Critical digital discourse analysis in language teaching: theory and praxis
Submitted by:
Dimitrios Koutsogiannis
Abstract:
During the last decades, a rich literature has been developed around the use of digital technologies in teaching literacy; it concerns various aspects from what is new in pedagogy and literacy (digital literacy, multimodality) to the fact that the digital reality in literacy is not neutral (critical digital literacy). There are also interesting research contributions focusing on the difficulty of incorporating new technologies in education.
Although this research tradition is rich and useful, a critically-oriented theory and method focusing on how to open the black box of digital everyday schooling is missing. We claim that this turn to the pedagogical praxis is the necessary condition in order to understand digital teaching practices as organic elements of a complex reality where multiple scales (local and global, personal and systemic, economic and cultural) coexist in unique ways, indicating that nothing happens in a social and educational vacuum.
In this round table we will attempt to achieve two aims. Firstly, we will present a suitable theoretical and methodological framework in order to analyze digital educational practices, and, secondly, we will apply this framework to indicative digital teaching examples.
The panel includes four presentations based on a longitudinal research in Greek educational contexts, namely primary and secondary education teaching practices in terms of teaching Greek as L1, and teacher learning practices in the context of an online teacher training course (e.g. Koutsogiannis et al., 2015). The first contribution (Koutsogiannis) will focus on describing the theoretical and methodological framework that informs the whole research. The second one (Chatzikiriakou) will showcase how digital technology interweaves with multiple historical features in a technology-mediated teaching grammar event. The third presentation (Antonopoulou) will focus on the directional relationship between teaching practices and technological affordances on online teaching events. The fourth contribution (Adampa & Pavlidou) will address the interrelationship between classroom space(s) and the nexus of digital technologies, identities of teacher/students and pedagogic discourses.
Koutsogiannis Dimitrios (dkoutsog@lit.auth.gr)
Analyzing digital teaching practices: a theoretical framework
The basic principle of this presentation is based on the assumption that the debate on understanding the complexity of integrating technology into (language) teaching should start far beyond technology but include it; in order to be able to do this, a theoretical framework is suggested in the first part of this presentation, based on a combination of scientific traditions (sociolinguistics of globalization, Blommaert, 2010; critical discourse analysis, Fairclough, 2003; Gee, 2011; social semiotics, Kress, 2010; Latourian perspectives on the role of technology in social contexts, Latour, 2002; Bernsteinian tradition in developing a grammar of the pedagogical discourse, Bernstein, 1996 and classroom discourse analysis, Rymes, 2016). The presentation will concentrate on the importance of the following parameters: Society (and history), technology and education; Technological affordances and teaching; Agency, discourses and identities. In the second part of the presentation, a methodological framework is suggested based on Scollons’ (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) “nexus analysis”. Following Scollons’ we consider that every teaching “action” constitutes a nexus connected with many rhizomes related to (some of the) aforementioned parameters.
Chatzikiriakou Ioanna (hatzikiriakou.ioanna@gmail.com)
Layered simultaneity in a digital teaching grammar event
Using nexus analysis we attempt to showcase how digital technology interweaves with multiple historical levels and features to construct the teaching reality of «knowledge about language». The presentation focuses on a technology-mediated teaching grammar event in the second grade of a primary school. Emanating from the moment of social action, we note how specific digital educational software is understood by teachers’ agency as a means to smooth a difficult teaching objective, such as recognizing the parts of speech, and make students more energetic in the learning process, as they stand up and move «stuff» in the central computer. We try to showcase that the pedagogical use of digital media is not neutral but it is interwoven with local and global discourses as they are rearticulated by teachers’ agency.
Antonopoulou Stavroula (santwno@hotmail.com)
Technological affordances and learning in online teaching practices
Nowadays online learning has become a common practice, giving rise to a new field of research that is the analysis of educational discourse within online environments. Τhe present contribution focuses on the bidirectional relationship between technological affordances and teaching (learning) practices, as the affordances can define the limits of educational practices but also pedagogic ideology can shape the use of technologies. Using nexus analysis, it will be highlighted how multiple factors interweave in an online teaching event, such as technological affordances but also the roles and identities of the participants, their previous shared knowledge and the institutional and communicative context. An indicative example of analysis will be given from a teachers’ professional development program, especially regarding collaborative practices with the use of asynchronous discussion forums, in order to show how learning is shaped by the above factors.
Adampa Vasiliki (vadampa@hotmail.com) & Pavlidou Maria (pavlidma@gmail.com)
Digital language teaching practices and fluid classroom space(s) in a multilayered educational reality
Moving beyond technological determinism, the integration of ICTs in (language) teaching is considered to be a highly complex issue, which is intertwined with the identities and agency of teachers and students, local and global pedagogic discourses, affordances and limitations of digital media, as well as classroom space. The presence of digital technologies in the classroom is an important parameter for learning and teaching. As Jewitt aptly remarks: “The materiality and the spatiality of the classroom is shaped by the technologies within it and vice versa, and both are in a dynamic relationship with the interactions that happen in the classroom” (2013: 144). Through the analysis of an indicative digital teaching event, this presentation focuses on the various ways classroom space is constantly reconfigured through the intersection and interplay of the historical trajectories of new technologies, pedagogic protagonists and various pedagogic discourses.
References
Jewitt, C. (2013). Multimodality and digital technologies in the classroom. In I. de Saint-Georges & J. Weber (Eds.), Multilingualism and Multimodality: Current Challenges for Educational Studies (pp. 141-152). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.