TEXT I

Critical Literacy, EFL and Citizenship

We believe that a sense of active citizenship needs to be developed and schools have an important role in the process. If we agree that language is discourse, and that it is in discourse that we construct our meanings, then we may perceive the foreign language classrooms in our schools as an ideal space for discussing the procedures for ascribing meanings to the world. In a foreign language we learn different interpretive procedures, different ways to understand the world. If our foreign language teaching happens in a critical literacy perspective, then we also learn that such different ways to interpret reality are legitimized and valued according to socially and historically constructed criteria that can be collectively reproduced and accepted or questioned and changed. Hence our view of the EFL classroom, at least in Brazil, as an ideal space for the development of citizenship: the EFL classrooms can adopt a critical discursive view of reality that helps students see claims to truth as arbitrary, and power as a transitory force which, although being always present, is also in permanent change, in a movement that constantly allows for radical transformation. The EFL classroom can thus raise students’ perception of their role in the transformation of society, once it might provide them with a space where they are able to challenge their own views, to question where different perspectives (including those allegedly present in the texts) come from and where they lead to. By questioning their assumptions and those perceived in the texts, and in doing so also broadening their views, we claim students will be able to see themselves as critical subjects, capable of acting upon the world.

[…]

We believe that there is nothing wrong with using the mother tongue in the foreign language classroom, since strictly speaking, the mother tongue is also foreign - it’s not “mine”, but “my mother’s”: it was therefore foreign as I first learned it and while I was learning to use its interpretive procedures. When using critical literacy in the teaching of foreign languages we assume that a great part of the discussions proposed in the FL class may happen in the mother tongue. Such discussions will bring meaning to the classroom, moving away from the notion that only simple ideas can be dealt with in the FL lesson because of the students’ lack of proficiency to produce deeper meanings and thoughts in the FL. Since the stress involved in trying to understand a foreign language is eased, students will be able to bring their “real” world to their English lessons and, by so doing, discussions in the mother tongue will help students learn English as a social practice of meaning-making.

(Source: Adapted from JORDÃO, C. M. & FOGAÇA, F. C. Critical Literacy in The English Language Classroom. DELTA, vol. 28, no 1, São Paulo, p. 69-84, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.scielo.br/pdf/delta/v28n1a04.pdf).

TEXT I

Critical Literacy, EFL and Citizenship

We believe that a sense of active citizenship needs to be developed and schools have an important role in the process. If we agree that language is discourse, and that it is in discourse that we construct our meanings, then we may perceive the foreign language classrooms in our schools as an ideal space for discussing the procedures for ascribing meanings to the world. In a foreign language we learn different interpretive procedures, different ways to understand the world. If our foreign language teaching happens in a critical literacy perspective, then we also learn that such different ways to interpret reality are legitimized and valued according to socially and historically constructed criteria that can be collectively reproduced and accepted or questioned and changed. Hence our view of the EFL classroom, at least in Brazil, as an ideal space for the development of citizenship: the EFL classrooms can adopt a critical discursive view of reality that helps students see claims to truth as arbitrary, and power as a transitory force which, although being always present, is also in permanent change, in a movement that constantly allows for radical transformation. The EFL classroom can thus raise students’ perception of their role in the transformation of society, once it might provide them with a space where they are able to challenge their own views, to question where different perspectives (including those allegedly present in the texts) come from and where they lead to. By questioning their assumptions and those perceived in the texts, and in doing so also broadening their views, we claim students will be able to see themselves as critical subjects, capable of acting upon the world.

[…]

We believe that there is nothing wrong with using the mother tongue in the foreign language classroom, since strictly speaking, the mother tongue is also foreign - it’s not “mine”, but “my mother’s”: it was therefore foreign as I first learned it and while I was learning to use its interpretive procedures. When using critical literacy in the teaching of foreign languages we assume that a great part of the discussions proposed in the FL class may happen in the mother tongue. Such discussions will bring meaning to the classroom, moving away from the notion that only simple ideas can be dealt with in the FL lesson because of the students’ lack of proficiency to produce deeper meanings and thoughts in the FL. Since the stress involved in trying to understand a foreign language is eased, students will be able to bring their “real” world to their English lessons and, by so doing, discussions in the mother tongue will help students learn English as a social practice of meaning-making.

(Source: Adapted from JORDÃO, C. M. & FOGAÇA, F. C. Critical Literacy in The English Language Classroom. DELTA, vol. 28, no 1, São Paulo, p. 69-84, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.scielo.br/pdf/delta/v28n1a04.pdf).

TEXT II

What to Know About the Controversy Surrounding the Movie Green Book

Depending on who you ask, Green Book is either the pinnacle of movie magic or a whitewashing sham.

The film, which took home the prize for Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards, as well as honors for Mahershala Ali as Best Supporting Actor and Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie and Peter Farrelly for Best Original Screenplay, depicts the burgeoning friendship between a black classical pianist and his ItalianAmerican driver as they travel the 1960s segregated South on a concert tour. But while Green Book was an awards frontrunner all season, its road to Oscar night was riddled with missteps and controversies over its authenticity and racial politics.

Green Book is about the relationship between two real-life people: Donald Shirley and Tony “Lip” Vallelonga. Shirley was born in 1927 and grew up in a well-off black family in Florida, where he emerged as a classical piano prodigy: he possessed virtuosic technique and a firm grasp of both classical and pop repertoire. He went on to perform regularly at Carnegie Hall— right below his regal apartment—and work with many prestigious orchestras, like the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic. But at a time when prominent black classical musicians were few and far between due to racist power structures, he never secured a spot in the upper echelons of the classical world. (African Americans still only make up 1.8 percent of musicians playing in orchestras nationwide, according to a recent study.)

Vallelonga was born in 1930 to working-class Italian parents and grew up in the Bronx. As an adult he worked as a bouncer, a maître d’ and a chauffeur, and he was hired in 1962 to drive Shirley on a concert tour through the Jim Crow South. The mismatched pair spent one and a half years together on the road — though it’s condensed to just a couple of months in the film — wriggling out of perilous situations and learning about each other’s worlds. Vallelonga would later become an actor and land a recurring role on The Sopranos.

In the 1980s, Vallelonga’s son, Nick, approached his father and Shirley about making a movie about their friendship. For reasons that are now contested, Shirley rebuffed these requests at the time. […]

(Source: from http://time.com/5527806/green-book-movie-controversy/)

TEXT I

Critical Literacy, EFL and Citizenship

We believe that a sense of active citizenship needs to be developed and schools have an important role in the process. If we agree that language is discourse, and that it is in discourse that we construct our meanings, then we may perceive the foreign language classrooms in our schools as an ideal space for discussing the procedures for ascribing meanings to the world. In a foreign language we learn different interpretive procedures, different ways to understand the world. If our foreign language teaching happens in a critical literacy perspective, then we also learn that such different ways to interpret reality are legitimized and valued according to socially and historically constructed criteria that can be collectively reproduced and accepted or questioned and changed. Hence our view of the EFL classroom, at least in Brazil, as an ideal space for the development of citizenship: the EFL classrooms can adopt a critical discursive view of reality that helps students see claims to truth as arbitrary, and power as a transitory force which, although being always present, is also in permanent change, in a movement that constantly allows for radical transformation. The EFL classroom can thus raise students’ perception of their role in the transformation of society, once it might provide them with a space where they are able to challenge their own views, to question where different perspectives (including those allegedly present in the texts) come from and where they lead to. By questioning their assumptions and those perceived in the texts, and in doing so also broadening their views, we claim students will be able to see themselves as critical subjects, capable of acting upon the world.

[…]

We believe that there is nothing wrong with using the mother tongue in the foreign language classroom, since strictly speaking, the mother tongue is also foreign - it’s not “mine”, but “my mother’s”: it was therefore foreign as I first learned it and while I was learning to use its interpretive procedures. When using critical literacy in the teaching of foreign languages we assume that a great part of the discussions proposed in the FL class may happen in the mother tongue. Such discussions will bring meaning to the classroom, moving away from the notion that only simple ideas can be dealt with in the FL lesson because of the students’ lack of proficiency to produce deeper meanings and thoughts in the FL. Since the stress involved in trying to understand a foreign language is eased, students will be able to bring their “real” world to their English lessons and, by so doing, discussions in the mother tongue will help students learn English as a social practice of meaning-making.

(Source: Adapted from JORDÃO, C. M. & FOGAÇA, F. C. Critical Literacy in The English Language Classroom. DELTA, vol. 28, no 1, São Paulo, p. 69-84, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.scielo.br/pdf/delta/v28n1a04.pdf).

TEXT IV

Throughout the last 15 years our society has undergone two major changes: Firstly, there has been a steady rise of cultural and linguistic diversity, due to migration, multiculturalism and global economic integration; secondly, there has been the rapid development of technological devices and the world-wide expansion of new communications media. These changes directly affect the lives of our pupils at home and at school and thus have an important impact on curricular development, teaching objectives, contents and methodologies – starting as early as in primary school.

[…]

While traditionally being literate solely referred to the ability to read and write in a standardized form of one language, literate practices today incorporate multimodal, critical, cultural, and media competencies next to traditional-functional language skills, like reading, writing, speaking, mediating, and listening in many languages.

One major aspect in this context is the changing nature of texts that has developed from advances in technology. Language learners today need to be able to cope with different kinds of texts, including multimodal, interactive, linear, and nonlinear texts, texts in different languages, texts with several possible meanings, texts being delivered on paper, screens, or live, and texts that comprise one or more semiotic system.

In order to prepare students to actively engage in a socially diverse, globalized, and technological world, teachers need to find new forms of teaching and learning and provide opportunities for their pupils to explore, learn about, and critically engage with a broad variety of texts and differing literate practices. Still, the question remains open as to how these principles and objectives of a multiliteracies pedagogy translate into examples of good practice in school settings.

(Source: adapted from ELSNER, D. Developing multiliteracies, plurilingual awareness & critical thinking in the primary language classroom with multilingual virtual talking books. Encuentro 20, 2011, pp. 27- 38.https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED530011)

TEXT IV

Throughout the last 15 years our society has undergone two major changes: Firstly, there has been a steady rise of cultural and linguistic diversity, due to migration, multiculturalism and global economic integration; secondly, there has been the rapid development of technological devices and the world-wide expansion of new communications media. These changes directly affect the lives of our pupils at home and at school and thus have an important impact on curricular development, teaching objectives, contents and methodologies – starting as early as in primary school.

[…]

While traditionally being literate solely referred to the ability to read and write in a standardized form of one language, literate practices today incorporate multimodal, critical, cultural, and media competencies next to traditional-functional language skills, like reading, writing, speaking, mediating, and listening in many languages.

One major aspect in this context is the changing nature of texts that has developed from advances in technology. Language learners today need to be able to cope with different kinds of texts, including multimodal, interactive, linear, and nonlinear texts, texts in different languages, texts with several possible meanings, texts being delivered on paper, screens, or live, and texts that comprise one or more semiotic system.

In order to prepare students to actively engage in a socially diverse, globalized, and technological world, teachers need to find new forms of teaching and learning and provide opportunities for their pupils to explore, learn about, and critically engage with a broad variety of texts and differing literate practices. Still, the question remains open as to how these principles and objectives of a multiliteracies pedagogy translate into examples of good practice in school settings.

(Source: adapted from ELSNER, D. Developing multiliteracies, plurilingual awareness & critical thinking in the primary language classroom with multilingual virtual talking books. Encuentro 20, 2011, pp. 27- 38.https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED530011)

TEXT II

What to Know About the Controversy Surrounding the Movie Green Book

Depending on who you ask, Green Book is either the pinnacle of movie magic or a whitewashing sham.

The film, which took home the prize for Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards, as well as honors for Mahershala Ali as Best Supporting Actor and Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie and Peter Farrelly for Best Original Screenplay, depicts the burgeoning friendship between a black classical pianist and his ItalianAmerican driver as they travel the 1960s segregated South on a concert tour. But while Green Book was an awards frontrunner all season, its road to Oscar night was riddled with missteps and controversies over its authenticity and racial politics.

Green Book is about the relationship between two real-life people: Donald Shirley and Tony “Lip” Vallelonga. Shirley was born in 1927 and grew up in a well-off black family in Florida, where he emerged as a classical piano prodigy: he possessed virtuosic technique and a firm grasp of both classical and pop repertoire. He went on to perform regularly at Carnegie Hall— right below his regal apartment—and work with many prestigious orchestras, like the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic. But at a time when prominent black classical musicians were few and far between due to racist power structures, he never secured a spot in the upper echelons of the classical world. (African Americans still only make up 1.8 percent of musicians playing in orchestras nationwide, according to a recent study.)

Vallelonga was born in 1930 to working-class Italian parents and grew up in the Bronx. As an adult he worked as a bouncer, a maître d’ and a chauffeur, and he was hired in 1962 to drive Shirley on a concert tour through the Jim Crow South. The mismatched pair spent one and a half years together on the road — though it’s condensed to just a couple of months in the film — wriggling out of perilous situations and learning about each other’s worlds. Vallelonga would later become an actor and land a recurring role on The Sopranos.

In the 1980s, Vallelonga’s son, Nick, approached his father and Shirley about making a movie about their friendship. For reasons that are now contested, Shirley rebuffed these requests at the time. […]

(Source: from http://time.com/5527806/green-book-movie-controversy/)