. (2023). Promoting Multimodal Literacy Pedagogies in Elementary Immersion Classrooms with Refugee-Background Students. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/258751.
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