Teaching conditions under the early phase of COVID-19 necessitated that I take an existing underg... more Teaching conditions under the early phase of COVID-19 necessitated that I take an existing undergraduate English III literature course that teaches two controversial novels in a critical and dialogic way, and redesign it for asynchronous online teaching. This chapter focuses on one of the asynchronous teaching methods that was developed in the course redesign, namely narrated PowerPoint videos. Even though, in our role as curriculum designers, we may be tempted to think of these videos as ‘replacement lectures’, in effect, as online teaching materials, their modality is radically different from that of a face-to-face lecture. This has significant implications for pedagogy and materials design. Using multimodal semiotic theory as an analytical framework, I begin by exploring the multimodal design affordances – and constraints – of these videos with pedagogic intent. Thus the multimodal design of video technology is understood as being in the service of student learning – rather than having student learning be determined by technological imperatives. I then interrogate the extent to which the modality of the PowerPoint videos can stimulate critical, dialogic thinking. Findings suggest that PowerPoint videos could play a role in supporting a critical and dialogic pedagogy if they exploit certain design features and align with an integrated broader lecturing ecology which is itself supportive of dialogism and criticality.
What would it mean to teach a postgraduate course about literacy education in South Africa in a w... more What would it mean to teach a postgraduate course about literacy education in South Africa in a way attuned to place, bodies, ways of being, and decolonial knowledge making? In this paper, we engage with this question through reflections and projections on our ongoing work of curriculum re-design of a master’s level course on literacy theories. This course, which we have taught three times since 2018, seeks to place the existing theoretical architecture of sociocultural literacy under pressure, asking whether these various frameworks still hold relevance for literacy education in South Africa in this post-Fallist and, more recently, post-Covid-19 reality. In each iteration of the course, we have invited students to think together with us about how literacy education in the Global South might respond to the opposing forces of globalisation and decolonisation. Yet, each time, the course has flowed differently as the configuration of bodies, identities, languages, knowledges, dispositions, affects, and materialities of learning mode has changed year by year. We aim to map the pedagogical pathways, in the sense of “configurations that guide the constraints and potentialities shaping the movement of pedagogy” (Madden, 2015:2) of the course. We draw on decolonial theory and transhumanist ideas of relational ontologies to explore selected incidents when significant discursive, affective, institutional, and material elements crystallised into patterns revealing of the ways in which coloniality can be either reproduced or challenged within our particular context. Emerging insights relate to assessment issues, multimodal tasks, article selection, and student reflections across time, and gesture towards a decolonial praxis. We conclude by projecting the lessons learned into the course’s future redesign.
Multilingualism and diversity are fast becoming defining characteristics of global education. Thi... more Multilingualism and diversity are fast becoming defining characteristics of global education. This is because human mobility has increased exponentially over the past two decades, bringing about an increase in socioeconomic, cultural and faith-based diversity with consequences for citizenship, identity, education and practices of language and literacy (among others). The Multilingualisms and Diversities in Education series takes a global perspective on twenty-first century societal diversities. It looks at the languages through which these diversities are conveyed, and how they are changing the theoretical foundations and practices of formal and non-formal education. Multilingualisms and diversities in this series are understood as dynamic and variable phenomena, processes and realities. They are viewed alongside classroom practices (including curriculum, assessment, methodologies), teacher development (pre-and in-service; and in non-formal education), theory-building, research and evaluation, and policy considerations.
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2007
Introduction In this article we1 will discuss a first year sociolinguistics course entitled Langu... more Introduction In this article we1 will discuss a first year sociolinguistics course entitled Language, Identity and Education, in which students' personal language narratives and other published personal narratives were central to the learning process. More specifically, we ...
English Teaching Practice and Critique, Dec 1, 2014
The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing att... more The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing attention to issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, and frequently manifesting the need to work across historically constructed differences in race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This article reports on one aspect of a broader research project, which explores the relationship between identity/subjectivity and pedagogy in a high school subject English classroom during a time of ongoing social change in South Africa. Specifically, it places under scrutiny the multiple subject positions that a selected student, Sonia, takes up in relation to a unit of work that invites students to historicise their identities. This is empirical classroom-based research which, for the purposes of this article, has its focus narrowed to extracts of lesson transcripts where Sonia participates in whole-class discussion, a multimodal artefact she produces collaboratively, and excerpts from a student focus group. Sonia is one of five girls who self-identify as Afrikaans in a Grade 11 subject English classroom at an elite girls' school, where the normative position is that of an English, white, South African student of Anglo-Saxon descent. Using poststructuralist theories of discourse and subjectivity, I analyse a number of pedagogic moments when Sonia's classroom interactions enable her multiple and sometimes contradictory subject positions to become visible. The argument made is twofold. Firstly, I argue that Sonia's ethnic affiliation with the Afrikaans-speaking community in South Africa produces shifting and contradictory positionings influenced by the repositioning of Afrikaner identity in the social and political landscape post-1994. Secondly, I argue that the discursive manoeuvres made by Sonia could offer insights into the ways in which marginal(ised) subjectivities operate in the discursively constructed classroom space. The implications for discussion-based subject English classrooms are then touched upon.
Abstract: In this article we draw on data from a two-cycle action research project, in which ways... more Abstract: In this article we draw on data from a two-cycle action research project, in which ways of teaching reconciliation in post-apartheid secondary school classrooms are explored. We undertake a detailed analysis of a selection of artefacts produced by South African students ...
This article examines the discursive positions South African high school students take up in resp... more This article examines the discursive positions South African high school students take up in response to a teaching intervention that invites them to historicize their identities. It thus seeks to contribute to the growing body of education research on how to meaningfully engage young people in post-conflict societies with their recent past. Drawing on lesson transcripts as well as post-intervention focus group discussions with students in two different high schools, I use poststructuralist theories of discourse and subjectivity to attempt to understand students’ reluctance to see themselves as historically located. The analysis shows that students feel interpellated in uncomfortable ways by a historical narrative that works to tie subject positions to fixed, racialized identities. Their attempts to escape these predetermined positions constitute ongoing negotiation of multiple discourses tied to race, history and their generational locations. Implications for curriculum and pedagogy are briefly considered.
The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing att... more The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing attention to issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, and frequently manifesting the need to work across historically constructed differences in race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This article reports on one aspect of a broader research project, which explores the relationship between identity/subjectivity and pedagogy in a high school subject English classroom during a time of ongoing social change in South Africa. Specifically, it places under scrutiny the multiple subject positions that a selected student, Sonia, takes up in relation to a unit of work that invites students to historicise their identities. This is empirical classroom-based research which, for the purposes of this article, has its focus narrowed to extracts of lesson transcripts where Sonia participates in whole-class discussion, a multimodal artefact she produces collaboratively, and excerpts from a student focus group. Sonia is one of five girls who self-identify as Afrikaans in a Grade 11 subject English classroom at an elite girls’ school, where the normative position is that of an English, white, South African student of Anglo-Saxon descent. Using poststructuralist theories of discourse and subjectivity, I analyse a number of pedagogic moments when Sonia’s classroom interactions enable her multiple and sometimes contradictory subject positions to become visible. The argument made is two-fold. Firstly, I argue that Sonia’s ethnic affiliation with the Afrikaans-speaking community in South Africa produces shifting and contradictory positionings influenced by the repositioning of Afrikaner identity in the social and political landscape post-1994. Secondly, I argue that the discursive manoeuvres made by Sonia could offer insights into the ways in which marginal(ised) subjectivities operate in the discursively constructed classroom space. The implications for discussion-based subject English classrooms are then touched upon.
This article is based on a South African research project in which teachers and educational resea... more This article is based on a South African research project in which teachers and educational researchers pool their resources to explore ways of teaching reconciliation in desegregated English and Art classrooms, ten years after independence. One of the significant findings of this research was that positioning students as agentive researchers of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission served as a catalyst
This article explores how a linguistically diverse, subject English class can become a multilingu... more This article explores how a linguistically diverse, subject English class can become a multilingual contact zone in which naturalised linguistic identities are made visible and interrogated. The research is situated in a highly diverse, educational context -Wits School of Education in Johannesburg, South Africa. This is framed by a society in which English occupies a hegemonic position despite there being eleven official languages. Our students come from a variety of linguistic, cultural and social contexts and are currently compelled to do a compulsory year of subject English as part of an undergraduate degree in an institution where the medium of instruction is English. Within these constraints, we attempt to construct a pedagogic environment in which students' various language histories and practices are invited into the discursive space -not as medium of communication but as valued subject matter. Drawing on Blommaert, Collins and Slembrouck's spatial theorisation of multilingualism , we argue that the pedagogy of the course in question constitutes the classroom as a discursive space which enables students to negotiate their linguistic identities in various ways. While presented as an English course, it seeks to construct multilingualism as a resource and prioritises students' own language experiences by having them write personal language biographies in which they reflect on their linguistic identities. We use a selection of the students' language biographies to explore how these speak to the ways in which students position themselves in relation to the regimes of language constituted by the course.
In this article, we present vignettes from two projects - one in Cyprus and the other in South Af... more In this article, we present vignettes from two projects - one in Cyprus and the other in South Africa - to show how some classrooms enact heterotopic affective spaces that oppose normal/ized identities, that is, identities grounded in polarized trauma narratives. The notion of ...
Research in Comparative and International Education, 2009
In this article, the authors examine how teachers in four troubled societies -Israel, Cyprus, Nor... more In this article, the authors examine how teachers in four troubled societies -Israel, Cyprus, Northern Ireland and South Africa -understand and implement reconciliation in light of the increasing diversity of these societies. The authors particularly pay attention to a dialogical encounter between reconciliation and inclusion, as they look for ways to contemplate how each might be of mutual benefit in educational theory and practice. In the first part of the article, the authors give an overview of current thinking on reconciliation and its role in education, and suggest that the notion of inclusiveness can enrich it. The context of the research is then provided by looking briefly at the socio-political and educational settings in which the study was conducted, followed by a discussion of the research methodology. The findings from the study are then presented with the main themes identified as arising across the four research locations. These themes concern understandings of reconciliation and inclusion, student diversity, teachers' challenges, helping students deal with conflict, and teachers' development. Finally, whilst acknowledging the exploratory nature of these findings, the authors discuss what policy makers, school leaders and teachers might change about policies and practices for reconciliation education in the four settings studied and, by implication, other comparable settings.
This book challenges monoglossic ideologies, traditional language pedagogies and dominant forms o... more This book challenges monoglossic ideologies, traditional language pedagogies and dominant forms of knowledge construction by foregrounding multilingual and multicultural students’ language narratives, repertoires, and identities. The research is based on a sixteen year longitudinal study of a sociolinguistics course at an English language university and the language narratives produced by the first year education students. The study was borne out of a need to create a critically inclusive course that would engage a cohort of students from socially and linguistically diverse backgrounds in contemporary South Africa. Drawing on data from over 5,000 students who have journeyed through this course, this book’s outlines how a narrative heteroglossic pedagogy harnesses students’ multilingual strengths. A close analysis reveals complex identity work by students located in the Global South. The authors argue that decolonising language education is about reconceptualising language, reconfiguring what knowledges are valued in the classroom, and reshaping pedagogy.
Teaching conditions under the early phase of COVID-19 necessitated that I take an existing underg... more Teaching conditions under the early phase of COVID-19 necessitated that I take an existing undergraduate English III literature course that teaches two controversial novels in a critical and dialogic way, and redesign it for asynchronous online teaching. This chapter focuses on one of the asynchronous teaching methods that was developed in the course redesign, namely narrated PowerPoint videos. Even though, in our role as curriculum designers, we may be tempted to think of these videos as ‘replacement lectures’, in effect, as online teaching materials, their modality is radically different from that of a face-to-face lecture. This has significant implications for pedagogy and materials design. Using multimodal semiotic theory as an analytical framework, I begin by exploring the multimodal design affordances – and constraints – of these videos with pedagogic intent. Thus the multimodal design of video technology is understood as being in the service of student learning – rather than having student learning be determined by technological imperatives. I then interrogate the extent to which the modality of the PowerPoint videos can stimulate critical, dialogic thinking. Findings suggest that PowerPoint videos could play a role in supporting a critical and dialogic pedagogy if they exploit certain design features and align with an integrated broader lecturing ecology which is itself supportive of dialogism and criticality.
What would it mean to teach a postgraduate course about literacy education in South Africa in a w... more What would it mean to teach a postgraduate course about literacy education in South Africa in a way attuned to place, bodies, ways of being, and decolonial knowledge making? In this paper, we engage with this question through reflections and projections on our ongoing work of curriculum re-design of a master’s level course on literacy theories. This course, which we have taught three times since 2018, seeks to place the existing theoretical architecture of sociocultural literacy under pressure, asking whether these various frameworks still hold relevance for literacy education in South Africa in this post-Fallist and, more recently, post-Covid-19 reality. In each iteration of the course, we have invited students to think together with us about how literacy education in the Global South might respond to the opposing forces of globalisation and decolonisation. Yet, each time, the course has flowed differently as the configuration of bodies, identities, languages, knowledges, dispositions, affects, and materialities of learning mode has changed year by year. We aim to map the pedagogical pathways, in the sense of “configurations that guide the constraints and potentialities shaping the movement of pedagogy” (Madden, 2015:2) of the course. We draw on decolonial theory and transhumanist ideas of relational ontologies to explore selected incidents when significant discursive, affective, institutional, and material elements crystallised into patterns revealing of the ways in which coloniality can be either reproduced or challenged within our particular context. Emerging insights relate to assessment issues, multimodal tasks, article selection, and student reflections across time, and gesture towards a decolonial praxis. We conclude by projecting the lessons learned into the course’s future redesign.
Multilingualism and diversity are fast becoming defining characteristics of global education. Thi... more Multilingualism and diversity are fast becoming defining characteristics of global education. This is because human mobility has increased exponentially over the past two decades, bringing about an increase in socioeconomic, cultural and faith-based diversity with consequences for citizenship, identity, education and practices of language and literacy (among others). The Multilingualisms and Diversities in Education series takes a global perspective on twenty-first century societal diversities. It looks at the languages through which these diversities are conveyed, and how they are changing the theoretical foundations and practices of formal and non-formal education. Multilingualisms and diversities in this series are understood as dynamic and variable phenomena, processes and realities. They are viewed alongside classroom practices (including curriculum, assessment, methodologies), teacher development (pre-and in-service; and in non-formal education), theory-building, research and evaluation, and policy considerations.
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2007
Introduction In this article we1 will discuss a first year sociolinguistics course entitled Langu... more Introduction In this article we1 will discuss a first year sociolinguistics course entitled Language, Identity and Education, in which students' personal language narratives and other published personal narratives were central to the learning process. More specifically, we ...
English Teaching Practice and Critique, Dec 1, 2014
The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing att... more The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing attention to issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, and frequently manifesting the need to work across historically constructed differences in race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This article reports on one aspect of a broader research project, which explores the relationship between identity/subjectivity and pedagogy in a high school subject English classroom during a time of ongoing social change in South Africa. Specifically, it places under scrutiny the multiple subject positions that a selected student, Sonia, takes up in relation to a unit of work that invites students to historicise their identities. This is empirical classroom-based research which, for the purposes of this article, has its focus narrowed to extracts of lesson transcripts where Sonia participates in whole-class discussion, a multimodal artefact she produces collaboratively, and excerpts from a student focus group. Sonia is one of five girls who self-identify as Afrikaans in a Grade 11 subject English classroom at an elite girls' school, where the normative position is that of an English, white, South African student of Anglo-Saxon descent. Using poststructuralist theories of discourse and subjectivity, I analyse a number of pedagogic moments when Sonia's classroom interactions enable her multiple and sometimes contradictory subject positions to become visible. The argument made is twofold. Firstly, I argue that Sonia's ethnic affiliation with the Afrikaans-speaking community in South Africa produces shifting and contradictory positionings influenced by the repositioning of Afrikaner identity in the social and political landscape post-1994. Secondly, I argue that the discursive manoeuvres made by Sonia could offer insights into the ways in which marginal(ised) subjectivities operate in the discursively constructed classroom space. The implications for discussion-based subject English classrooms are then touched upon.
Abstract: In this article we draw on data from a two-cycle action research project, in which ways... more Abstract: In this article we draw on data from a two-cycle action research project, in which ways of teaching reconciliation in post-apartheid secondary school classrooms are explored. We undertake a detailed analysis of a selection of artefacts produced by South African students ...
This article examines the discursive positions South African high school students take up in resp... more This article examines the discursive positions South African high school students take up in response to a teaching intervention that invites them to historicize their identities. It thus seeks to contribute to the growing body of education research on how to meaningfully engage young people in post-conflict societies with their recent past. Drawing on lesson transcripts as well as post-intervention focus group discussions with students in two different high schools, I use poststructuralist theories of discourse and subjectivity to attempt to understand students’ reluctance to see themselves as historically located. The analysis shows that students feel interpellated in uncomfortable ways by a historical narrative that works to tie subject positions to fixed, racialized identities. Their attempts to escape these predetermined positions constitute ongoing negotiation of multiple discourses tied to race, history and their generational locations. Implications for curriculum and pedagogy are briefly considered.
The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing att... more The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing attention to issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, and frequently manifesting the need to work across historically constructed differences in race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This article reports on one aspect of a broader research project, which explores the relationship between identity/subjectivity and pedagogy in a high school subject English classroom during a time of ongoing social change in South Africa. Specifically, it places under scrutiny the multiple subject positions that a selected student, Sonia, takes up in relation to a unit of work that invites students to historicise their identities. This is empirical classroom-based research which, for the purposes of this article, has its focus narrowed to extracts of lesson transcripts where Sonia participates in whole-class discussion, a multimodal artefact she produces collaboratively, and excerpts from a student focus group. Sonia is one of five girls who self-identify as Afrikaans in a Grade 11 subject English classroom at an elite girls’ school, where the normative position is that of an English, white, South African student of Anglo-Saxon descent. Using poststructuralist theories of discourse and subjectivity, I analyse a number of pedagogic moments when Sonia’s classroom interactions enable her multiple and sometimes contradictory subject positions to become visible. The argument made is two-fold. Firstly, I argue that Sonia’s ethnic affiliation with the Afrikaans-speaking community in South Africa produces shifting and contradictory positionings influenced by the repositioning of Afrikaner identity in the social and political landscape post-1994. Secondly, I argue that the discursive manoeuvres made by Sonia could offer insights into the ways in which marginal(ised) subjectivities operate in the discursively constructed classroom space. The implications for discussion-based subject English classrooms are then touched upon.
This article is based on a South African research project in which teachers and educational resea... more This article is based on a South African research project in which teachers and educational researchers pool their resources to explore ways of teaching reconciliation in desegregated English and Art classrooms, ten years after independence. One of the significant findings of this research was that positioning students as agentive researchers of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission served as a catalyst
This article explores how a linguistically diverse, subject English class can become a multilingu... more This article explores how a linguistically diverse, subject English class can become a multilingual contact zone in which naturalised linguistic identities are made visible and interrogated. The research is situated in a highly diverse, educational context -Wits School of Education in Johannesburg, South Africa. This is framed by a society in which English occupies a hegemonic position despite there being eleven official languages. Our students come from a variety of linguistic, cultural and social contexts and are currently compelled to do a compulsory year of subject English as part of an undergraduate degree in an institution where the medium of instruction is English. Within these constraints, we attempt to construct a pedagogic environment in which students' various language histories and practices are invited into the discursive space -not as medium of communication but as valued subject matter. Drawing on Blommaert, Collins and Slembrouck's spatial theorisation of multilingualism , we argue that the pedagogy of the course in question constitutes the classroom as a discursive space which enables students to negotiate their linguistic identities in various ways. While presented as an English course, it seeks to construct multilingualism as a resource and prioritises students' own language experiences by having them write personal language biographies in which they reflect on their linguistic identities. We use a selection of the students' language biographies to explore how these speak to the ways in which students position themselves in relation to the regimes of language constituted by the course.
In this article, we present vignettes from two projects - one in Cyprus and the other in South Af... more In this article, we present vignettes from two projects - one in Cyprus and the other in South Africa - to show how some classrooms enact heterotopic affective spaces that oppose normal/ized identities, that is, identities grounded in polarized trauma narratives. The notion of ...
Research in Comparative and International Education, 2009
In this article, the authors examine how teachers in four troubled societies -Israel, Cyprus, Nor... more In this article, the authors examine how teachers in four troubled societies -Israel, Cyprus, Northern Ireland and South Africa -understand and implement reconciliation in light of the increasing diversity of these societies. The authors particularly pay attention to a dialogical encounter between reconciliation and inclusion, as they look for ways to contemplate how each might be of mutual benefit in educational theory and practice. In the first part of the article, the authors give an overview of current thinking on reconciliation and its role in education, and suggest that the notion of inclusiveness can enrich it. The context of the research is then provided by looking briefly at the socio-political and educational settings in which the study was conducted, followed by a discussion of the research methodology. The findings from the study are then presented with the main themes identified as arising across the four research locations. These themes concern understandings of reconciliation and inclusion, student diversity, teachers' challenges, helping students deal with conflict, and teachers' development. Finally, whilst acknowledging the exploratory nature of these findings, the authors discuss what policy makers, school leaders and teachers might change about policies and practices for reconciliation education in the four settings studied and, by implication, other comparable settings.
This book challenges monoglossic ideologies, traditional language pedagogies and dominant forms o... more This book challenges monoglossic ideologies, traditional language pedagogies and dominant forms of knowledge construction by foregrounding multilingual and multicultural students’ language narratives, repertoires, and identities. The research is based on a sixteen year longitudinal study of a sociolinguistics course at an English language university and the language narratives produced by the first year education students. The study was borne out of a need to create a critically inclusive course that would engage a cohort of students from socially and linguistically diverse backgrounds in contemporary South Africa. Drawing on data from over 5,000 students who have journeyed through this course, this book’s outlines how a narrative heteroglossic pedagogy harnesses students’ multilingual strengths. A close analysis reveals complex identity work by students located in the Global South. The authors argue that decolonising language education is about reconceptualising language, reconfiguring what knowledges are valued in the classroom, and reshaping pedagogy.
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Books by Ana Ferreira
longitudinal study of a sociolinguistics course at an English language university and the language narratives produced by the first year education students. The study was borne out of a need to create a critically inclusive course that would engage a cohort of students from socially and
linguistically diverse backgrounds in contemporary South Africa. Drawing on data from over 5,000 students who have journeyed through this course, this book’s outlines how a narrative heteroglossic pedagogy harnesses
students’ multilingual strengths. A close analysis reveals complex identity work by students located in the Global South. The authors argue that decolonising language education is about reconceptualising language,
reconfiguring what knowledges are valued in the classroom, and reshaping pedagogy.
longitudinal study of a sociolinguistics course at an English language university and the language narratives produced by the first year education students. The study was borne out of a need to create a critically inclusive course that would engage a cohort of students from socially and
linguistically diverse backgrounds in contemporary South Africa. Drawing on data from over 5,000 students who have journeyed through this course, this book’s outlines how a narrative heteroglossic pedagogy harnesses
students’ multilingual strengths. A close analysis reveals complex identity work by students located in the Global South. The authors argue that decolonising language education is about reconceptualising language,
reconfiguring what knowledges are valued in the classroom, and reshaping pedagogy.