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Emergent bilinguals as text designers: rendering meaning through signs

Emergent bilinguals as text designers: rendering meaning through signs The main purpose is to investigate what resources young emergent bilinguals use to communicate a multimodal response to children’s literature. In particular, attention is paid to the ways students translanguage as part of the learning process.Design/methodology/approachAn ethnography-in-education approach was used to capture the social and cultural aspects of literacy learning in an English-only context. A multimodal transcript analysis was applied to video-recorded data as a method for examining semiotic resources and modes of learning.FindingsThe results revealed that students used technology, paper-based resources and peers to construct meaning relative to books. Experimentation or play with the affordances of the tablet computer served as avenues to determine the agentive selection of resources. As students wrestled with constructing meaning, they gathered multiple perspectives from peers and children’s literature to involve symbols and representations in their texts. Signs, multiple language forms and meaning came together for the social shaping of situated perspectives.Originality/valueThis study addresses the call for educators to engage in multiliterate, multimodal practices with young learners in the contexts of classrooms. It provides insight into the need to create multilingual learning spaces where translanguaging freely occurs and the meaningful ways early childhood learners use technology. To fully understand what emergent bilinguals know and can do, they must be afforded a variety of semiotic resources at school. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png English Teaching Practice & Critique Emerald Publishing

Emergent bilinguals as text designers: rendering meaning through signs

Brown, Sally
English Teaching Practice & Critique , Volume 20 (2): 19 – Jul 20, 2021
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References (38)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
1175-8708
DOI
10.1108/etpc-07-2020-0076
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The main purpose is to investigate what resources young emergent bilinguals use to communicate a multimodal response to children’s literature. In particular, attention is paid to the ways students translanguage as part of the learning process.Design/methodology/approachAn ethnography-in-education approach was used to capture the social and cultural aspects of literacy learning in an English-only context. A multimodal transcript analysis was applied to video-recorded data as a method for examining semiotic resources and modes of learning.FindingsThe results revealed that students used technology, paper-based resources and peers to construct meaning relative to books. Experimentation or play with the affordances of the tablet computer served as avenues to determine the agentive selection of resources. As students wrestled with constructing meaning, they gathered multiple perspectives from peers and children’s literature to involve symbols and representations in their texts. Signs, multiple language forms and meaning came together for the social shaping of situated perspectives.Originality/valueThis study addresses the call for educators to engage in multiliterate, multimodal practices with young learners in the contexts of classrooms. It provides insight into the need to create multilingual learning spaces where translanguaging freely occurs and the meaningful ways early childhood learners use technology. To fully understand what emergent bilinguals know and can do, they must be afforded a variety of semiotic resources at school.

Journal

English Teaching Practice & Critique – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jul 20, 2021

Keywords: Literacy; Writing; New literacies; L1 English teaching; Translanguaging

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