Twelfth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

In the past thirty years, a growing interest has arisen on the discourse of inclusion as a means of providing access, making or depriving meaning, and communicating or not a message. The latter is of increasing importance because of the growing cultural and linguistic diversity of our contemporary societies and of the implications of the proliferations of media and emerging technologies which are affecting the way we construct our individual and collective identities. These evolving realities have -or should- lead to a reconceptualization of the roles and practices in learning institutions worldwide to respond to changing needs and demands. Bearing the previous in mind, this presentation analyses the discourses that emerged from semi structured interviews with a group of 24 primary teachers regarding the potential of multiliteracies pedagogy to enhance learning for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. The intention in the proposed presentation is to evaluate the former claim for the participating teachers as they negotiate ongoing educational reform in their schools. Through a combination of inductive and deductive approach of thematic analysis four themes in teachers’ perspectives emerged: empowered subjectivities, student directed learning, multimodal meaning making, and cultural and linguistic competencies. However, the participanting teachers also expressed concerns regarding the adequacy of their preparation to teach multiliteracies and they noted the constraints coming from curriculum.