This presentation looks at applying multiliteracies to TEFL (teaching English as a Foreign Language). Multiliteracies was a language learning concept based on semiotics that allowed for and included new media modes of communication in the 1990s. Whilst the language learning situation has changed considerably since that time, the concept of multiliteracies is still relevant in terms of opening up and supplementing TEFL practice.

1. MULTILITERACIES AND TEFL
DAVID R. COLE
WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

2. WHAT IS MULTILITERACIES?
• Multiliteracies is a term coined in the mid-1990s by the New London Group and is an approach to
literacy theory and pedagogy. This approach highlights two key aspects of literacy: linguistic diversity,
and multimodal forms of linguistic expression and representation.

3. WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN TEFL AND
MULTILITERACIES?
• TEFL is a form of literacy: i.e. speaking & listening/reading & writing (in English)
• Multiliteracies suggests that competency in print literacies is not adequate for the 21st century
• Students must be able to understand/manipulate electronic/mediated text
• Multiliteracies incorporates deploying different modes of pedagogy to encapsulate multimodal text
types
• Multiliteracies assumes multiple modes of expression, all of which have to learnt and practised, e.g.
visual literacy
• The basis for multiliteracies is design
• Multiliteracies takes into account globalisation/digitalisation for TEFL

4. MULTIMODALITY & LITERACY

5. MULTIMODALITY
In its most basic sense, multimodality is a theory of
communication and social semiotics. Multimodality describes
communication practices in terms of the textual, aural,
linguistic, spatial, and visual resources - or modes - used to
compose messages

6. MULTILITERACIES ACTIVITY
Find images, text and any other mode of
language, e.g. ‘aural’ to justify your ideas.
Present your ideas …

7. MULTILITERACIES PEDAGOGY

8. TEFL AND MULTILITERACIES PEDAGOGY
• What aspects of TEFL require: 1) overt instruction; 2) situated practice; 3) critical framing; 4)
transformed practice ?
• How do you switch between different pedagogies?
• How do you assess multiliteracies?
• How do you know if your students are learning in a multimodal way?
• How much is too much screen time?
• What are negative effects of the possible overload in mediated text-use?

9. 4-RESOURCE MODEL

10. THE 4-RESOURCE MODEL AND TEFL
• When are you expecting your students to be: 1) code breakers; 2) text users; 3) text participants; 4) text
analysts
• How can you use the 4-resource model for TEFL assessment?
• How do ICT competencies align with TEFL?
• When should you deploy each resource?
• Does the 4-resource model encourage switching between L1 & L2?
• What is the connection between the 4-resource model and multiculturalism?

11. CRITICAL LITERACY
• One of the most famous commentators on critical literacy, Allan Luke said:
• “The single most important theoretical and practical classroom effect (of critical literacy) is its shift in
emphasis from the traditional view of literacy as skills, knowledges and cognitions inside the human
subject – quite literally as something in students’ heads – to a vision of literacy as visible social practices
with language, text and discourse”.
• Luke (2000), p. 450

12. NEW LITERACIES
• New literacies generally are new forms of
literacy made possible by digital
technology developments, although new
literacies do not necessarily have to
involve use of digital technologies to be
recognized as such.
First, new technologies (such as the internet) and the novel
literacy tasks that pertain to these new technologies require
new skills and strategies to effectively use them. Second, new
literacies are a critical component of full participation—civic,
economic, and personal—in our increasingly global society. A
third component to this approach is new literacies are deictic—
that is, they change regularly as new technology emerges and
older technologies fade away. With this in mind, “what may be
important in reading instruction and literacy education is not to
teach any single set of new literacies, but rather to teach
students how to learn continuously new literacies that will
appear during their lifetime.” Finally, new literacies are
“multiple, multimodal, and multifaceted,” and as such, multiple
points of view will be most beneficial in attempting to
comprehensively analyze them …(Leu et al., 2007, p.43).

13. INFORMATION LITERACY
Are your students information
literate?
How does information literacy relate
to TEFL?
How does information literacy
translate into expression/writing?

14. MULTILITERACIES AND VISUAL TEXTS
• All texts are consciously constructed and have particular social, cultural, political and economic purposes.
• Meanings are actively constructed by the interaction between reader and text.
• A text may have several possible meanings.
• Texts come in a range of representational forms incorporating a range of grammars and semiotic systems.
• Texts can be multimodal and interactive, linear and non-linear.
• Texts will continue to change as society and technology changes …
Anstey, Michele & Bull, Geoff, (2004) The Literacy Labyrinth (second Edition), Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education
Australia

15. VISUAL LITERACY
• Find 10 visual texts
• Arrange these texts in terms of: 1) meaning/interpretation; 2) relevance to TEFL; 3) culture; 4) impact
• Share your results
• What aspects of visual literacy would you encourage in your TEFL classroom?
• How do you assess visual literacy?
• What parts of visual literacy are culturally determined?
• How can we separate and use visual texts given their abundance?

16. WHAT IS A MULTILITERATE TEFL TEACHER?
Are there new competencies
that you need to understand
to keep up with the rapid
rate of change?
How does that put pressure
on you as a teacher?
Are the students coming to
your classroom with these
skills anyhow?
Who/what is the teacher?

17. MODEL OF MULTILITERACIES TEXT CONSTRUCTION
How can you organise your
classroom to get the most out of
multiliteracies?
What is learning in a multimodal
fashion?
Is collaboration a given?
Does multiliteracies imply group
work?
How does multiliteracies
improve your English?
How does multiliteracies
encourage transference
between L1 & L2?

18. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE AND
MULTILITERACIES
How do you know whether
your students are becoming
better communicators due
to the introduction of
multiliteracies pedagogy?
What are the effects of
multiliteracies on SLA?
How can one mitigate
against the overwhelming
nature of the material on
offer?

19. FURTHER READING
• Anstey, Michele & Bull, Geoff, (2004). The Literacy Labyrinth (Second Edition). Frenchs Forest: Pearson
Education Australia
• Cole, D.R. & Pullen, D.L. (2010). Multiliteracies in Motion: Current Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
• Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London:
Macmillan.
• Leu et al. (2007). What is new about the new literacies of online reading comprehension? In L.S. Rush, A.J.
Eakle & A. Berger (Eds.), Secondary School Literacy (pp. 32-50). Urbana, Il: NCTE.
• Luke, A. (2000). Critical literacy in Australia: A matter of context and standpoint. Journal of Adolescent and
Adult Literacy. 43, 448-461.
• Pullen, D.L., & Cole, D.R. (2010). Multiliteracies and Technology Enhanced Education: Social Practice and the
Global Classroom. Hershey: IGI Global Publication.
• The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard educational
review, 66(1), 60-93.