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Running Head: FOSTERING LITERACY IN EFL LEARNERS 1
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS THROUGH
COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY
Mónica Liliana Sánchez Alfonso
Universidad Francisco José de Caldas
School of Science and Education
Master in Applied Linguistics to the Teaching of English
Bogotá, Colombia
2017
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
2
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN THE EFL LEARNERS THROUGH
COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY
Mónica Liliana Sánchez Alfonso
Thesis Director:
Carlos Rico Troncoso PhD.
A thesis submitted as a requirement to obtain the degree of
M.A. in Applied Linguistics to the Teaching of English
Universidad Francisco Jose de Caldas
School of Science and Education
Master in Applied Linguistics to the Teaching of English
Bogotá, Colombia
2017
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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Note of Acceptance:
Thesis Director: ___________________________________
Carlos Rico Troncoso PhD.
Juror: __________________________________
Name:
Juror: __________________________________
Name:
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
4
Acuerdo 19 de 1988 del Consejo Superior Universitario
Artículo 177: “La Universidad Distrital Francisco osé de Caldas no será responsable por las ideas
expuestas en esta tesis”.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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Acknowledgements
I want to thank my academic advisor Doctor Carlos Rico Troncoso for his valuable
support, guidance and advice during the accomplishment of my research study. I also want to
thank all my professors of this M.A. for their committed work, knowledge and guidance. Thanks
to my beloved parents, sister, niece, nephew and friends for their support and encouragement to
accomplish this academic and professional endeavor.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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Abstract
This action research attempts to foster literacy practices in a group of third graders by means of
collaborative inquiry of socio-cultural knowledge present in the students‟ school community.
This study was conducted in a private, catholic school in Bogotá, Colombia, as an opportunity to
consider another pedagogical proposal that pertains to the process of developing literacy practices
from a socio cultural perspective within an inquiry-based learning environment. Throughout the
pedagogical implementation, students used multiple modes of language and literacy to explore
and make meaning of the historical and human assets within their school community. This
qualitative study followed grounded theory, as the framework for data analysis and the
instruments for data collection were artifacts, field notes and journals. The results showed how
the inquiry-based learning approach provided language learners with opportunities and
environments to develop multimodal literacy as a social situated practice to co-construct socio-
cultural knowledge. Such experiences positioned students as owners and agents of their own
language and literacy learning to make meaning with regard to their previous knowledge and the
new information they found through their collaborative inquiry projects.
Key Words: Literacy, inquiry, multimodality.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 ......................................................................................................................................... 9
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 13
Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................................... 14
Research Question .......................................................................................................................... 21
Research Objective ......................................................................................................................... 21
Justification .................................................................................................................................... 21
Chapter 2 ....................................................................................................................................... 25
Theoretical Framework .................................................................................................................. 25
Literacy ........................................................................................................................................... 26
Literacy as Social-Situated Practice ............................................................................................... 29
Multimodal Literacy ....................................................................................................................... 31
Inquiry ............................................................................................................................................ 34
Collaborative Inquiry ..................................................................................................................... 37
State of the Art ............................................................................................................................... 42
Chapter 3 ....................................................................................................................................... 62
Research Design ............................................................................................................................. 62
Type of study .................................................................................................................................. 62
Research Setting ............................................................................................................................. 66
Participants ..................................................................................................................................... 68
Data collection and Techniques ..................................................................................................... 68
Instruments ..................................................................................................................................... 69
Field note. ....................................................................................................................................... 69
Role of the researcher ..................................................................................................................... 70
Ethical Issues .................................................................................................................................. 71
Chapter 4 ....................................................................................................................................... 73
Instructional Design ....................................................................................................................... 73
Curricular Platform ........................................................................................................................ 73
Vision of Curriculum ..................................................................................................................... 75
Vision of Learning ......................................................................................................................... 76
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
8
Vision of Language ........................................................................................................................ 77
Vision of Classroom ....................................................................................................................... 78
Pedagogical Intervention ................................................................................................................ 78
Chapter 5 ....................................................................................................................................... 94
Data Analysis and Findings ............................................................................................................ 94
Data Management .......................................................................................................................... 94
Data analysis Framework ............................................................................................................... 95
Data analysis Procedure ................................................................................................................. 95
Findings ........................................................................................................................................ 100
Social Situated Multimodal Literacy Practices ............................................................................ 100
Chapter 6 ..................................................................................................................................... 135
Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 135
Implications .................................................................................................................................. 141
Limitations ................................................................................................................................... 142
Further Research .......................................................................................................................... 144
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
9
List of Figures
1. Structured questionnaire to students .......................................................................................... 19
2. Mind map:Theoretical Constructs. .............................................................................................. 26
3. The spiral of knowing. ............................................................................................................... 38
4. Research cycles ......................................................................................................................... 66
5. Authoring Cycle. ........................................................................................................................ 80
6. Students‟ exploration of their school community. ..................................................................... 81
7. Spider web as the result of brainstorming upon the school community. ................................... 82
8. Students‟ questions upon the History of the School Community. ............................................. 83
9. Students doing an interview. ...................................................................................................... 84
10. Oral presentation of the School History Museum. ................................................................... 84
11. Third graders experiencing collaborative inquiry process. ...................................................... 85
12. Publication and Oral presentation of the Liceo Cervantes Timeline in the institutional
magazine. ........................................................................................................................................ 87
13. Students' learning outcomes ..................................................................................................... 88
14. Students' new inquiries based on human assets of their school community. ........................... 89
15. Students interviewing to their Physical Education teacher ...................................................... 90
16. Students write and edit their biographies. ................................................................................ 91
17. Students read their biographies and presented them to the whole school community. ............ 92
18. Students write their learning outcomes in the KWL Chart. ..................................................... 93
19. Open coding stage .................................................................................................................... 97
20. Axial coding stage. .................................................................................................................. 98
21. Selective coding stage. ............................................................................................................. 99
22. Categories and subcategories. ................................................................................................ 100
23. Student Artifact:Interview in pairs frontside. ......................................................................... 103
24 . Student Artifact:Interview in pairs backtside.. ...................................................................... 104
25. Student Journal: Describing unquiry experience .................................................................. 105
26. Student Artifact: Multimodal Representations ....................................................................... 106
27. Student Artifact: Multimodal texts and expository texts ....................................................... 108
28. Students doing an interview throug a local source of knoweldge .......................................... 113
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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29. Students‟ language learning and literacy events. ................................................................... 114
30. Oral presentation of the Liceo Cervantes timeline. ................................................................ 118
31. Student Artifact: KWL Chart ................................................................................................. 119
32. Students as owners of their inquiries...................................................................................... 120
33. Student Journal: Describing inquiry experience .................................................................... 125
34. Student Journal: Describing inquiry experience .................................................................... 126
35. Student Artifact: Timeline ...................................................................................................... 126
36. Student Journal: Expressing feelings ..................................................................................... 127
37. Students‟ Journal: Explaining inquiry choices……………………………………………...129
38. Student artifact: KWL Chart………………………………………………………………..131
39. Students‟ artifact: Publication of the Timeline……………………………………………...132
40. Students‟ artifact: KWL Chart……………………………………………………………...133
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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List of Tables
1. Curricular Grid of English Area. ................................................................................................ 16
2. Curricular units and text types accomplished ............................................................................ 80
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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List of Appendices
Appendix A: Semi-structured interview to EFL teachers ............................................................ 154
AppendixB: Structured questionnaire to students ....................................................................... 155
Appendix C: Field note layout .................................................................................................... 156
Appendix D: Students artifact ...................................................................................................... 157
Appendix E. Student journal ........................................................................................................ 158
Appendix F: Parent consent form................................................................................................. 159
Appendix G: School consent form ............................................................................................... 160
Appendix H: KWL chart sample .................................................................................................. 161
Appendix I: Workking plan unit one ............................................................................................ 162
Appendix J: Working plan unit two ............................................................................................. 172
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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Chapter 1
Introduction
This study attempts to portray the development of literacy in children of a private school
highlighting three aspects. The first deals with implementation of inquiry-based learning in the
EFL classroom, where literacy instruction goes beyond the traditional foreign language pedagogy
and places students at the center of learning. Second, the importance of language learning that
enact the development of social situated literacy practices for the construction of socio cultural
knowledge present in students‟ school community. Third, the relevance of proposing social
approaches to literacy and leaner-centered methodologies that might nurture EFL teaching and
learning practices, as well as supporting students within the EFL classroom.
The following research is presented in six chapters. Chapter one outlines the problematic
situation, rationale, research question, research objectives and the statement of the problem. The
second chapter addresses the theoretical constructs that support this study as well as some
research done related to literacy and inquiry.
The third chapter presents the research design, the context in which this study took place,
as well as the participants, research methodology and data collection instruments. The fourth
chapter focuses on the instructional design with the corresponding vision of curriculum, learning,
language and classroom; chapter five addresses the data analysis framework, data analysis
process and findings. Finally, chapter six describes the conclusions, pedagogical implications,
limitations and further research.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
14
Statement of the Problem
The foreign language curriculum at Liceo Cervantes School perceives English as a foreign
language (EFL) as a subject that students learn through the development of the four
communicative skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing within an intensive schedule of
teaching. As part of this concern, students are instructed to understand grammar structures and
uses of verbal tenses to communicate effectively. On the other hand, literacy is developed
through separated reading and writing tasks according to the weekly schedule. As consequence,
the curricular contents are geared to use the verbal tenses and parts of the speech, which are
rarely related to students‟ reality; and in some way limit what children are capable of doing with
the language. Likewise, students have to identify shallow elements of texts and write structured
sentences with respect to the work units of the textbook.
The previous practices lack of opportunities to bring holistic environments for EFL
learning given the current literacy climate, where reading and writing are disembedded from
personal histories and real-world content, since students have to follow grammar-based activities
within the mandated curricula. Having his scenario, it is relevant to consider sociocultural
approaches to literacy, where third graders are viewed as active readers and writers who draw on
their experiences with their social context to orchestrate opportunities for literacy, collective
engagement and exchanges with one another.
Accordingly, teachers and learners need opportunities to interact in a holistic educational
environment, that allow students to be owners and agents of their own education and their
previous knowledge of both languages (English and Spanish) be part of sources for the
construction of the curriculum. The aforementioned situation, gave me insights to consider the
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
15
existence of a gap among one of the school purposes, the approach adopted by the English
Language Department and the perspective that EFL teachers have toward literacy, since it is
carried out as a set of steps to write effectively and to identify plain facts of the texts through
inferential reading. In essence, linguistic competences prevail over the importance of using
literacy to act, understand, explore and make meaning of what matters to students within their
socio-cultural milieu.
The previous panorama becomes into a matter of concern for this research, since literacy
instruction seems to be divorced from social approaches that might offer alternatives for students
to understand other ways to use both languages and literacy, as acts to explore other type of
knowledge within their realities. As a response to my concern, I carried out a needs analysis
through interviews to EFL teachers, questionnaires to students and revision of institutional
documents during the first semester of 2015. Such analysis implied a constant reflection and
understanding of EFL literacy instruction within the classroom. Subsequently, the analysis gave
me insights of how Communicative Language Teaching approach (CLT) is adopted by the
English language department, as a way to promote students‟ mastering of English through
listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. As part of the analysis, I found that most of the
practices are language-centered due to the special attention students devote to linguistic forms,
with the purpose of reaching high levels of proficiency in many aspects of the language. In this
regard, Kumaravadivelu (2006) contends that CLT methods portray L2 learning as a language-
centered practice, where tasks are assigned to “draw learners‟ attention primarily to linguistic
forms” (p. 65), thereby L2 occasions for learners to be authors of their own learning are put aside.
For instance, the table below shows the curricular grid, where literacy is a fragmented
practice aimed to read and write taking into account specific standards. Similarly, literacy within
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
16
this institutional document responds to linguistic and pragmatic competences that are
contemplated in the national standards, where students have to draw their attention in basic skills
such as identifying, extracting information with respect to the elements of a story (characters,
theme and setting) and write descriptions regarding the basic structure of a sentence. As result,
such activities do not allow students to go beyond the mere learning of linguistic structures and
position themselves as knowledge holders of language and literacy. Furthermore, teachers have to
dedicate lots of time to guide students in following certain steps to write short paragraphs and
assign a grade. (See table 1).
Table 1. Curricular Grid of English Area.
EJES
GENERADORES COMPETENCIAS ESTÁNDARES DESEMPEÑOS CONTENIDOS
LECTURA
SOCIO-
LINGUISTICA
PRAGMATICA
Comprende
palabras y nombres
conocidos y frases
muy sencillas, por
ejemplo las que hay
en letreros, carteles
y catálogos.
Identifica
personajes y su rol
al leer y escuchar
una historia corta.
Alice Adventures in
Wonderland.
Extrae información
general de textos
leídos y escuchados
reconociendo
personajes, lugares
y la secuencia de
eventos.
The Happy Prince
Comprende
información general
y específica de
textos leídos y
escuchados
reconociendo
personajes, lugares
y acciones
desarrolladas en
una historia o texto
corto.
The Selfish Giant
ESCRITURA
LINGÜÍSTICA
SOCIO-
LINGUISTICA
PRAGMATICA
Puede escribir
frases y expresiones
sencillas sobre sí
mismo, o personas
imaginarias; dónde
vive y a qué se
Describe en forma
escrita hábitos
personales
empleando la
estructura básica
de la oración
Descripción de
rutinas propias
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
17
Additionally, I carried out interviews and questionnaires to teachers and students, in order
to have more insights about my research concern. For instance, one of the EFL teachers described
the way L2 literacy practices were developed in the EFL classroom through a semi-structured
interview. The below excerpt of a teachers‟ interview, shows how literacy is language-centered
and linguistically structured, since the teacher considers that Spanish is not part of students‟
language learning process and their language abilities are underestimated, when literacy is taught
in the class. Additionally, the mandated assessment process of literacy relies on the demand that
writing and reading should be individually developed and follows standardized criteria to meet
the learning expectations.
dedica.
(Sujeto + verbo +
complemento).
Describe en forma
escrita actividades y
rutinas diarias
teniendo en cuenta
las partes básicas de
la oración. (Sujeto
+ verbo +
complemento)
Descripción de
rutinas utilizando el
conector but.
Narra en forma
escrita un evento
por medio de
oraciones sencillas
correctamente
estructuradas
utilizando los
conectores and &
then.
Descripción de un
evento actual
usando conectores
de secuencia and &
then.
Narra en forma
escrita una historia
corta empleando la
estructura básica de
la oración y algunos
conectores de
secuencia (first,
then & finally)
Descripción de una
historia corta con
conectores de
secuencia.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
18
In this sense, the literacy process lacks of possibilities for learners to associate language
learning to valuable socio-cultural elements of their school context, because they have to write
according to the established contents as it was described in the previous curricular grid.
Therefore, students‟ voice is not considered as a source to tap their expertise and knowledge of
both languages (English and Spanish) nor the social dimension of literacy learning to
acknowledge students‟ social life, which might bring renewed authenticity to literacy and
language use, promote ownership, agency and collaboration, as features that favor learner-
centered practices and enduring learning experiences. (See the example below).
M: What type of writing activities are developed in your classroom?
T: Well, children write sentences using the sentence structure; they have to understand that the sentence
structure has a subject, a verb and a complement.
M: Ok
T: And we are starting to use the connector “and”, so what they do, are descriptions by linking simple
phrases that have the structure I previously told you. Therefore, what they do are short descriptions about
themselves, their relatives, pets or friends.
M: ok, is there any other aspect students have to take into account while writing?
T: To complete the paragraph, they have to bear in mind the information they wrote in the pre-writing.
Because they are so young learners, and they are barely starting to write short paragraphs, it is better to give
them the topic because they start to digress and talk about many things. Therefore, children should take into
account the given topic and think what they want to say about it.
(Teacher 1, Interview, May 4th
, 2015). (See Appendix A to read the whole interview).
Finally, an open questionnaire was administered to students, where they answered
questions in relation to what they usually do and what would they like to do in the EFL class. The
next excerpts show the most relevant answers, where they clearly pose their learning needs with
regard to collaborative work, either in groups or in pairs. Essentially, students‟ suggestions are
the most powerful reason to promote collaborative inquiry and foster literacy as a socially
situated practice, in order to fulfill their wants to create and environment in which they can share
their knowledge and work together. The next excerpts show the answers given by the students.
(See Appendix B to read the whole questionnaire).
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
19
Figure 1. Structured questionnaire to students. May 5th
, 2015
The previous analysis briefly evidences how the language is portrayed as a system of
related elements to code meaning, where students have to develop linguistic and communicative
skills following grammar structures to respond to the school academic requirements and
standards. Apart from this, the focus on teaching and students‟ learning is invested on reading
and writing, while mastering language structures, without acknowledging the socio-cultural basis
of language as a social fact that emerge from meaning interchanges with others. Thus, the current
school literacy practices prevent meaningful learning environments because they do not take into
account the various ways in which children use reading, writing and language.
On top of that, the grammar-based and mono-modal EFL teaching approaches hinder the
connection of the curriculum to real life of students because there is lack of opportunities for
exploring social and cultural elements of local communities, which might involve children in
meaningful literacy experiences. With this in mind, it is pertinent to bring social approaches to
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
20
literacy instruction and understand how language learning takes place in socio cultural
environments. In this regard, I consider paramount to value students‟ expectations, experiences
and knowledge background to shape democratic learning practices by means of collaboration and
inquiry practices.
Moreover, it is relevant to provide insights for wider understandings and uses of literacy
as a social practice, in the sense that learners use language to make meaning in their school
community and enhance their potentials as literacy users. In this respect, Vygotsky, (1987) as
(cited in Lee & Smagorinsky, 2000), “children‟s potential for learning is an ever-shifting range of
possibilities” (p. 2), since they are capable of going beyond the mere acts of reading and writing,
as active agents of language from a social dimension. Furthermore, language learning can be a
“more authentic process and not based solely on facts but on learners‟ active engagement” (Clavijo,
2001, p. 34), that is to say that the exploration of school community elements might potentially
encourage third graders to read, write, represent, convey and make meaning with regard to the socio-
cultural sources of their school community.
Furthermore, it is necessary to consider a broader perspective of language learning that
goes beyond the linguistic perspective and allows learners to participate in engaging activities
within the EFL classroom. Such activities might develop learners‟ literacy practices in
meaningful ways, as a gateway to place them at the center of curriculum and foster their natural
inquiry skills based on topics that matter to them, while they assume a role of investigators,
language users and meaning makers. For the purpose of the previous pursuit, I posed the
following question and objectives:
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
21
Research Question
What literacy practices emerge when third graders inquire collaboratively into their
academic surroundings at a private school in Bogota?
Research Objective
To describe the emerging literacy practices that students might use when they inquire
collaboratively into their academic surroundings.
Specific Objectives:
To determine the types of literacy processes students develop when working with
collaborative and inquiry-based methodology.
To explore the modes that students use when they develop literacy practices with respect
to socio-cultural elements of their academic surroundings.
To determine how meaning making takes place when children use literacy by means of
collaborative inquiry.
Justification
This research integrates the social dimension of language and an inquiry-based learning
environment to propose literacy instruction as a social experience, rather than an academic
assignment administered to learners. This is why this study arises from a needs analysis process,
where language learning is viewed as a static entity that hinders the role of students as owners
and authors of their own education. In concordance to the previous statement, the present work
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
22
proposes a shift from traditional language teaching practices to more social experiences that
might lead students through school community-based inquiries to feed their though, and serve as
point of departure to search about topics that matters to students, while they use literacy to
collaboratively construct their own meanings.
As point of departure, I want to highlight the pertinence of the present research to nurture
EFL language learning experiences through the implementation of a pedagogical innovation that
recognizes the socio-cultural dimension of students to contribute to their language and literacy
development turning learning into an enduring and life-long experience. As consequence, the
present research brings new perspectives for teachers of all areas, particularly EFL teachers
because it could help them to address their students‟ needs and interests from their direct context,
considering their suggestions and wants to have a significant language program to develop their
classes. In this sense, inquiry-based approach should be regarded as an integral part of any
learning and teaching practice.
Similarly, this research illustrates language as a local practice, which is pervaded by
social and cultural aspects, as well as “an activity rather than a structure, as something [learners]
do, rather than a system [they] draw on” (Pennycook, 2007, p. 2). In this sense, language propels
the development of appealing literacy practices as social situated acts, through which students
interchange meaning to inquire upon elements of their local context.
Furthermore, this study offers a practical significance for EFL learners, since it allows
them to bring their queries and make meaning throughout inquiry projects, which might nurture
and surpasses their expected language and literacy skills. In this respect, learners are positioned
as knowledge holders, who bring their personal experiences to the classroom, as sources for re-
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
23
creating the local knowledge of their academic surroundings through diverse literacy modes. On
the other hand, this study lies into an inquiry-based learning approach to make teachers cognizant
and show them one of the myriad ways that language can be intertwined to literacy and allow
learners wondering about socio-cultural elements of their close surroundings.
In this regard, this study is an opportunity for EFL teachers to understand the role of being
facilitators and tie students to the meaningful resources that their social context possesses,
enhance their thinking and promotes endless questioning, among others possibilities that might
renew EFL pedagogy, particularly literacy education. In a similar way, this research highlights
the relevance of adopting inquiry and learner-centered approaches to consider the language
curriculum as “a collaborative effort between teachers and learners, since learners are closely
involved in the decision making process regarding the content and how it is taught” (Nunan,
1988, p. 2).
This study also contributes to the expand EFL pedagogy research, particularly in
elementary levels of education because language and literacy are conceived from a social
dimension, where collaboration and inquiry practices untapped learners‟ inner language abilities
concerning their needs and interests. Similarly, the pedagogical proposal of this research,
suggests a more balanced approach to literacy teaching and learning that emphasizes the
importance of students „engagement and meaningful interactions through inquiry-based
instruction. In this respect, more holistic and democratic learning environments might benefit
EFL learners through meaning-rich activities that embrace their social and cultural resources to
use literacy in meaningful ways.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
24
Another relevant aspect of this qualitative research has to do with theoretical and
methodological contributions that an inquiry-based learning brings to foster the use of language
and literacy from myriad perspectives, where learners and teachers co-construct the language
curriculum, taking into account common interest and valuing the knowledge that each student
brings to the EFL classroom. Similarly, this work is an invitation to schools to re-think their EFL
practices and adopt challenges that allow transitions towards more meaningful literacy practices
where learners can be owners and agents of their own learning.
After having informed the statement of the problem and the relevance of this study, I
present the theoretical tenets that support this research in the following chapter.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
25
CHAPTER 2
Theoretical Framework
"There is no more ethical or truly democratic road than one in
which we reveal to learners how we think, why we think the way
we do, our dreams, the dreams for which we will fight, while
giving them concrete proof that we respect their opinions, even
when they are opposed to our own." (Paulo Freire, 1998, p. 40).
As a response to the research question, the present chapter outlines the theoretical tenets on
which the study is based. The social perspective of literacy practices proposed in this paper
addresses the understanding of two theoretical pillars: literacy and inquiry. Additionally, this
chapter includes an overview of research studies that had contributed to the field of literacy and
inquiry practices in elementary and secondary levels of education.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
26
Figure 2. Mind map of the theoretical constructs in detail.
Literacy
Literacy had been defined from different perspectives. The traditional view portrays literacy as skills
for reading and writing to decode, retrieve, inference and comprehend information. The past decades
had been marked by other views of literacy. For instance, Scribner (1984) adopts the term
Functional Literacy as the “level of proficiency necessary for effective performance in a range of
setting and customary activities” (p. 9) within a specific context. Thus, according to Scribner (1984),
literacy is based on skills needed to perform daily life activities at work, school and different
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
27
situations that require us to read or produce written symbols. Such vision implies the
decontextualization of literacy, since it only adheres to traditional pedagogy.
The perspective of literacy within this study, lies on the Socio cultural Theory which intends
to understand how “literacy [goes] in connection to the complex social relationships and cultural
practices of human beings” (Moll, 1994, p.179), that is to say, that literacy is related to learners
social worlds and culture. As consequence, a socio-cultural approach allows this study to link
students‟ school community, language learning, inquiry and collaboration to include a more social
view of literacy, where students‟ previous knowledge of both languages and literacy become into
valuable sources to make meaning of what they inquire.
In tune with my previous statement, literacy is a socio cultural practice where readers and
writers use oral, written and visual language to act, interact, value and make meaning in relation to
concerns present in their social and cultural context. That is to say that, literacy sticks to the
transactional view of reading and writing, where meaning construction processes take place
implying “the interrelation between the knower and what is to be known” (Rosenblatt, 1976, p. 27).
In this sense, being literate within this study has to do with the abilities to construct meaning through
a wide range of language modes and transact with different type of texts.
The previous perspective of literacy also has to do with the manner that the teachers work
within a transactional frame as mediators, who support children in collaborative and individual
academic literacy potentials at school, while valuing and using the richness of the socio-cultural
elements of their community. In this regard, literacy is aimed to provide opportunities and reasons
for learners to use and learn the language through a constant interaction with others in their context,
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
28
and in cooperation with their peers, to awake a variety of internal processes that to promote “the
zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky, 1987).
As part of the previous statement, literacy is conceived as a socio-cultural tool for meaning
making that children utilize to construct knowledge, as in this particular case, language learning, that
occurs in their daily school-life. Similarly, literacy acknowledges that children of all ages and
background integrate the semantic-pragmatic, syntactic and graphophonic language through
different wide of modes, not only by reading and writing, but also through oral interactions with
peers, visual and oral representations, movement and sounds, which give them insights to infer,
predict, confirm in order to construct meaning. Likewise, literacy within this theoretical framework
is understood as a practice that focuses on multidimensional processes of learners, rather than in
academic results. Such attention is part of children contact with authentic texts for real purposes to
construct and refine their learning through active interpretation and purposeful sense making of the
socio-cultural sources around them.
Additionally, literacy is a bridge to tap the multiple uses that language offers to young EFL
learners and be able to orchestrate several modes of meaning making as an opportunity to strengthen
the connection between the texts, the intended message and their social worlds. Similarly, literacy
acknowledges children potentials for using language through different modes, and with relative ease
in their natural communities. In addition, literacy reminds us as teachers that children do not need
specific instruction to use language, but from a transactional view, children need to value and be
valued for whom they are, what they already know and what they want to know.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
29
The two insights of literacy that feed this theoretical framework are literacy as social practice
and multimodal literacy, which go beyond the aforementioned perspective of reading and writing as
skills or single literacies labeling students as good or struggling literacy users. As consequence, the
process of learning is dulled and limited to what children are capable of doing. Accordingly,
Street,1995 (as cited in Harste, 2014) considers that “instead of one literacy there are multiple
literacies” which channels students‟ inner force that propels them to express themselves and
promotes their strong need to communicate and share meaning, by means of not solely oral and
written language, but through other modes of expressing and transacting (p. 90). Such modes are
drawings, oral interactions and images, which causes learning to take place in socio-cultural
environments. The following paragraphs describe two concepts of literacy that this study relies on.
Literacy as Social-Situated Practice
To begin with, literacy as social practice is understood as various ways of knowing and social acts
that embrace attitudes, personal experiences and knowledge providing engagement and
understanding to learners during the interaction with socio-cultural aspects of their close context.
Since this study includes the participation of children, literacy adopts a social role that allows
students to interact with one another, while their cognition and social identity are developed.
Therefore, literacy practices exist among students, teachers and the school community daily
interactions, that open paths to construct meaning in diverse modes.
At this point, it is relevant to consider Freire‟s approach to literacy as a dialogical
relationship between human beings and their worlds through the language, as a transformative
agency. Literacy as a social situated practice implies the responsibility of people to understand and
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
30
transform their own experiences through not only reading and writing, but also establishing
relationships with their immediate social context. I envisioned this research study, so that literacy is
part of “concrete human activities” (Baynham, 1995, p. 1) since the linguistic dimensions are
intertwined to a socio-cultural approach to the study of literacy with reference to social purposes for
creating and exchanging meaning.
In tune with the previous assertions, Freire and Macedo (1987) argue that reading does not
consist merely on decoding the written world of language; rather it is preceded by an interlaced with
knowledge of the world, thus language and reality are dynamically interconnected” (p. 1). His ideas,
lead me to re-evaluate the perspective of reading, writing and other multiple modes that students
employ to make meaning namely print texts, images, movements, sound and learners‟ oral
interactions to discover the connections between the text and the context of the text; and how to
connect the text to the personal, social and cultural context of the reader.
In a similar way, Barton, Hamilton and Ivanic (2000) contend that literacy practices are
what “people do with literacy with regard to their lives […] since they also involve values, attitudes,
feelings and social relationships” (p. 7) as internal processes of the individuals. Such processes
include people awareness and sense making for the construction of social knowledge. Additionally,
teaching and learning are central activities affiliated to the previous assertion, since the situated
perspective of such practices embraces what children do with reading and writing in particular acts,
which are interlaced to broader social and cultural elements of their school surroundings.
Essentially, effective literacy learning involves viewing learning through social lenses that
engage learners in creating a variety of texts through their language knowledge, experiences, social
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
31
and cultural knowledge. Likewise, elements of students‟ local context serve as a bridge to
communicate and express understandings in multiple ways, either independently and with others
with respect to broader and socio-cultural contexts. In this sense, students‟ experiences with the
language and culture might open spaces for dialogic practices that promote holistic language and
literacy learning processes.
Multimodal Literacy
Another relevant feature this research draws on nurturing the social situated perspective of literacy
that is referred to the abilities of conveying meaning in different cultural and social contexts by
means of using “not only alphabetical but also multimodal representations” (Cope and Kalantzis,
2000), since within the EFL classroom had increased the use of visual means to convey meaning.
Such meaning making processes have to incorporate the use of multimodal messages as more
meaningful ways to communicate and shape ideological stances.
In tune with the previous assertion, the social worlds of learners are permeated with the
integrated use of modalities such as “written-linguistic, oral, visual, audio and spatial patterns”
(Kress, 2000a, 2000b) that they draw on to make meaning, since the globalization and local diversity
brings cultural forms, semiotic systems and new technologies that constantly increase in our context.
Thereby, students‟ literacies involve framing images, expressing ideas and making meaning through
a variety of sign systems and modalities that bring up new outlooks to language, recognizing its
many venues through which “messages are conveyed, meaning making is made and representations
are presented” (Kress, 1997).
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
32
As part of the EFL literacy development of learners, whose linguistic code is still growing, as
this particular case, they use multimodal modes namely oral interactions, drawings and images,
which contain more information than conventional writing to clarify their intended meanings to
others. Furthermore, students come to school with the ability to make meaning using their available
resources and new literacies as “raw images” (Rosenblatt, 2005, p. 65). In this regard, Med and
Whitmore (2000) contend that when English language learners is composed by drawings and
selecting sound effects before writing any language, they “express their previous knowledge,
construct new knowledge and communicate regardless of their facility with English” (p. 49).
On the other hand, students‟ cognitive disposition is inherently connected to semiotic
elements of their social worlds to frame images and express their ideas to make meaning, instead of
the verbocentric lessons typically given at traditional school. In this regard, the construction of
meaning takes place given that language is the foremost process for sense making and that it can
take several forms for the construction of meaning. As consequence, multimodal acts of meaning
making offer several modes to afford children expressing themselves, their knowledge and their
learning. Similarly, students draw on and combine their writing abilities and available modes of
meaning making, as they so naturally do in their daily lives for creating multilingual and multimodal
texts.
In the same line of thought, Leland and Harste (1994) adopt the term “ways of knowing”
to refer to those sign systems such as art, music, language and drama as “potentials by which all
humans might mean” (p. 339). In this sense, learners find themselves as active literacy users and
knowledge holders, when they are capable of orchestrating a variety of sign systems to create
meaning in relation to their socio-cultural milieu. These abilities take place when learners interact
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
33
with their peers and teachers, framing a broad concept of literacy that is grounded in social practices
and considering that “Literacy is not simply about knowing how to read and write a particular script,
but applying this knowledge for specific purposes in specific contexts of use” (Barton, 1994, p. 24).
Regarding the way learners might find multiple modes and sign systems for meaning
making, they also discover these modes as opportunities to engage in authentic literacy events1 that
bring out the complex nature of constructing meaning in regards to social and cultural factors. Such
literacy events imply the collaboration among peers, when they endeavor to inquire about topics that
matter to them. As consequence, literacy development is enhanced through the zone of proximal
development “as the characteristic not solely of the child or of the teaching, but of the child engaged
in collaborative activity within specific social environments” (Moll, 1990, p. 11). In addition, when
children share their understandings to broader members of their close communities, their potentials
for meaning making are enhanced by means of “collective zones of proximal development” (Moll &
Whitmore, 1993), where their composition are the result of interpreting the local information present
in socio cultural factors of their immediate context.
When literacy as social practice is coupled with the notion of multimodal literacy, it could be
conceived as a particular set of social practices available for children to construct meaning through
which they demonstrate abilities for reading and writing re-create their socio-cultural previous
knowledge. In this regard, the socio cultural approach frames the ways in which learners interact
with their direct realities, using language to convey meaning and make that multimodal and socially
situated literacy practices go “in connection with the complex social relationships and cultural
practices of human beings within classrooms or community settings” (Moll, 1994, p. 179). As result
1 Literacy events are activities where literacy has a role. The notion of events stresses the situated nature of literacy, that it always exists in social
context
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
34
of such connection, students might found paths for using their collective background knowledge to
negotiate and remix their experiences, and foster authoring practices as opportunities to let students
being self-regulated and autonomous learners.
On top of the previous assertions, the socio cultural perspective of foreign language
education within this study brings a broader panorama of literacy as social and multimodal practices,
which entails viewing learners as knowledge holders, who are able to do more with reading and
writing, than the mandated curriculum. With this in mind, giving students time to spin their ideas
through a wide range of meaningful modes and consider that socio cultural sources of their social
context are valuable paths to let them be agents and owners of their own learning process, new
pedagogical stances based on genuine students‟ thoughts and interests are paramount for bringing to
the EFL classroom. As consequence, literacy practices will go in hand with students‟ personal,
social and historical connections to lead unexpected avenues for their inquiries, and preclude the
tendency of viewing children‟s emerging literacy practices as „basic skills‟, and be amazed by
students‟ work and intellectual capabilities.
Inquiry
Inquiry has always been part of education. Inquiry traces its origin since the Socratic dialogues
as the earliest documented instances of learning through questioning. Later on, John Dewey
(1938) considered inquiry as one of the constructivism education approaches during the last
century. He emphasized the importance of asking questions relevant to students‟ concerns as a
reason to learn. Dewey (1938) acknowledges the curiosity of children as a natural impulse to
learn and brings ideas about integrating learners‟ expectations, experiences, beliefs, concerns and
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
35
context into the school environment to shape new and enduring views of the world. In this regard,
inquiry takes several meanings for teaching and learning within the EFL pedagogy, as is the case
of this study. For instance, inquiry teaching involves “allowing children to learn from direct
experience and cultivate their natural curiosity” Dewey (1938) to bring holistic educational
environments that enable teachers and students to integrate knowledge across the disciplines, and
unfold learning in a way that value the intellectual growth and age-specific concerns of the child.
In a similar way, Short (2001) states that “as educators examine their beliefs and actions,
they take control of their learning and work with their students to create more democratic
learning environments”. Within these environments, students become both problem-posers and
problem-solvers (Freire, 1985), since they are provided with the time they need to immerse into a
topic and find the questions that are significant to their lives, rather than completing research on
an assigned topic, enabling that “inquiry goes beyond building curriculum from students to
negotiating curriculum with students” (p. 21).
With the previous assertions in mind, inquiry within this research is a practice that
promotes learning in all areas of the curriculum, specifically within EFL education and involves
the acts of wondering, exploring and investigating upon socio-cultural sources of students‟ close
surroundings. As Wells (1995) asserts, “an inquiry typically consists of three major components;
research, interpretation, and presentation each of which involves the three phases of planning,
acting, and reviewing”, such components allow students to engage in interesting and authentic
learning environments, where they can build in prior knowledge and understandings to make
sense of their social worlds. In this sense, inquiry orients learners to assume an active position
that encourage them to think and decide by themselves.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
36
On the other hand, inquiry enriches literacy practices and develops students as
communicators, who use language as means to learn and construct knowledge through a
motivating force for learning, which provides more relevant and powerful literacy learning
opportunities. Similarly, inquiry favors learners‟ natural curiosity to boost the act of questioning
and experiencing meaningful learning environments to convey and co-construct meaning.
Additionally, Harste (2003) contends that inquiry brings to the curriculum “lots of
opportunities for students to explore their own inquiry using reading, writing and other sign
systems as tools and toys for learning” (p. 11). In this regard, students‟ voices are heard to make
them capable of communicating meaning with others through active learning and positioning
themselves as owners of their learning process. In consideration to the previous idea, inquiry is “a
way to view education holistically” (Short and Burke 1996, p. 51) and depicts learners as curious
and active by nature. In this sense, students are provided with spaces to ask questions that are
significant in their lives and related to their concerns. As consequence, the mutual participation of
learners and teachers bridges the gap between the school community and students‟ socio cultural
knowledge to acknowledge, “one of the benefits of working in a community is that it is a
collaborative source” (Within and Within, 1997, p. 7).
On the other hand, inquiry allows students to go beyond the search of facts and memorize
linguistic structures to use language for exploring issues through different perspectives that lead
the understanding of students‟ learning. Likewise, inquiry allows teachers to go beyond the
mandated curriculum using the local knowledge present in student‟s communities to make
educational experiences more meaningful and ignite the spark of children‟s learning. In this
respect, Comber, Thomson and Wells (2001) contend that the “unexplored knowledge of
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
37
students‟ direct context do not respond to social and cultural realities of students” (p. 453), since
there is no authenticity in learning to foster the social and intellectual development of children.
Inquiry is a practice that plays essential roles along different stages of our life, like
childhood, adolescence and adulthood. That is why it should be part of teachers‟ daily practices
and learners‟ mindset. Learning from inquiry is a way of understanding how children learn from
reality, while they enhance their language and literacy skills, as the particular case of this study.
Moreover, such practice involves relevant components that provide learners with a wide range of
opportunities to make meaning and expand their knowledge of the language. Taking into account
the role of inquiry within this study, it is necessary to decenter the teacher as the more
knowledgeable member of the literacy community and offer opportunities for students to take
their questions beyond the EFL classroom, while trusting in their genuine interest and planning
literacy events around what matters to students.
Collaborative Inquiry
A view of language learning as a social construction, where knowledge is negotiated and
acquired through social interaction rather than being delivered by the teacher, is central in this
research. The previous perspective acknowledges the importance of interaction, peer mediation
and scaffolding (Vygotsky, 1978). In this sense, language learning and teaching practices within
this panorama are considered initiatives of collaborative inquiry, whenever knowledge is
“dialogically constructed” (Wells, 2002, p. 5) by teachers and students.
Collaborative inquiry becomes part of this framework, as a dialogic practice that allows
students to consider many ways of thinking and sharing with others, as well a mode to pursue
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
38
meaningful questions within the classroom. Similarly, collaborative inquiry practices have to do
with decision and meaning making processes of students and teachers, where teachers are in
charge of making the inquiry experience purposeful, highly thoughtful and effective, guiding
students in their learning. As consequence, inquiry becomes into a collaborative practice where
all the EFL classroom members have an active role in the construction of knowledge.
Additionally, collaborative inquiry takes various forms since participants in this study are
young EFL learners and are curious by nature. Thus, it becomes in a form of learning where
students are provided with insights for „knowledge building‟ through guidance of their constant
inquiries. I present the spiral of knowing (Wells, 2002, p. 8) to explain how knowledge building
is developed in an inquiry-based learning approach as the one presented in this research. The next
figure displays the spiral of knowing.
Figure 3. The spiral of knowing. (Wells, 2002, p. 8)
In the spiral, each cycle starts with the understanding of individual past experiences that
students use to make sense of what is new. Then, the knowledge building cycle starts with the
new encountered information, either from action into students‟ school context, from using
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
39
multiple modes (reading, writing, listening, talking, drawing, using images and so forth) or
interacting, collaborating and reflecting with others. Thereafter, the new information students
have access to, lead to enhancement of understanding as the following cycle, which must be
articulated and transformed through dialogic and meaning making processes. Finally, the
experience cycle is the result of students‟ learning and understandings they obtain by means of
their inquiry collaborative experiences.
Collaborative inquiry provides learners with common challenges from their real world
while cultivating “a context for cooperation and community building” (Independent Together,
2003, p. 63), that give them insights to go beyond the classroom walls and create an academic
network. In this sense, “knowledge is co-constructed, rather than unilaterally delivered” (Wells,
2002, p.6) because children‟s learning is enriched when they consider other perspectives of using
literacy practices, that helps them to broaden their understandings. On top of that, collaboration
involves educators in sustained dialogue with learners to create a decision-making environment
and guide students thinking, as well as gaining new understandings of themselves and their
learning process. As part of this assertion, collaborative inquiry switches the role of educators as
owners of knowledge towards a more democratic perspective of teaching within the EFL
classroom, taking into account students‟ concerns, experiences, beliefs and their social context.
Collaborative inquiry within this research recalls the notion of Vygotsky (1987) of the
zone of proximal development, which suggests that all learning is in some way collaborative.
Particularly when it takes place in inquiry processes and involves the enterprise of authentic
questions and learning, involving the construction of meaning that comes from exploration. Such
practices, implies “mentoring provided by more knowledgeable persons, usually elders, who engage
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
40
in activity with less experienced in a process known scaffolding” Bruner, 1975 (as cited in Lee and
Smagorinsky, 2000 p. 2). In this regard, the more knowledgeable person are not only the teachers,
but the students and other members of the community, who are considered knowledge holders that
can unfold their understandings when collaborative and dialogic inquiry takes places.
The notion of collaborative inquiry arouses the concept of zone of proximal development
within this research through collaboration as a trait of peer bounding processes. This occurs when
learners adapt easily to the classroom, as the result of their interaction with classmates whose
previous knowledge of language and literacy is wider. As consequence, learners who need support
of their classmates can lessen initial feelings of isolation and loss by interacting within their zones of
proximal development with knowledgeable peers, as a step in creating a comfortable and friendly
classroom environment, emotional sides of learning and work identity.
On the other hand, collaborative inquiry can only begin with what learners already know
and perceive. In so doing, Spanish and English are valuable sources that position learners, as
„knowledge holders‟ who can communicate meaning with others instead of portraying English
language as an object of study within the curriculum. The previous assertion leads me to shape
two components that collaborative inquiry brings to the language classroom: ownership and
agency.
In this regard, inquiry results in students being able to take ownership, understood as the
natural sense of learners‟ responsibility about their work, turning language and literacy learning
into a more enduring process. As consequence, students find inspiration and learning
opportunities in unique places as their close communities that make them able to pursue their
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
41
curiosities without complete dependency on an educator. Such abilities empower and encourage
them as a way to be resilient when they do not find the results they expected. Subsequently,
students as owners of their learning will realize that there is more than one way to approach a
question, reach their goals, and value the process they start within their inquiries.
Furthermore, Wells (2002) contends that orienting learning and teaching towards inquiry
promotes ownership when students have responsibilities to select the topics to be search, the
methods and the resources they need for such a purpose. As consequence, the resulting sense of
ownership “enable [learners] to sustain their engagement and to develop strategies of responsible
collaboration that lead to successful completion” (p. 6) of their inquiries. The aforementioned
assertions entail some conditions that teachers need to bring to the classroom namely, comfort to
students to ponder questions, communicate their thinking, and have a lot of leeway to develop their
inquiries and really take ownership of their learning.
The other element that collaborative inquiry promotes within this research is agency. The
promotion of learners‟ agency involves them in having “the power to act” which ignites their
initiatives to learn beyond the inputs that are transmitted by the teacher or the curriculum. Young
children‟s agency has been identified as a foundational for learning in any realm of knowledge and
social development, since it is broadly acknowledged that students learn and develop through active
interaction with others and participation in their social environments.
Agency takes place in the inquiry classroom when students feel in charge of their own
learning, pose questions, and foment an environment for knowledge building. With reference to my
previous statement, Wolk (2008) contends that “nurturing agency in children, involves honoring
their unique constructions of knowledge, integrating choices and ownership in the curriculum” (p.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
42
121) as the way to engage children in learning and in decision-making processes. As children make
meaningful decisions about things that affect them, they start to see themselves as rich, competent,
capable learners and valuable members within their school community and social context. In
essence, developing a sense of agency in the students means providing opportunities for children to
make autonomous choices, making their voices worth in their day-to-day environment.
To sum up, collaborative inquiry brings new ways to foreign language education that
broaden opportunities for learners‟ social interaction and self-expression to enrich their L2 learning
experience. In this regard, by including the recognition of students‟ school community as a relevant
source to be explored; they develop a sense of belonging as well as inquiry and academic skills. In
concordance to Dewey (1990), we as teachers must include the outside social context and its
significance “through which the school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life,
instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons” (p. 14).
State of the Art
Since this study intends mainly to describe the emerging literacies of young EFL learners by means
of inquiry practices, taking into consideration the local knowledge of students‟ contexts, I have
explored several studies that show different perspectives concerning inquiry-based approaches and
literacy, understood as a socially situated practice. The following lines describe some studies that
relate closely to the theoretical tenets of my investigation:
Mendieta (2009) reported an action research based on a pedagogical experience in a female
private school in Bogotá, Colombia. She had to implement Problem Based Learning approach (PBL)
as part of the mandated school curricula, where seventh graders needed to develop the skills and
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
43
knowledge necessary to solve puzzling phenomenon. Since Mendieta (2009) was not informed
enough on how to implement such approach, she founded on Inquiry-based Learning (IBL) a
response to connect the curriculum to a problematic situation for EFL learning. During the
beginning of the pedagogical implementation, Mendieta (2009) used gender discrimination as the
main topic of the literature book that seventh graders were reading, to generate curiosity and know
their previous knowledge about this topic. In so doing it, students were involved in a project where
they have to gather, select and share information about human rights. They visited web pages, read
the newspaper articles and the literature book to be informed about this social issue. Then students
expressed their personal opinions about the role and position of woman around the world. As
seventh graders were involved in women discrimination, Mendieta (2009) asked them to explore in
depth this topic through group work by searching and identifying how women have been
discriminated in different parts of the world.
In this regard, opportunities to work collaboratively were given within and inquiry
environment for the co-construction of students‟ knowledge. Seventh graders inquired
collaboratively by using primary sources such as laws, decrees, real cases, important women‟s
biographies, among others in both languages (Spanish and English), to do oral reports and brochures
in front of their teacher and classmates and received feedback to improve their language usage.
Then, students decided to present the outcomes of their investigations and gained knowledge to the
whole school community through a wide variety of sign systems, namely power point presentations,
brochures, sketches, handicrafts and costumes. At the end of the project, students were asked about
what they learned throughout the inquiry project, and what they got from the class. Their responses
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
44
evidenced students‟ critical stances that showed how well they were prepared not only for the
development of the foreign language, but also for life.
The findings of this investigation showed students‟ beliefs and knowledge referring o issues
like justice, violence, religion, human rights and women‟s discrimination in different parts of the
world. In the same way, students reflected upon the information they found in order to come up with
their own interpretation to what would be meaningful to share with their community, where they co-
constructed knowledge not only related to foreign language, but of real social and cultural issues that
are worth to study within the EFL classroom. In addition, Mendieta (2009) found that students‟
voice is a key aspect that allows teachers to engage learners in meaningful language environment.
Similarly, this study evidences how the role of teachers switched from being owners of knowledge
to be facilitators, who guided and supported the students in inquiry practices. In this respect, students
became knowledge holders who were able to use their previous knowledge to represent the
information they inquired collaboratively through a variety of modes.
This study enlightens my research concern, since the adoption of an inquiry-based learning
approach promotes EFL literacy development from a social dimension because students inquire
about issues from inside and outside their social context, which subsequently, allow them to adopt
critical stances as knowledge holders. In a similar way, this study provides me with insights on how
the language offers a variety of modes through which students can share and represent what they
learn from their investigations. In this sense, students‟ voice can be a source to make the language
curriculum more meaningful, where learners‟ needs and interests take part on the selection of topics
and activities for EFL learning. Additionally, this study portrays the local knowledge embedded in
students‟ communities, as a valuable source that brings meaningful opportunities to ignite student‟s
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
45
sense of curiosity, while using their previous knowledge of both languages (English and Spanish).
Another relevant aspect this work contributes to mine has to do with the way the teacher and the
students can exchange their roles, where they share information to co-construct knowledge.
On the other hand, Rincón (2014) carried out descriptive qualitative research that outlined
the ways in which community inquiries created opportunities for tenth graders to explore social
and cultural issues of their neighborhoods, using multimodality in a public school located in the
south of Bogota, Colombia. The pedagogical innovation included an emphasis on Community
Based Pedagogies (CBP), as those outside school practices, symbols and people that become into
a source of inspiring material for teacher researchers. In this regard, Rincón (2014) used the
community assets of students‟ neighborhoods, as a bridge to develop critical literacy practices
and make a transition from the mono-modal language teaching approach to a more participatory
educational experience.
Since this study was conducted to know the ways students use multimodality to inquire
upon socio-cultural issues of their neighborhoods, Rincón (2015) guided and supported her
students to map their neighborhoods and find a social issue of their interest to be investigated.
Then, tenth graders posed questions and selected possible instruments to collect data. Finally,
they presented the data gathered through blogs and written interaction on Facebook and discussed
main points of their findings in class debates. The findings of this study showed how students
developed inquiry skills through observation and identification of assets, finding an issue,
documenting the issue and presenting findings through multimodal modes.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
46
In a similar way, students did oral and written comments in Spanish and English to
convey meaning through a process named translanguaging (Garcia, 2009), which bridged the gap
between language learning and self-expression. Such experiences gave students the opportunity
to foster their literacy development and EFL learning. Likewise, students‟ abilities in EFL
writing namely, literal, descriptive, argumentative and interpretative were unfolded in reporting
socio-cultural issues in social media and blogs by means of song creations, video clips, stories,
photo galleries and reflections. Finally, this study depicted the community students inhabit as a
valuable space to develop inquiry skills, language practices and personal reflections that can be
displayed in multimodal ways.
The previous research traces relevant elements that helped me to understand how the
language offers multiple facets, through which learners can draw on to construct meaning and
enhance language learning either using images, pictures, videos, songs, written and oral
interactions. Another relevant insight that this study gives me is linked to the way students
combine English and Spanish language to maximize their communicative potential and express
their opinions. In this sense, translanguaging becomes into a meaningful linguistic resource
within my research concern, because I can contextualize my students and support them to express
their needs and opinions with more confidence, since they are emergent EFL learners. Another
valuable insight that illuminates my research ideas has to do with the way close surroundings of
students become into a remarkable opportunity to create meaningful language and inquiry
practices, that progressively might shift the fragmented language learning environment my
students and I are immersed in.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
47
In a similar attempt to develop literacy from a social perspective, Hernandez (2016) used
inquiry-based learning and Community Based Pedagogy (CBP) approaches to conduct an action
research with a group of third graders of a private school in Bogotá, Colombia. Such work drew on
the socio cultural perspective of literacy with the purposes of portraying the development of EFL
writers as inquirers, determining how do third graders develop a sense of community when inquiring
into their surroundings and identifying the developments in the formal aspects of text that are
evidenced in writing as meaning construction on community issues.
In order to reach such purposes, this qualitative study used the authoring cycle (Short and
Burke, 1999) as the curricular framework to link the institutional requirements for EFL learning
and the literacy practices. The authoring cycle brought possibilities for third graders to be
knowledge and text creators. In this regard, they felt empowered through investigations of their
families, neighborhoods, school and city. Additionally, students used multimodal representations
such as videos, pictures, drawings, oral presentations and posters to make meaning and co-
construct local knowledge of their communities.
The results of this study showed how third graders constructed their own meanings by
adopting a role of community-researchers, as they used a variety of modes to inquire, register and
share data. Subsequently, students became aware of the varied sources of information different
from the teacher and the textbooks that are meaningful and valuable to promote EFL and literacy
learning. On the other hand, students‟ inquiries upon their communities strengthened their
linkages to family and school community members, friends and neighborhoods. As consequence,
students realized that community people are possessors of knowledge that they cannot find in the
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
48
library or on the Internet, while they developed a sense of belonging that strongly links to their
own lives.
Furthermore, students conceived their communities from a critical stance, since they
identified community issues and their possible solutions. Such criticality and awareness enable
students to read their worlds while cultivating their social sensitivity and commitment towards
their communities. Finally, students improved their literacy performance as writers, since inquiry
was an experience that naturally leaded third graders to investigate on socio-cultural aspects of
their communities and share meanings to others by following conventional rules of written
English language. In this respect, the role of the teacher switched from controlling learners‟
writing to be a facilitator and scaffold the development of students‟ own inquiries and texts.
This study provides me relevant understandings on how the authoring cycle is a useful
tool to develop agency and ownership when literacy is part of EFL learning, because it allows
me to create a more democratic and holistic environment where learners support each other and
their previous knowledge counts as valuable sources to construct new meanings. Likewise, this
work strengthens the way I can shift the role of my students from being passive learners to be
life-long learners and inquirers. That is to say, that third graders position themselves as authors of
their own education and feel confident to convey and communicate new knowledge. Another
important aspect to bear in mind of this work has to do with the multimodal modes that language
and literacy offer to children, particularly, when they are immersed in an inquiry-based
environment that require them to convey and represent meaning through oral, written, visual,
among other modes, that turn their learning experiences into more fruitful and meaningful ones.
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49
On a similar case, Pineda (2007) carried out a case study using the authoring cycle, as an
inquiry-based technique to explore and describe the way a group of 22 eleventh graders develop
inquiry practices in the EFL classroom from a semi-private school of Bogotá, Colombia. In order to
have a clear starting point for the inquiry project, Pineda (2007) followed the authoring cycle stages
to carry out the pedagogical innovation. In so doing it, she explored students‟ interests and noticed
that eleventh graders were concern about plans as professionals. In this regard, she encouraged her
students to pose questions keeping in mind their interests. Subsequently, students agreed on
exploring the educational context of universities through inquiries based on interviews, searches in
the web, visits to some university campus, and reports before choosing a major. As part of their
inquiries, students made interviews, designed brochures, made poster zones, oral presentations and
class discussions to fulfill their interests and augment their range of knowledge about Colombian
university system. Afterwards, students discussed and challenged their perspectives through
interactions and reflections with others to shape their understandings finally, students presented their
findings to other eleventh graders and shared the information they found.
The results of this research reflected students‟ learning experiences with regard to learning
about language and learning through language, since students expressed their development of
reading, writing, speaking and listening skills, as well as they learned about many other significant
topics related to their life projects. With this in mind, eleventh graders recognized through their
journals that English in not a matter of learning grammar structures, but it is an opportunity to write
several compositions according to their personal interests and beliefs. Similarly, they commented the
advantages of being the main actors in the development of their inquiry projects, as they learned
how to get on during an interview to be admitted in a Colombian university, and know more about
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50
the academic programs that public and private universities offer to them. Another result of this study
deals with the way inquiry-based learning allowed students to bring their feelings and perceptions
regarding the advantages of developing EFL classes by including their interests.
The previous research leads me to acknowledge the relevance of involving students in
collaborative work and inquiry practices to promote the use of literacy as a social act. Given that,
children within my study are depicted as gifted individuals, whose knowledge background is too
broad, that they are able to co-construct new understandings from what they already know, and the
information their close surroundings offer to them. Furthermore, this research contributes to my
research concern due to the way the authoring cycle was carried out. Such implementation entailed
the acknowledgement of students‟ voice, needs and wants as essential aspects to create democratic
practices within the EFL curriculum. Therefore, I envision my study as an opportunity for students
to express their feelings in relation to their own learning and reflect about the way they learn more
and better.
Furthermore, Gomez (2016) conducted an action research with a group of 35 fifth graders of
a public school of Bogotá, Colombia. This study aimed to characterize the different reflections about
school coexistence that students experienced when doing collaborative inquiry in the EFL classroom
and to analyze the possible influence of collaborative inquiry on students‟ relationships. Gomez
(2016) implemented the authoring cycle as an inquiry-based model and the CBP approach to lead
students into reflections about the way they relate each other. During the initial phase of the project,
students were asked to make groups by setting the rules to work together and achieve different goals
during the inquiry project. Afterwards, students explored their school context and wondered about
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51
matters that concern them. At the end of the exploration, they decided to inquire about the school
snack.
As part of the authoring cycle stages, each group posed questions in Spanish and English
concerning different aspects they wanted to know about the school snack. Then they collaboratively
chose some instruments and sources of information to gather data. After collecting information from
books, the internet and some interviews to the school staff in both languages, fifth graders
demonstrated the relevance of language as mean for knowledge construction. Finally, each inquiry
group finished its project and decided to organize and illustrate their findings in books that they
wrote in English. As part of the last stage of the Authoring cycle, students launched their books in
the school library and shared their experiences through oral presentations to students and teachers. In
the same way, students had the opportunity to reflect about their collaborative inquiry practices to
accomplish common goals, while strengthening their citizenship skills.
The findings of this action research implied students‟ reflections regarding task development
and group work, as well as expressing different types of learning. Such reflections evidenced how
collaborative inquiry promoted peaceful attitudes among students, that allowed them to
acknowledge the importance of all members within the group to achieve common goals. In this
regard, the development of tasks and group work were meaningful because students became self-
regulated learners, while strengthened their literacy and language learning. Similarly, students
expressed different learning outcomes such as working in teams, be informed of the whole process
to get their snacks at the school, coexist with their classmates, use Spanish and English to research
and use local sources of information to feed their inquiries.
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The previous study is quite meaningful for my research interest because the authoring cycle
as a methodological tool brings many opportunities to switch the traditional literacy practices that
have to be developed in my school context, and turn them into more meaningful and dynamic
practices, where my students can be agents of change of their learning. On the other hand, the
inquiry-based approach adopted in the previous study, enlightens my methodological practices, since
inquiry is a useful tool to position my students as knowledge holders of Spanish and English, and
make them confident during the development of their assignments. In the same way, the role of
teacher switches to become a teacher-researcher who guides, orients and supports students in
learning what they want and need. In this respect, the inquiry-based approach, allows me to envision
the curriculum as a dynamic entity that is permeated by socio-cultural elements, which are essential
to work inside the EFL classroom and foster learners‟ spirit of questioning to promote their language
and literacy learning from a social dimension.
In a similar attempt where the inquiry-based approach was the core aspect to understand a
phenomenon, Becerra (2006) carried out a qualitative study in a public school of Bogotá, Colombia.
The participants of her study were forty children, whose environment and socio-economic situation
were inappropriate for them to grow up. This study was conducted to enhance conflict resolution
and cooperative learning, since learners showed struggles while working together during the
development of language learning tasks. The pedagogical intervention of this study followed and
inquiry-based learning environment, where the authoring cycle was implemented to guide learners in
inquiring collaboratively some questions that they posed.
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53
Since inquiry starts with a question and demands changes in learning and teaching practices,
Becerra (2006) used twin texts2 (Camp, 2000, p. 400) to build the inquiry process upon students‟
experiences by following the stages of the authoring cycle. In so doing it, she read fiction and non-
fiction stories to ignite students‟ curiosity on butterflies. During the development of their inquiries,
children used a variety of tools to fulfill their queries, namely books and photocopies in English and
Spanish that their teacher brought to the classroom, since they did not have money to afford them.
As long as students inquired collaboratively, they reflected about the process of working
collaboratively to accomplish common goals, while the co-existence issues diminished in the EFL
class. After completing their projects, they decided to share their knowledge and understandings of
butterflies through multiple modes as posters and oral presentations.
The results of the study showed how students became owners of their own language
learning, while co-existence issues decreased through collaborative inquiry practices of a topic that
ignited children‟ curiosity. Similarly, this study allowed learners to use language not solely to read,
write, inquire and solve co-existence issues, but also to learn through language, since learners
searched information about butterflies. On the other hand, this study elucidates the importance of
innovating current language teaching practices and contributes to the development of the EFL
curriculum from a social dimension that acknowledges the natural learning course of language and
literacy of children. Finally, the previous study depicts teachers as researchers and agents of change
that are capable of readapting and reshape elements of theory to guide more holistic language
teaching practices.
2 Twin texts are two books, one fiction and one non-fiction (informational) on the same topic.
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The aforementioned results nurtures my research interest, since the inquiry-based learning is
a key approach for immersing students in collaborative tasks, that lead them to share, co-construct
and re-create knowledge through the wide range of modes that English and Spanish language have.
Similarly, an inquiry-oriented cycle, as the one implemented in the previous study brings
possibilities to learn through language and learn about the language, particularly when students
make connections between both languages (English and Spanish) to easily understand, convey and
co-construct meaning.
With respect to other research studies that adopted inquiry and literacy from a socio-cultural
perspective as stances, Ghiso (2011), Guccione (2011), Sluys and Laman (2006) and McGianni
2000) and Ghiso (2011) are examples of how such tenets illuminates teaching and learning as
endeavors to create communities of inquirers and thinkers to share knowledge. To begin with, Ghiso
(2011) conducted a yearlong ethnographic study in a public school of United States. The participants
were 20 first graders of African American, European American, Algerian, and Native American
descendent, whose literacy practices were being developed from a linguistic-based approach as basic
skills. This study “examined what it means to be writer in the first grade class, specifically how the
teacher orchestrated writing invitations, how students interacted in such invitations, and how the
teacher and students talked about writing” (p. 347).
As part of such endeavor, the teacher invited students to write about topics that matter to
them and provoked children‟s active participation by constantly questioning them about vandalism,
poverty, smoking, homelessness and littering with the purpose of mingling individual and collective
engagements. The writing curriculum was then permeated of personal narratives and collective
inquiries that mattered to students, since they started to be aware of the social issues of their
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55
communities. During the pedagogical intervention, children‟ knowledge background of civic issues,
created opportunities for the class‟ heterogeneity to become into sources of information. For instance,
students and teacher conversations allowed personal, social and historical connections to share, ask
information and provide alternative viewpoints, as they wrote about events that made explicit various
social and economic issues.
As result, students adopted individual and collective critical stances where collaboration and
engagement took place. Similarly, this study demonstrated that structuring writing time around what
matters to students and providing time to spin out their ideas, students are able to set their own
agendas and decide what to share and to whom. On the other hand, teacher was decentered as the
most knowledgeable member of the writing community and opportunities to students were given to
be authors of their own learning, as they follow unpredicted paths in their inquiries.
In reference to the contributions of this pedagogical experience to my research, a similar
perspective aims to preclude a skill-based approach that shies away language and literacy knowledge
of my students to trust on their thoughts and write around what matters to them. Similarly, I consider
paramount to understand students‟ literacy as a practice that allow them to explore social and
cultural sources of their communities, as well as generating environments that switch their roles as
users of linguistic forms to be generators of knowledge by means of inquiry. In this respect, the
previous research helped me to understand how to orchestrate literacy as a tool for inquiry and
promote authorship practices without limitations.
In tune with the previous research work, Guccione (2011) explored the connection between
literacy and inquiry from a socio cultural perspective, but focused on multiliteracies through a
yearlong ethnographic study in a public school of Colorado, United States. Taking into account that
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56
Native English Speakers and English Language Learners (ELLs) were part of the class, the
participants within this study were three first graders who were non-English proficient according to
the standardized test of Colorado English Language Assessment. Her investigation was meant to
unveil first graders‟ literacy practices and foster their content knowledge skills through inquiry-
based instruction.
While first graders inquired about animals and other topics of their interest by means of
expository texts, they were engaged through a multiplicity of language arts of reading, speaking,
listening, writing, drawing, viewing and representing, which allowed them to construct meaning
during one year across the 90-minute language arts class. The data gathered in this qualitative study
was organized in a main category named Literacy Practices (LP), and eleventh subcategories:
viewing, I learned, interactive components, schema, connections, questions, art strategies,
decoding, text features, code switching and sources.
The findings of this study evidenced how the engagement of learners within an inquiry
environment promotes not solely the use of multiple literacy practices, but students‟ learning
enjoyment, which allowed them to be self-regulated learners and authors of their own education.
Additionally, the integration of inquiry and literacy practices brought the development of
essential skills to search information that matters to students and enrich their content knowledge.
In reference to the contribution of the aforementioned study to my research concern, a
similar student-centered approach to teaching and learning based on inquiry-based instruction is
aimed to be the basis to foster literacy, in which the close surroundings of students are to be used
as sources of information. In this regard, the participants of my study can benefit from meaning-
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57
rich activities that embrace their social and cultural resources and bring opportunities to use
literacy from a social dimension in meaningful ways. Additionally, the work of Ghiso (2011)
discloses the appropriateness of instilling an inquiry mindset on my EFL class and helped me to
discover many ways of integrating students‟ knowledge background to new information they
might get through their collaborative inquiries.
In this way, literacy and language learning within my study will be an opportunity to
support learners‟ comprehension of their social worlds instead of demonstrating the acquisition of
a new skill. Thus, EFL learning might turn into a fruitful experience to tap students‟ inner
language abilities through several modes, which ultimately help them to become self-regulated
learners, owners and agents, and authors of their own education.
Following this same line of linking literacy to socio cultural elements of students‟ context,
Sluys and Laman (2006) conducted a yearlong ethnographic study in a public elementary school of
Illinois, United States, as a response to bring authentic language and literacy practices, where a
scripted curriculum portrayed language as an object of study through defined rules. Although the
participants were part of two different classrooms with respect to the grade levels and their literacy
experience, they shared many beliefs and practices. The purpose of this research was to “examine
the ways in which multiage and multilingual students used written conversations to inquire into
language and their […] social worlds [and] how students took responsibility on for learning about
language as they engage in written conversations (p. 223) as a strategy in which participants engage
in face-to-face chats on paper” (p. 225). Another goal of this research was to know how students use
language for social purposes as they conversed in paper with peers. In order to accomplish such
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58
goals, the teacher guided students on class meetings, inquiry projects and written conversations “, to
pursuit their questions.
The findings of this study showed how students used language conventions, the features of
language and cultural resources to write their conversations, as drawings, shortcuts, symbols, sound-
symbol relationships and different fonts to engage in friendly and meaningful chats. As
consequence, learners constructed meaning and depicted themselves in regards of what they were or
wanted to be within their peer group or social worlds. Such outcomes become part of the process of
learning about language, learning from and about others‟ experiences through meaningful
interactions.
Additionally, written conversations invited students to show what they know regarding
grammar rules, proper spelling, and phonemic awareness to inquire about what they do not know
and write more than what they would have produced on their own. In the same way, written
conversations afforded collaborative learning that supported students‟ growth as writers, since one
member of a writing partnership might bring knowledge of form and another of literary language.
As consequence of the previous knowledge students had, the teacher could examine the way they
build their literate identities through which students saw themselves as communicators, readers,
revisers and accomplished writers, while others saw themselves as actresses, friends, comedians,
inquirers, animal lovers, computer users, immigrants, mathematicians, boys, girls, among other
roles.
The previous study gives me insights to understand the relevance of creating authentic
language learning contexts in order to engage students on literacy and inquiry practices, where they
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59
feel empowered to take the responsibility of being autonomous learners. Additionally, Sluys &
Laman (2006) work, offers me different perspectives on how helping my students to portray
themselves as competent users of language and share meaning to others through collaborative work.
Building on this trend of research, I adhere to the social perspective of language as a communicative
tool that engages students in inquiry practices and learning from others to promotes authorship
practices and meaningful literacy learning experiences.
Finally, McGinnis (2007) conducted an ethnographic study with Khmer (Cambodian ethnic),
Vietnamese and Somali children of migrant farm workers who were in sixth, seventh and eighth
grade in a public school of Pennsylvania, United States. The main concern was directly related to the
way school literacy practices did not address the diversity and complexities of students‟ language
practices, neglecting the varied ways youth use reading, writing and language. Thereby, a broader
perspective of literacy was unfolded following the multimodal and multilingual nature of students‟
literacy and language practices. In this sense, this study intended mainly to build a curriculum
through inquiry-based projects around students‟ interests, knowledge and social worlds in order to
create spaces to listen their voices, especially of those whose first language was not English.
Additionally, McGinnis wanted to give her students semiotic systems to construct their intended
meanings through inquiry-based projects and depict learners as agents of their meaning-making
processes instead of focusing on the acquisition of English Literacy to comprehend meanings that
are based in the dominant culture.
During the pedagogical innovation, students began choosing their topics of inquiry, which
ranged from investigating rap music in the United States to writing about fruit from their home
country as a way to easing their feelings of loss, since they had to live their rural life to be part of the
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60
urban life of a new country. Likewise, students chose to inquire about such topics as an opportunity
to make sense of their new urban identities. In so doing it, students drew on and combined their
different languages, writing systems and modes of meaning making available, as they so naturally
do in their daily lives. As result of their work, students created multilingual and multimodal texts to
express themselves and their previous knowledge regarding topics of their interest as rap music,
Asia‟s fruits and Dragon Ball Z. In spite of the limited resources students had, they used magazines,
traditional school texts, movies, even students‟ own knowledge and elder woman in the community
as valuable resources during their investigations. On top of that, the majority of resources were in
English, the students discussed their content using their native languages. In this way, students
explored collaboratively through dialogic inquiry practices, while learning from their peers,
enhancing their language and literacy abilities.
After gathering data of their inquiries, students presented their investigations by combining
different linguistic, oral, visual and physical modes to express the intended meaning through a tri-
fold poster for displaying their multimodal and multilingual texts. The results of this study were
stunning since youngsters learnt from their peers and acquired knowledge about language.
Furthermore, language and literacy learning emerged as the students participated in different ways.
Another relevant trait of this research findings deals with the way students‟ voices and feelings
became essential elements for developing multilingual and multimodal literacy practices. Similarly,
students were seen as capable learners with abilities and talents to co-construct meaning, and new
understandings of their social worlds.
According to my research purposes, this study gives me several insights as teacher researcher
to understand the role of students as knowledge holders, since they are capable of using their
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61
language and literacy knowledge to work collaboratively, when they are in charge of investigating
topics that matter to them within their social context. On top of that, as teacher researcher I consider
paramount to value multimodal nature of students‟ literacy as an opportunity to position them as
owners of their knowledge, agents of change, responsible and successful learners within our fast-
changing global world. Similarly, the inquiry-based project developed in the work of McGinnis
(2007) gives me insights on how to create environments to maximize learning opportunities, peer
bounding and literacy practices from a social dimension that might help to overcome the curricular
boundaries of the EFL mandated curricula.
After having examined several research works based on English Language Learning and
Literacy instruction within an inquiry mindset, I found relevant connections between my research
and the aforementioned investigations, since there is an inclusion of a socio-cultural perspective of
literacy practices and language learning. Even though, these studies refer to the relevance of
combining inquiry and literacy from a socio-cultural perspective to promote students‟ language
learning, empowerment, authoring practices, collaboration, self-regulation of learning and the co-
construction of curriculum, they do not describe the emerging EFL literacy practices that students
might use when they inquire upon their close surroundings, particularly, their school community.
Although some studies took into account local knowledge of students‟ communities to develop
writing practices from a socio-cultural perspective, none of them specifically explore the modes that
elementary students draw on to bring out their literacy practices to the EFL classroom, within an
inquiry-based learning environment. This is why my work is relevant and appropriate to be
conducted, since it potentially contributes to the TEFL field.
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Chapter 3
Research Design
This chapter presents the research framework with the purpose of answering the following
research question: What literacy practices emerge when third graders inquire collaboratively into
their academic surroundings at a private school in Bogotá? The chapter introduces the research
methodology of the study, the setting and participants, as well as the instruments for data
collection, role of the researcher and ethical issues.
Type of study
Since this study accounts for a social phenomenon related to literacy development of EFL
learners within a particular socio cultural context, it is necessary to observe the reality of
participants experiences from different angles. In this sense, this work is a qualitative research
which contemplates that “meaning is socially constructed by individuals in interaction with their
world” (Merriam, 2002, p. 3), due to the fact that participants inquire about their school
surroundings and construct new understandings, and meanings while developing literacy
practices from a socio cultural dimension.
Similarly, a qualitative research locates the researcher as observer to identify, act and
implement changes that he or she considers relevant to tackle the problems within their natural
setting attempting “to make sense of meanings people bring to them through a series of
representations including field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings and
memos” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 3).
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63
While this study is a qualitative research due to the objectives that it pursues and the
characteristics of my role as teacher-researcher within the context I currently work, I adopted the
action research methodology in order to articulate educational and research practices to work on
the issues this study address. Action research is conceived by Burns (2001) as “a form if inquiry
in which practitioners reflect systematically about their practice in order to obtain results, that
contribute to improve and build knowledge” (p. 33).
Similarly, Mills (2003) claims that “action research is any systematic inquiry conducted
by teachers researchers to gather information about the ways that their particular school operates,
how they teach, and how well their students learn” (p.4). Furthermore, Creswell (2002) considers
that action research aims to “improve the practice of education by inquiring on local issues, to
reflect upon them, to collect and analyze data and to implement changes based on findings” (p.
580). According to my perspective, the previous ideas frame a central part of this research since
the data gathered provide explanations and evidences of the way students develop meaningful
literacy practices during a collaborative inquiry process they take part.
In this respect, action research is a methodology that allows me to generate personal
theories by studying my own teaching practice to develop insights into my students‟ learning and
identify potential problems that might imply the modification of my teaching practices and
different ways of generating knowledge. Accordingly, action research is the most convenient and
powerful methodological design to develop my teaching and research practices, since this study
implies a shift on the way language and literacy practices are conceived from a structuralist
perspective to be viewed as social constructs that might enhance language learning. In this
regard, the implementation of this methodology might bring opportunities for my students to
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64
convey and make meaning in concordance to the local knowledge present in their school
community and provide them with occasions to experience meaningfully their EFL learning
process.
Action research methodology implies different models, such as Burns (2009), McNiff
(2002), Kemmis and McTaggart (1992), and Cohen Manion and Morrison (2000). Burns (2009)
describes action research as a cycle of interrelated activities to explore an issue in teaching or
learning. Such cycles have to do with identifying areas of concern; observing how those areas
play out in the setting of the study; discussing how the issue might be addressed; collect data to
determine the action to be taken (e.g., student questionnaires, observation reports, journal entries)
and planning strategic actions based on the data to address the issue.
In addition, McNiff (2002) action research model has to do with a “form of research
which can be undertaken by people in any context […] it involves thinking carefully about what
[it is] doing, so it can also be called a kind of self-reflective practice” (p. 15). In this sense, action
research implies learning through action and reflection across a variety of contexts as an abstract
discipline, and a set of procedures that can be applied within the real-life experience of real
people. The most widely known model is that of Kemmis and Mctaggart (1992) which focuses on
implementing an action plan, where the researcher has “to plan, act, observe and reflect more
carefully, more systematically and more rigorously than one usually do in everyday life” (p. 10)
Since the characteristics of my educational context allowed me to take a constant
participation within this research as observer and homeroom English teacher, action research
methodology “empower teachers to take control of their own professional development (Nunan,
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65
2006, p. 1). In this regard, teachers become in teacher-researchers and move between theory and
practice, as a process that leads changes and improvements in what happens in the classroom.
Regarding the model of action research that best addresses to the purpose of this study is
that of Cohen et al. (2000), since this methodology can be used in almost any setting where a
“problem involving people, task and procedures cries out for solution or where some change or
feature results in a more desirable outcome” (p. 226). For instance, the current educational setting
of this study, allude that communicative language teaching is the favorable approach for the
development of reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. Such situation turns the EFL
practices into language-cantered ones where students have to develop lineal and fragmented task
to command language. In this sense, action research guides how learner-centered practices lead to
obtain desirable outcomes in the EFL classroom, by implementing an integrated approach for
learning and teaching including values and attitudes, as part of the constant reflection, which
action research methodology suggests.
Cohen et al. (2000) also define action research as “a small-scale intervention in the
functioning of the real world and chose examination of the effects of such intervention” (p. 227).
In this sense, the situation that puzzles me concerning literacy learning was intervened in order to
analyze rich data cases that informed me about the effects of such pedagogical innovation. Action
research involves a spiral of cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting, and then re-
planning, further implementation, observing and reflecting (Cohen et al. 2000, p. 229).
I will describe each stage according to the moments this methodology is developed. The
planning phase has to do with exploring and identifying literacy processes in the school curricula
as well as finding information to give account of such processes. Subsequent, was essential to
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66
design an action plan meant to shift the current EFL literacy instruction of the EFL classroom.
The action phase has to do with the implementation of the previous action plan to collect data to
be analyzed. Then, observation phase involves perceiving the effect of the action plan by means
of the analysis and examination of the data to inform what is happening, and go towards the
reflecting stage, where the outcomes of the intervention allow to establish new teaching strategies
and plan further data collection to articulate and report final findings.
Figure 4. Research cycles based on Cohen et al. (2000)
Research Setting
This research is conducted at Liceo de Cervantes School, a private school founded in 1934 and
located in the North of Bogotá, Colombia. The school has a population of 1.258 students who
attend classes from 07:00 a.m. to 2:40 p.m. This institution started to enroll girls in 2015. Now,
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67
classes consisted on both male and female students in preschool, first grade and second grade.
The number of girls in the school is 48.
Liceo de Cervantes School has an intensive English program of ten hours per week based
on the communicative approach aimed to make students reach high levels of proficiency in the
English language communicative competence. Similarly, students are instructed to learn
Phonics, Science and Math during one hour per week correspondingly, due to the fact one of the
school purposes is to incorporate a bilingual education system in a near future.
Ninety-six teachers are part of the school community; 18 of them belong to the English
area divided into preschool, elementary and high school sections. English language teachers meet
two hours per week to talk about class planning, assessment processes, institutional activities and
standardized exams preparation for students in all academic levels. Teachers teach English,
Phonics, Math and Science mostly in the classroom, although twice a month teachers and
students can use ICT in the English Laboratory for students from 3rd
to 11th
grade, likewise the
English Play Room is available for students from preschool to 2nd
grade.
The mission of the school is focused on orienting students with catholic identity by means
of learning how to be, do and share to be leaders of tomorrow and look forward society
improvement. The vision aims to strengthen the catholic identity to keep leading the orientation
of competent citizens who are able to humanize the globalized world in the culture, technology
and the fields of science.
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Participants
The participants of the study are 20 third graders who are aged from 8 to 9 years old. The
students belong to social strata 3 and 4, and biological parents and siblings compose their
families. Since this qualitative research is an opportunity to foster literacy practices, it is
important to select a purposeful sample from which the most can be enhanced. With respect to
the criterion employed to select the participants, a non-probabilistic sample was selected to target
a particular group of students.
Similarly, purposeful and convenience sampling strategy was the qualitative research
strategy used to select a particular group of participants, as Patton (1990) claims the relevance to
select “information rich cases for study in depth to illuminate the questions under study”, as those
participants from whose is possible to observe characteristics of paramount importance for the
purpose of this research (p.169).
Data collection and Techniques
Due to the nature of this qualitative research and its purpose is to describe the literacy practices
that students might use when inquiring about school surroundings, it is necessary to define the
instruments for data collection to gather information that respond to the previous need. For the
purpose of this study, I have decided to use three instruments for gathering the data: Field notes,
Students‟ Journals and Students Artifacts.
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Instruments
Field note. Is an observational technique that includes “descriptions and accounts of
observed events, including, non-verbal information, physical settings, groups‟ structures [and]
interaction among participants” (Burns, 1999, p. 87). As this instrument is useful to report direct
observations, it allows data gathering of students‟ interactions in order to identify the emerging
literacy practices that are enhanced when students become part of the inquiry-based learning. The
field note layout utilized for data collection of this research is divided into two rows for jotting
important observations “ in the heat of the moment, for making methodological, theoretical,
analytical annotations and personal comments, written during reflective moments” (Lankashear
and Knobel 2004, p. 230). It is worth to mention that audio and video recordings were used to
feed the field notes since gathering data, teaching and classroom management were difficult tasks
to do at the same time. In order to know if field notes serve for the purpose of data collection, a
piloting was done to validate the way observations should be jotted and understand the way this
type of data should be collected. (See Appendix C for field note layout).
Artifacts. Are evidences of learning and understanding accompanied by authors‟
reflection and “represent another form of primary evidence” (Yin, 2011, p. 148). For this study,
artifacts are mostly written tasks in which children complete various activities that are collected
at the end of the class to be one of the main sources for analyzing and describing inquiry
processes and social situated literacy practices. Hubbard and Miller (1993) affirm that students‟
artifacts are one of the best sources of data for teacher-researchers as “it is tangible evidence of
what kids [students] respond to different learning tasks” (p. 102). Artifacts will be hand-in-hand
with multimodal representations to provide students with tools for meaning-making and ways to
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represent knowledge through the use of language and drawings for expressing their ideas.
Similarly, artifacts were piloted and the experience was quite rewarding due to the fact that
students involvement and performance were the expected. They did the activities and wrote some
reflections upon the work they did in pairs. (See Appendix D for student artifact)
Journals. Are a “set of personal notes. A log of events rich in personal sentiments and
confessions” (Burns, 1999, p. 89). Respectively, journals allow recording students‟ reflections,
opinions and reactions, while they use a variety of modes to carry out proposed activities within
the pedagogical intervention, in terms of collaborative inquiry. The journal format includes the
topic of the activity and a set of guided questions that vary according to the number of activities
students do and their type of interactions. Students used Spanish to write their journals taking into
account that their English proficiency is still emerging. Similarly, Spanish as students‟ mother
tongue allows them to make better sense of their feelings, thoughts and reflections. (See
Appendix E for student journal).
Role of the researcher
With regard to my role as homeroom English teacher, I simultaneously adopt active roles as
researcher, observer and participant in the sense of becoming a planner, designer, listener,
synthesizer and reporter during the whole process of this research. In this sense, the adoption of
these roles, particularly the teacher-researcher role allows me to “identify more suitable practices
[in the] classroom[s], in order to try new possibilities that can benefit teaching and learning
practices” (Lankshear and Knobel, 2004).
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In other words, I am an active part of the whole research, since I am responsible for the
design and implementation of pedagogical activities that integrate meaningful literacy practices
and collaborative inquiry and for the process of collecting and analyzing data. The previous
pursuits, imply “building toward theory from observations and intuitive understanding gleaned
from being in the field” (Merriam, 2002, p. 5)
I collected data systematically from May to October 2016. My attention focused on
students‟ use of literacy practice by means of different modes beyond reading and writing,
generated during the inquiry process they were immersed in. Triangulation of data took place
using the aforementioned data collection instruments to validate and verify the information.
Ethical Issues
Cohen et al. (2000) state the importance of “attend moral issues implicit in the work of social
researchers and of their need to meet their obligations with respect to those involved in, or
affected by, their investigations” (p.49). According to Diener and Crandall (as cited in Cohen et
al. 2007, p. 52) an informed consent has to do with “the procedures in which individuals choose
whether to participate in an investigation after being informed of facts that would be likely to
influence their decisions”. Bearing in mind the relevance of informing the nature of this research
study, the school principal and parents received a consent form with the explanation of the
project and the management data will have (See Appendix F and G). Similarly, an ethics
statement is signed by the researcher to show awareness and take responsibility of all the
implications this study addresses. At the end of the project, the outcomes of this piece of work
will be shared to the Principal and English Area staff of the school.
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The gathered data through the instruments I previously mentioned, allowed me to answer
the questions stated in my study. The pedagogical intervention that I designed to foster literacy
practices by means of collaborative inquiry is described in the next chapter.
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Chapter 4
Instructional Design
The present chapter explains the pedagogical component of the study. It presents from an
instructional point of view, the development of EFL social situated literacy practices as students
inquire into their close surroundings. First, the educational context where the pedagogical
intervention takes place is described. Then, the curricular platform with the visions of curriculum,
language, learning and classroom that frame the inquiry-based approach assumed within these
instructional units are presented. Finally, an account of the instructional activities, goals, stages,
and learning experiences are explained.
As mentioned in chapter one, this study is meant to describe the emergent literacy
practices when third graders inquire collaboratively upon their surroundings. As result of my
constant reflection as an English language teacher, researcher and material designer, I decided to
adjust curricular activities based on students‟ interests, to make a transition between language-
centered practices into more learner-centered experiences to promote lifelong learning. Now the
main pedagogical constructs are explained.
Curricular Platform
The pedagogical intervention of this study is designed as a response to the objectives of the
school curricula, where learners have to be authors of their own learning. Thus, it is relevant to
contextualize literacy practices instruction and promote inquiry skills on learners, based on the
“problem-posing” pedagogy (Freire, 2011, p. 79) that invites students to think, propose and
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research on the topics they are curious about, as a way to interact and construct knowledge within
their academic surroundings as the school community.
The role of the students embraces a deep and active immersion in the school community
exploration where they inquire collaboratively using Spanish for authentic communication and
scaffolding, as well as using English to shape and represent their inquiries through literacy
practices that embrace their close academic surroundings. Similarly, both languages will be the
tools to use local sources of information, data collection instruments and create multimodal and
expository texts, interviews, taking pictures, making posters, drawings and other type of
representations to shape students‟ findings along the inquiry units they worked on.
Concerning the inquiry-based approach used in this study, the authoring cycle (Short and
Burke, 2001) is the curricular framework that underlies the pedagogical intervention, since it
follows a process that guides and encourages the participants to think and decide by themselves
throughout this project. Within this cycle, six phases were developed where the point of departure
was the connection to students‟ life experiences with respect to school community assets, that
guided them to use a wide range of social situated literacy practices to research, create, represent,
share and plan new inquiries.
In order to explain the scope of the instructional implementation, I present the visions of
curriculum, language, learning and classroom that show how inquiry activities promote the use of
social situated literacy practices of EFL learners in meaningful ways.
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Vision of Curriculum
The curriculum in which this pedagogical intervention relies is Curriculum as Collaborative
Inquiry (Short & Burke, 1991). Curriculum as collaborative inquiry is the process of
collaborative construction of knowledge, where students continually “seek understandings of
personal and social significance from new perspectives, new sign systems perspectives, new
knowledge system perspectives, new social perspectives for purposes of creating a more just, a
more equitable a more thoughtful world” (p. 60).
Following the previous statement, curriculum as collaborative inquiry is based on what
learners want to understand and explore in their immediate social context, taking into account
their life experiences and previous knowledge of the world as source of knowledge. This type of
curriculum fits to the purpose of this research, since learners are at the center of learning practices
as active agents, who construct knowledge based on their school community assets. Similarly,
curriculum as inquiry, allows educators “to examine their beliefs and actions in order to create
more democratic and learning environments” (Short, 2001, p. 21)
This inquiry-based curriculum is nourished with Nunan (1988) assertions about learner-
centered curriculum as a “collaborative effort between teacher and learners, since learners are
closely involved in the decision-making process” (p. 2), for instance having the opportunity of
selecting what they want to learn and how to learn through active involvement within the learning
process. Thus, curriculum as inquiry allows students to trace their own goals and learn better
through their particular wonders and personal experiences.
Curriculum as inquiry also provides opportunities to connect the learner with more
understandings and fosters their development of autonomy through the interaction with three
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different knowledge sources (Harste, 1993). These knowledge sources are 1) Personal and social
knowing; the knowledge that learners bring from their personal experiences of living in the
world; 2) knowledge systems that humans use to structure knowledge e.g., History, Biology and
Economics and 3) Sign systems as the alternative ways of creating and communicating meaning
with others such as language, art, music and so forth.
Concerning this pedagogical intervention, the development of new understanding and
knowledge rely on active learners‟ explorations of the physical, historical, intellectual and social
environments that their school community offers in order to create new meanings and pursuits
through their inquiries.
Vision of Learning
The vision of learning within this pedagogical intervention is based on the interaction with peers
and the teacher as a dialogic practice, where collaboration and meaning making take place to
shape students inquiries by means of multiple modes of language. Similarly, the experiential
learning ideas of Tudor (2001, p. 79) and its principles feed this vision of learning. In this sense,
learning is a meaningful act, where students “learn by doing” while they inquire into their close
surroundings; “use authentic materials” as local sources of information present in the school
community; use “collaborative models” of learning when children work together while sharing
common goals within their inquiries. Then, comes “holistic practice” where both languages
English and Spanish involves a natural communication to convey messages and ideas putting
aside the linguistic elements of language that in certain moment might be shaped.
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In regards to the vision of curriculum, experiential learning place the students at the center
of the educational practices where they discover themselves as active agents of their own learning
and “ their immediate personal experiences are taken as point of departure for deciding how to
organize the learning process” (Nunan, 1999, p. 5). Similarly, experiential learning intertwines
personal knowledge of individuals with new understandings through a process of transformation
where immediate experience places an essential role for the construction of new meanings.
Vision of Language
Bearing in mind that language is not just a mere linguistic entity, but also a way to represent
personal experiences of living in the world, this pedagogical intervention lies on Tudor (2001)
assertions, who considers that language is a “mean for learning” (p. 79), experience the world
and the social context students are immersed in. Similarly, Gutierrez (2001) contends that
language is “a powerful intermediary tool in learning activity (p. 564). That is to say that,
language (Spanish and English) is the vehicle to empower students, while they make meaning
and create new understandings, not only by as a single mode, but through an infinite set of
meaningful modes namely, oral, written, audio, drawings, images and so forth, that are present in
students‟ context. Thus, language allows learners to have lifelong learning experiences in and out
of the classroom, by valuing their previous experiences and knowledge for the co-construction of
local knowledge with peers and broader members of the school community.
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Vision of Classroom
Since this innovation implies an active learners‟ role as inquirer-researcher, the classroom is the
precise place where learning experiences take place to make meaning upon the local knowledge
that the school community possess, while literacy practices are developed from a social situated
perspective. In tune with the aforementioned vision of curriculum, which promotes the
development of learners‟ autonomy, the classroom within this pedagogical intervention relies on
the concepts of learner autonomy, self-direction and empowerment. In this sense, the classroom
is the place where language learners bring with them a “variety of knowledge, experience and
insights which can allow them to play an active role in their language learning, be active agents
and co-authors” (Pennycook, 1997 as cited in Tudor 2001, p. 117).
The concept of classroom that this innovation fosters goes beyond the four walls and
provides two key components of the learner-centered classroom. First, students have more
responsibility in their hands to manage their learning; second, teachers take roles as facilitators of
knowledge to help students in their learning process, rather than being the source of knowledge.
In other words, the classroom becomes the perfect place to construct knowledge and promote
collaboration for learning and thinking where “children can create a new reality – a reality that
will make a significant difference” (Short, Harste and Burke. 1996, p. 48).
Pedagogical Intervention
The upcoming section of this chapter presents the goals, methodology, stages, learning
experiences and outcomes of the pedagogical intervention. The addressed goals states as follows:
Pedagogical Intervention Goal
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By the end of these pedagogical units, students will inquire cooperatively about their
school community by means of a variety social situated and multimodal literacy practices
Pedagogical Objectives
To empower students as inquirers-researchers by providing them with a relevant local
context for the construction of new understandings and meaning making.
To promote students‟ sense of agency and ownership through an inquiry-based learning
environment and the use of multimodal representations.
Taking into account the main goals and objectives within the EFL syllabus, I designed a
pedagogical innovation based on the authoring cycle (Short et al., 1996) as the curricular frame.
The authoring cycle puts inquiry at the center of what education is all about and promotes the
“integration of personal and social knowing, knowledge systems and sign systems within a social
context based in education for democracy” (Short et al., 1996, p. 261).
Accordingly, for the purpose of this pedagogical innovation, the authoring cycle is a
powerful curricular framework that fosters the autonomy of learners and the development of
collaborative inquiry skills. In the same way, the authoring cycle allows the use of multiple
literacies where various ways of knowing are encouraged and enhanced. The next lines, mention
the stages through the authoring cycle was implemented: a) Life experiences, building from the
known; b) Taking the time to find questions for inquiry; c) Gaining new perspectives; d)
Attending to difference; e) sharing what was learned; and f) Planning new inquiries (Short et al.,
1996, p.53). The authoring cycle is illustrated through the following visual display based on the
stages (Short et al., 1996, p. 52) propose:
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Figure 5. Authoring cycle adaptation from Short et al. (1996).
The pedagogical intervention was carried out from May to November, 2016 by
implementing two curricular units where students were invited to inquire into their academic
surroundings and developed multiple social situated literacy practices as well as accomplished
the creation of particular text types in regards to the meaning making processes they experience
on socio-cultural knowledge, as the following table shows:
Table 2. Curricular units and text types accomplished
Date Curricular Unit Accomplished Text Type
May, 12 to
August 26
The History of my school Community: An inquiry
project about historical events of the school. Expository Text (Timeline)
September 5 to
November 14
People of my School Community: An inquiry project
about personal and professional life of teachers. Biography
The first curricular unit, The History of my School Community (See appendix I) had as
point of departure the introduction of inquiry to students, since EFL instruction is mainly about
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learning about grammar and they had not experienced the act of inquiring in the EFL class. The
first stage of the unit was named “Life Experiences” where students‟ first engagements were
guided through interviews to their classmates and explorations of the school places such as their
own classroom, kindergarten, elementary and high school sections in order to shape students
wonders into a major topic to be investigated. The image below shows a collage of how children
used an interview to know more about other classmates and the way they jotted observations and
wonders during their explorations of the school.
Figure 6. Life experiences stage. Students‟ exploration of their school community.
Exploration of the
classroom
Interview by pairs
(Frontside)
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The second stage was “Building from the known” in which students brainstormed ideas
about their school community through a set of guided questions. The answers they provided in
English and Spanish were used to make a spider web, where students made meaning through the
connection of their previous knowledge to new understandings. The next image shows the spider
web students made through their brainstorming with my guidance.
Figure 7.Building from the known stage. Spider web as the result of brainstorming upon the school community.
After having explored and described the school community in the spider web, the students
moved to the third stage “Taking the Time to Find Questions for Inquiry”. During this stage,
students were told to write the “what I know” and the “what I want to learn” sections of the KWL
chart taking into account their life experiences, as point of departure for posing questions in
relation to their school community. Students‟ questions were written in Spanish so that they
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could easily express themselves, as well as may of the questions geared to reflect upon the
inquiry process they were taking part in. Most of the answers were aimed to know the same topic:
The history of the school community. Students‟ answers were assorted in seven groups,
conformed by three or two students, who worked collaboratively to solve their queries. The
following image shows the KWL chart (See Appendix H) of a student with the “What I know”
and the “What I want to Know” of the School community.
Figure 8. Taking the Time to find questions for Inquiry” stage. KWL Chart. Students‟ questions upon the History of
the School Community.
The subsequent stage was “Gaining new Perspectives”; this stage consisted of gathering
information needed to answer the inquiry questions through different sources of knowledge. This
was the longest stage because students took several sessions to nourish their wonders and
organize the information they obtained. During this stage, students were grouped according to
their inquiry interests and brainstormed sources of information to collect data. For instance, they
thought about making interviews to community helpers that have been working for many years in
the school, looking for books in the library that tell the history of the school and search for
information in the school web site as local sources of knowledge.
The first local source of knowledge students used was the interview to the academic
coordinator. Students used Spanish and English to carry out the interview, while they developed
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inquiry skills and sense of agency. The next image depicts the moment in which students did the
interview to start gaining new perspectives.
Figure 9. Gaining new Perspectives stage. Students doing an interview.
After doing the interview, students and teacher talked about the preliminary results of
their inquirers and decided to make a museum of history about the school with the initial
information gathered. Each group made a mini-poster where they wrote short sentences In
English complemented with images and drawings that represented the historical facts of the
school told during the interview. Then, each group used English to present orally the information
they queried. The next image shows the moment where students presented the school history
museum they did by inquiring and working collaboratively using the first source of local
knowledge.
Figure 10. Gaining new perspectives stage. Oral presentation of the School History Museum.
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Subsequently, students talked in Spanish with the teacher to reflect upon the experience of
working together during the interview, elaborated the school history museum and shared the
initial findings orally to the whole class with the purpose of enhancing their collaboration and
inquiry skills. Then, as part of the same stage “Gaining new perspectives”, students decided to
inquire more about the history of the school community due to some facts provoked their
curiosity during the interview with the guest speaker. They used the two sources of local
knowledge they previously had proposed such as viewing the year book of 1979 available in the
school library and surfing in the school web site to see what information was worth to feed their
inquiries. The following image shows a collage of the central moments third graders experienced
during this stage.
Figure 11. Gaining new perspectives stage. Third graders experiencing collaborative inquiry process.
Students working
collaboratively
Inquiries through
multimodal modes.
School web site as a local
source of knowledge.
Yearbook of 1979 as a local
source of knowledge
Oral interactions as dialogic
inquiry processes.
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The following stage was “Attending to difference”. During this moment, students revised
if the information collected was good enough to answer their questions, and if it was necessary to
explore other sources to collect more data. This stage also allowed students to reflect upon the
difficulties they might have had during the beginning of their inquiries and how to improve future
inquiry experiences. Similarly, they acknowledged the learning experience and the way the used
both languages to know more about their school community.
In order to present the findings, students took decisions about what, how and when these
findings were going to be shared and presented to broader members of the school. This process
implied organization of the data and a discussion about what type of text should they make to
show their outcomes. As I was their guide during their investigations, I showed them several type
of expository texts to present their findings, such as a poster wall, timeline and bulletin boards.
Since students were familiarized with timelines in the previous grade they had coursed, they
decided to make a single timeline that included all the information they gathered. Some students
turned back to local sources of knowledge to copy some of the pictures that depicted the
historical facts of the school and enrich each year of the timeline. Since some students were in
charge of inquiring about relevant facts during 2014, 2015 and 2016 did not find images on
internet nor in the yearbooks, they took pictures to some members of the school to represent such
events. Finally, the timeline was done and it was entitled “Liceo Cervantes Timeline”. It was
displayed outside the classroom.
The forthcoming stage was “Sharing what was learned”. Students as authors wanted to
present the timeline in a more formal way, so they invited teachers and students to listen and
observe in detail the beginning of their school community started. They also published the
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timeline in the first issue of the institutional magazine of the school named “Quijotadas”. They
felt happy, famous and proud of themselves because they presented the timeline in English
through an oral presentation and published their piece of work to the whole community (parents
and external members of the school). The next collage showed the different moments that
students experienced during the oral presentation of the timeline and their learning outcomes
within the publication of their expository text.
Figure 12. Sharing what was learned Stage. Publication and Oral presentation of the Liceo Cervantes Timeline in the
institutional magazine.
Additionally, students wrote the “What I learned” in their KWL charts as part of the
inquiry process they started, where they describe multiple learning outcomes. Some of the
learning outcomes were related mainly to the historical background of the school, since it was the
Oral presentation
of the timeline
Publication of
the timeline
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main purpose of the inquiry project, but they also learnt how to make a timeline in English, use
both languages to do an interview and write past events in English.
Figure 13. Sharing what was learned stage. Students‟ learning outcomes.
The last stage was “Planning New Inquiries”. During this phase, students were
encouraged to think how well they had achieved their goal throughout the inquiry process as well
as difficulties they faced. Then, they were asked to think about new ideas and interests they
would like to pursue.
Regarding the meaning third graders constructed as authors in the first curricular unit
“The History of our School Community” the authoring cycle was initiated again from its first
stage “Life experiences”. At his point, I took advantages of the elements of our school
community and showed them a power point presentation that contained pictures of human,
ecological and linguistic assets of the school in order to make connections and bring a new topic
to be investigated. Then, they wrote the second KWL with information they already knew and
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their learning expectations as part of the second stage “Building from the known”. This chart
allowed me to know which the central topic was for the second curricular unit that was headed
towards knowing about “Community helpers of the School”. The image below presents the
second KWL chart with students‟ wonders as the base for new inquiries.
Figure 14. Building from the known stage. Students new inquiries based on human assets of their school community.
Since students already had begun to think on a topic for inquiring, they had time for
talking and thinking about what community helper, they would like to know more about, as part
of the third stage “Taking the Time to Find Questions for Inquiry”. After each student chose a
community helper, I read their KWL charts and I found commonalities on their interest, as an
opportunity to group students again and keep promoting collaborative practices while they
inquire.
The following stage “Gaining new perspectives” started when third graders as
experienced inquirers decided to know more about a community helper by pairs. This inquiry
topic came from the natural curiosity of children since they felt some affection towards
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community helpers and they were curious about their personal and professional life. They
considered that interviews would be the appropriate tool for collecting data, in so doing, students
started to shape their questions using Spanish and asked teachers for their consent to be their
interviewees. The image below shows a sample of an interview done by two students, who
inquired about one of their teachers.
Figure 15. Gaining new perspectives stage. Students interviewing to their Physical Education teacher
The subsequent stage “Attending to difference” was aimed to revise if the information
collected was enough to answer the questions students posed in the KWL chart and to reflect
about the aspects they found important during the inquiry process they lived. Secondly, students
were asked to think how to represent and share their investigation to other members of the
school. I explained some expository text such as posters, biographies or murals. They considered
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that the biography was a suitable type of text to present the obtained information, so they started
to write the biographies in English. As part of the writing process, students wrote their
biographies using the dictionaries and asking for help to their classmates or the teacher to
translate some words from Spanish to English. The following image shows the writing and
edition process of the biography.
Figure 16. Attending to difference stage. Students write and edit their biographies.
The following stage was “Sharing what was learned”. During this final phase, students
first presented their biographies to their classmates and then, they launched their pieces of work
to the whole community in the Writing Exhibition that the school always does at the end of the
semester in the halls of the elementary section. In addition, they wrote what they learnt in their
KWL chart to acknowledge the learning outcomes of their final inquiry project. Students were
happy of doing such a great work and very proud of being community inquirers and authors. The
images below show two of the biographies students wrote, the writing exhibition where students
shared their pieces of writing and the KWL chart, as evidences of students learning outcomes and
development of multimodal and social situated literacy practices.
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Figure 17. Sharing what was learned stage. Students read their biographies and presented them to the whole school
community.
Reading aloud
the biographies
Biographies
Writing Exhibition
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Figure 18. Sharing what was learned stage. Students write their learning outcomes in the KWL Chart.
These pedagogical units allowed students to move from being passive learners of L2
linguistic and grammar patterns, to be at the center of language learning. Additionally, third
graders conveyed and made meaning of their investigations through multimodal and expository
texts, sharing what they learn as authors and inquirers. Similarly, students used past
tenses to express and present in written form their multimodal texts, in so doing it, third
graders surpassed the goals proposed in the English area project, since the curricular grid
prompts that students have to command simple present tense in third grade. Finally, students
developed a sense of agency, ownership and collaboration while they worked together to achieve
common goals within their inquiry projects. They also were immersed in reflection processes as
an occasion to make things better and recognize the importance of others, while working in a
group. Such elements are explained in the following section.
After having described in detail the two curricular units, the forthcoming chapter presents
the main findings of the study concerning the research question and objectives posed.
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CHAPTER 5
Data Analysis and Findings
This chapter aims to present the research methodology and explain the data analysis process that
attempted to answer the research question: What literacy practices emerge when third graders
inquire collaboratively into their academic surroundings at a private school in Bogotá? The
chapter depicts the procedures used to analyze the data collected from a group of third graders in
a private school by means of students‟ journals, field notes and artifacts. I also explain the
categories that emerged, supported by theory and evidences from the data.
Data Management
The data for this qualitative study was collected throughout the implementation of two curricular
units between May and November 2015. The pedagogical intervention involved students‟
collaborative inquiries and explorations in their school community through a wide variety or
local sources as the base for their investigations such as interviews to school community
members, group reflections and school yearbooks from the library, among others.
Students‟ oral interactions and productions are tangible evidence of the inquiry process;
therefore, artifacts are the primary source of information by which the emergent literacy practices
were fostered through collaborative inquiry. All the sessions where video recorded as means to
describe in detail, the literacy practices students used to inquire. The aforementioned video
recordings were used to complement field notes, as “after the facto notes” (Hubbard and Miller,
1999) to analyze data. In addition, students‟ artifacts and journals are the other instruments that
helped me to obtain data to be analyzed.
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Data analysis Framework
In order to carry out the data analysis process, I used grounded theory as the framework of
analysis, since it “offers a practical and reflective approach to interpret complex social
phenomena” (Charmaz, 2010). Thus, this theory allows me to take a reflective position to stay
engaged, while interacting with the data and explain the process of the emerging literacy
practices of elementary students. Moreover, grounded approach emphasizes on the utilization of
data sources that are grounded in this particular context of my research. In this regard, the
instruments to gather data will be students‟ artifacts, journals and field notes. To start such a
process, I transcribed it, broke it down in small set of themes; labeled, examined, compared,
conceptualized and categorized it to build theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1990).
During the initial data analysis process, grounded approach allowed me to maintain a
constant dialogue with the data, as a “pivotal link between collecting data and developing an
emergent theory to do this process” (Charmaz, 2010). Then, data was coded according to their
relevance for my research question. Additionally, it was linked, grouped and created connections
among the emergent categories and subcategories.
Data analysis Procedure
The data analysis procedure I conducted through grounded theory embraced three types of
coding; open, axial and selective. These techniques helped me identify patterns, groups and
categories that were useful to develop theory from the gathered data and respond to the research
question.
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After transcribing the data of students‟ artifacts, field notes, students‟ journals, memos
that came from the curricular units entitled “The History of My School Community” and “People
from My School Community”, I decided to use create a hermeneutic unit using Atlas.ti software
version 7.5.7 in order to start with the open coding stage. In this stage, “the data are broken into
discrete parts, closely examined, compared for similarities and differences, and questions are
asked about the phenomena as reflected in the data” (Strauss and Corbin, 1990 p. 62). Then, I
named data by creating codes with different colors of the instances that could potentially feed my
research interest. During this first step of naming data, I created groups of codes and tried to find
actions in each line of the data. Then, I took into account what Charmaz (2010) suggests
concerning the way “Initial coding should stick closely to the data. Try to see actions in each
segment of data rather than applying preexisting categories to the data and attempt to code with
words that reflect action” (p. 47). Field notes that were transcribed as post-facto notes after the
classes, the written journals students did before and after inquiry activities and literacy events and
the students‟ artifacts students made were coded as the below figure shows:
Information gathered from field notes. August 23rd, 2016
Information gathered from Journal. November 15th, 2016
Field note
Journal
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Information gathered from Student‟s Artifact. September 2nd, 2016
Figure 19. Open coding stage. November 20th, 2016
Then, the codes were grouped in an attempt to do axial coding as a “strategy for bringing
data back together again in a coherent whole” (Strauss & Corbin as cited by Charmaz, 2010, p.
60). During this stage, Atlas.ti allowed me to create families of codes by looking at key words
and find points of intersection among them. At this moment, many codes were associated in
conceptual categories through semantic webs of different colors in order to identify
commonalities among them. The following figure is a sample of the axial coding phase of field
notes, students‟ journal and students‟ artifacts.
Field Notes
Student Artifact
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Students‟ Journal
Students‟ Artifacts
Figure 20. Axial coding stage. Semantic webs. November 27th, 2017
The selective coding stage took place, when I read several times the semantic networks,
compared and contrasted them for making abstract groups in order to obtain the preliminary
categories and subcategories, which responded to the research question. The semantic webs
below show the selective coding phase that gave me the insights to respond the research question.
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Field Notes
Journals
Students‟ Artifacts
Figure 21. Selective coding stage. Semantic webs. December 2nd
, 2017.
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Findings
Having several semantic networks, I started to make connections between the theoretical
framework, the codes and the previous networks. Two categories emerged by re grouping the
codes within new semantic networks with respect to the research question: What literacy
practices emerge when third graders inquire collaboratively into their academic surroundings at a
private school in Bogota? The figure below shows the research question, the two emergent
categories with the correspondent subcategories.
Figure 22. This figure illustrates the research question, the two emergent categories and subcategories.
Social Situated Multimodal Literacy Practices. The first category has to do with the
different multimodal modes students drew on in order to convey, construct and represent learning
outcomes through the creation of multimodal texts. Such modes included, oral interactions,
viewing, drawings, use of images from the school web site, Google images, and the yearbooks of
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1979 and 2015, as well as taking pictures to community members of the school. Similarly,
English and Spanish were fundamental sources of knowledge for students‟ authentic
communication as a bridge between their language learning and self-expression. Both languages
were sources to collect data and develop student‟s inquiries. Likewise, English and Spanish
helped third graders to re-create local information, according to their varied experience on using
other modes apart from reading and writing to represent their intended meanings. This category is
central within these findings, since it portrays the social situated dimension of language and
literacy, where students were immersed in to use their previous knowledge, and make
connections within the local and socio-cultural sources of information of their school community.
The data analyzed, gave me insights to determine two subcategories that feed the
aforementioned category. The first subcategory is Using multimodality to convey meaning of
socio cultural knowledge, which emerged during a reflective interaction with the most relevant
themes of the semantic webs from the selective coding stage. Such themes led me to identify the
varied and meaningful ways that third graders used to re-create and bring new understandings of
the local knowledge present in the school community, including oral presentations, posters that
weaved pictures and words to represent their meanings, viewing images from printed books and
the Internet, among others to re-shape and co-construct their previous knowledge.
The second subcategory, Students as agents and owners of their language and literacy
learning, emerged since the selective coding stage helped me to organize meaningful themes for
them, making sense of students‟ interactions, students‟ reflections and their artifacts. As result, I
discovered how they adopted a role of responsibility and felt empowered to portray themselves as
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competent multimodal literacy users and inquirers, while they acknowledged they learnt through
their investigations.
The inquiry process students went through began with an interview by pairs, where they
drew on the use of both languages. Children wrote the answers in English, and made drawings as
a way to represent the physical appearance of their peers. The aforementioned modes of
interaction allowed children to bring their previous foreign language knowledge, while developed
multimodal literacies from a social dimension, as they engaged with some traditional and
multiple modes for the construction of meaning. In this sense, the subcategory Using
multimodality to convey meaning of socio cultural knowledge is unfolded in some literacy events
that students took part throughout the pedagogical units, to nurture the emerging category
previously described. The figure below shows the interview done by Jerónimo and Juan
(students names are pseudonyms to protect their identities) during the “life experiences” phase of
the authoring cycle. Based on their personal preferences and physical appearance students drew
each other and talked to me to explain the meaning of their drawings in Spanish.
As it is evidenced in the interview, meaning making within students‟ social worlds had
become multimodal, since drawings and oral descriptions of their drawings are combined to
provide meaning, as students encounter with their social world. In this sense, “literacy is in its
nature multimodal” (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000, p. 234) due to the fact that the combination of
different modes of representation and communication extends the learners potential for the
construction of meaning. When students were allowed to choose their peers, take their time to
observe, draw, use the language to interview each other and have freedom in their language
learning, students unfolded their previous multimodal knowledge and were involved in a social
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situated process of meaning making of their personal realities. The next image shows the front
side of the interview with its corresponding meaning description.
Figure 23. Data source 1. Student artifact. Interview in pairs frontside., May 12th, 2016.
-T: Bueno, ¿Por qué se dibujaron así?
-Juan: Porque Jerónimo es chiquito, tiene poquito pelo…
- Jerónimo: Es que me acabaron de peluquear, pero tengo mucho.
-T: Y ¿Por qué lo dibujaste con ropa normal, o sea sin uniforme?
-Juan: porque es mejor estar sin uniforme y Jerónimo se ve más „cool‟.
-T: bueno, Juan porque dibujaste así a Jerónimo.
-Juan: me parecía que tenía el pelo crespo,
- Jerónimo: What?
-T: ok, y la ropa que tiene ¿es del uniforme o la ropa que él normalmente se pone?
-Juan: la ropa que se pone fuera del colegio porque se ve mejor sin uniforme.
-T: y tú, ¿Por qué te dibujaste así?
-Jerónimo: ja ja, se ve chistoso…ahora dibujo más y mejor.
-T: no te preocupes por la forma que dibujas, solo quiero saber por qué, por ejemplo ¿Por
qué te dibujaste así lo ojitos?
- Jerónimo: porque pensé que eran grandes
-T: si, tú tienes ojos grandes y bonitos
-T: y tu Felipe, ¿Por qué te dibujaste así?
-Juan: porque así soy, aunque ahora dibujo mejor que eso.
- Jerónimo: Ja ja los ojos parecen de miedo
-Juan: Ja ja…ahora dibujo mejor que eso.
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In a similar way, the backside of students‟ interview shows the way students used English
and Spanish to write and invent words, as means to respond to an authentic purpose in their
community. As consequence of such practice, students used other modes as oral interactions and
their conventional writing to generate their “best guesses, their theories or hypothesis, based on
their perceptions and current understandings of the world, and how it works” (Ferreiro, 1990) to
learn and think for themselves, and to communicate their intended meanings. Additionally,
children language inventions disclose the experiences, knowledge and beliefs that they have
about literacy and language within their world as a mean to “make sense with intentionality and
purposefulness” Harste, Burke and Woodward, 1984 (as cited in Whitmore et al., 2005, p. 299).
In this respect, students took risks to figure out how language works and how it relates to them in
order to increase learning through authentic and powerful meanings.
The following image shows the backside of the interview, where students answered some
questions in respect to their personal preferences and the way they invented words, and used
Spanish.
Figure 24 . Data source 2. Student artifact. Interview in pairs backside. May 12, 2016.
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As part of the inquiry-based learning promoted in this research, individual reflections
emerged to describe the experience of using multimodal modes within the interview. One of the
students acknowledged how interesting was to do an interview in the English class, sharing with
his friends and learning the language, while inquiring. His reflection leads me to assert that
language learning either, learning to write, read or to speak, never occurs in a vacuum. On the
contrary, when learners are immersed in rich and authentic functional language within different
literacy events, as is in this particular case, the interview, children draw on their cultural and
social context, and the multiple modes available for using both languages, where their “literate
identities reflect the influence of cultural and social practices” (Gee, 1990). In this respect, the act
of engaging in literacy events allow children to portray and position themselves in relation to
their world and their learning experiences, nurturing not solely the multiple ways they can use
language to learn and interact with others, but also shaping their identities as language and
literacy learners. The next image shows a piece of data from an individual reflection done in one
of the students‟ journals.
Figure 25. Data source 3. Students‟ Journal: Describing inquiry experience. May 13th
, 2016.
Taking into account the wide range of modes students were capable of use throughout the
inquiry projects, it is noteworthy to explain that they also drew on images from the school web
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site and the yearbook of 1979 and 2015. They also took pictures of people from the school
community and shared orally what they found, with regard to the topic they chose to inquire: The
history of my school community. In this sense, students‟ literacy practices involved “framing
images and making meaning through a variety of sign or semiotic systems and modalities”
(Kress, 1997) that unfolded the many avenues that language possess through which messages,
meaning making and representations are brought to the EFL classroom. The upcoming collage
shows the multimodal modes students used to show their learning outcomes with their classmates
by means of oral presentations and readings aloud.
Figure 26. Data source 4. Students sharing inquiry and learning outcomes through multimodal representations. May
20th
and November 15th
, 2016
Another important aspect of multimodal representations and inquiry endeavors of students
has to do with the variety of multimodal and expository texts they created collaboratively. At the
end of each project, I showed them some options they might use to represent their outcomes and
create a type of text. Students chose to create posters to make a museum that tells the history of
the school, a timeline and biographies, since they already had used such type of texts in second
grade. As result of students‟ collaborative inquiry, the multimodal texts they created become in
“meaningful acts […] that combined various modes and forms that afford [children] to more
varied ways to express themselves, their knowledge and their learning” (Flood, Heat & Lapp,
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1997). Moreover, the inquiry-based learning environment they experienced allowed them to draw
and combine Spanish and English, and modes of meaning making available, as they naturally
address them in their daily lives.
For instance, the elaboration of the “Liceo Cervantes Time Line” as a multimodal and
expository text implied the “use of modes as means for making meaning and allow [students] to
get away of making language too general” (Kress, 2012). In this sense, the timeline included
written information and pictures to make meaning as the result of students‟ constant inquiry,
where images of the yearbooks of 1979 and 2015, and information from web sites were used to
represent the past events of the school. In addition, students had to take pictures to other
community members that were not in the previous sources, in order to shape the whole history of
the community by adding current aspects of the school community.
The way students used the local knowledge of their school community to feed their
inquiries, turned the school context into a valuable source, since it provided third graders with
rich content of socio-cultural knowledge that was mobilized for academic learning through
inquiry-based activities. In this regard, students created multimodal and expository texts namely
posters, biographies and a timeline, in order to describe and expand the information about
historical events of the school and community helpers. Such texts were the result of the way
students drew on multiple modes of literacy to make and co-construct meaning, which turned
their roles from passive learners to be agents, owners and authors of their language and literacy
learning. The way students accomplished such type of texts arose from the environment they
were immersed in, which fostered in-depth engagement with topics that mattered to them and
valued their previous knowledge and experiences with their worlds.
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The next images display the multimodal and expository texts that students created as the
result of their construction of socio cultural knowledge within their school community.
Figure 27. Data Source 5. Students‟ Artifacts. Multimodal texts created by the students.
Posters
Tineline
Biographies
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In addition to the modes students used to create their multimodal texts, a reflection
concerning other modes students drew on, during the oral presentations of the timeline to broader
members of their classroom was transcribed in one of my field notes. In such reflection I noticed
how collaboration, shaped the construction of meaning among students to make a multimodal
text as the one from the precious image. This moment was relevant for the development of
learners social situated multimodal literacies because they employed “gestural, oral, visual, audio
and spatial patterns” (Kress, 2000b) to express the historical facts of the school community
regardless their facility with English pronunciation, and showed their inner need to share the
investigations they did. That is to say, that students‟ literacy development is promoted through
social activity, talking and other multimodal modes, as sources that propel learners need to
communicate and share meaning. Such assertion is reiterated by Street (1990), who considers
multiple literacies as the variety of forms and semiotic systems that people draw on to make
sense of their worlds, instead of mono-modal sources as print texts that reject the meaningful and
varied modes that language has. The subsequent lines describe the transcription of my field note,
where students used social situated multimodal literacies to represent and share local knowledge
of their school.
The session of today was rewarding with regard to the attitude of my students; they were
so willing to work together and supported all members of their group to accomplish a
common goal. They enhanced their abilities of working cooperatively, while designing
the timeline and made meaning through multimodal literacy.
Students combined different modes of meaning such as L2, L1, and images. L2
highlighted central aspects of the image and provided it a context, and the image was
powerful enough to show what happened in each year according to written descriptions.
The timeline students made is a multimodal text, where students mixed multiple semiotic
resources to make meaning of their school community history and create new
understandings of their realities.
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Students were so receptive to my support. They wanted to use English in a coherent mode. The
presentation of the timeline to broader members of the school community involved the use of
multimodal literacy through semiotic resources such as language, gestures at the moment of
speaking, images, oral and visual that helped students to construct socio-cultural knowledge of
their school.
Field notes (Timeline presentation) - August 16th
, 2016
The following subcategory Students as owners and agents of their language and literacy
learning is a byproduct of the social situated multimodal literacies students used for carrying out
their inquiry projects and construct knowledge. Since collaborative inquiry within this research
allowed students to bring their social worlds that tapped their literacy and language abilities as
they so naturally do in their daily lives, they become agents and owners of their own learning,
which shift language and literacy experiences into long-life learning process. When students had
to talk and make decisions with respect to the topic they wanted to research, and the resources
they use to collect the data, they engaged in decision-making processes and discussions to fulfill
their need of looking for information to understand the historical facts of their school community.
As consequence of such interactions, third graders “nurture[d] agency […] and honor[ed]
their unique construction of knowledge, integrating choices and ownership in the curriculum
(Wolk, 2008, p. 121) to reach common goals of their project. In this regard, this result showed me
how paramount is to understand the way students‟ agency and ownership enlighten a more
democratic construction of curriculum, if learners‟ expectations and needs are recognized and
understood. On the other hand, students assumed collaborative roles to search tools that
evidenced the knowledge they had in relation to the use of web sites like Facebook and YouTube;
the local information that school community helpers might have and the print texts that the
library offers to them. The previous knowledge students have is precisely what Short & Burke
(1991) acknowledge when “students have understandings about life [that] come from their social
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and cultural communities in which they live and learn both inside and outside the school” (p.35).
Some of the interactions between students and me were transcribed in my field notes as follows:
T: Bueno. Ahora vamos a hablar sobre las herramientas o instrumentos que ustedes
podrían usar para dar respuesta a las siete preguntas que ustedes han formulado. Van a
pensar y vamos a compartir nuestras ideas con todo el grupo.
S1: Podemos preguntarle a alguien, como a los profesores por ejemplo.
T: Que buena idea.
S2: Si, yo creo que, como preguntarle a profesores que lleven mucho tiempo en el colegio,
podemos ir a la sala y hablar con ellos.
T: ¿Alguna otra idea?
S3: profe, también le podemos preguntar al padre.
T: aja, buena idea, él también es parte de nuestra comunidad escolar. ¿Alguien más tiene
ideas sobre que herramientas utilizar para dar respuesta a nuestras preguntas?
S4: Pues aparte de preguntarles a los profesores, podemos buscar en internet sobre el
colegio.
S5: Podemos ver videos en YouTube o entrar a Facebook a buscar cosas del colegio.
T: buena idea, me parece un buen recurso también. Bueno, sigo escuchando más ideas…
S6: Podemos ir a la biblioteca y buscar un libro que diga, por ejemplo: “Historia del
Colegio” o algo así.
T: ok, que buenas ideas chicos…
Field notes. May 19th, 2016.
After students interviewed to the academic supervisor and the librarian about historical
facts of the school, students‟ sense of agency was fostered within an inquiry mindset, where they
used English and Spanish as multi modal modes for authentic communication. In this regard,
Pineda (2001) contends that “content, inquiry and language processes interact and benefit one
another” (p. 16) during the moment in which learners become inquirers. Additionally, students
nurtured their agency abilities by acquiring real tasks and responsibilities, which provided them
with challenges and questions that added significance to their wonders. Moreover, these
experiences allowed them to be agents of experiences, rather than simply “undergoers of
experiences” (Bandura, 2001, p. 4) to fit in a learning community that share common goals.
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In the same way, when children were doing the interview, they experienced an authentic
collaborative inquiry environment that addressed socio-cultural elements of their school, while
they were in charge of accomplishing common goals through collaborative work. During some
moments of the interview, some of the answers provided by the academic supervisor astonished
most of the students, which ignited their natural curiosity and triggered learning agency, as they
started to ask more questions regarding their interest. In this respect, students had the freedom to
express opinions, considering matters that were part of their realities. For instance, the next
transcription of one of my field notes, shows the surprised students had when they knew that the
King and Queen of Spain came to inaugurate their school, as consequence they did comments
and asked more questions about such event. In this respect, when students become active agents
within the exploration of their worlds, many tensions and questions arose about topics that
puzzled them to “investigate those questions or tensions and create new understandings, new
questions and issues that they want to explore further (Short et al. 1996, p. 257).
Another moment were students became agents of their own language and literacy learning
occurred when they agreed on using English and Spanish to address the questions of the
interview, and the manner they interacted orally with the academic supervisor. They seemed very
confident, since the questions they created were all connected within an inquiry environment
were all they wanted to be part of. The next picture shows the moment when students did the
interview with its corresponding transcript below.
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Figure 28. Data source 6. Students interviewing to the academic supervisor as one of the local sources of knowledge.
May 19th
, 2016
T: Ok, question No. 2. Martin, Felipe, Jose Cadena and Miguel. Who is going to ask the
question?
S1: ¡Yo! , When was our school community created?
Guest Speaker: Pues el colegio en este momento tiene 82 años.
Students: ¡Oh!
Guest Speaker: O sea que se creó en 1934 con el nombre de Liceo de la Infancia. El
dueño era José Joaquín Casas. Luego se le cambia el nombre a Liceo de Cervantes porque
él era muy admirador de la obra de Miguel de Cervantes y luego, ya lo compra la
comunidad y se mantiene con ese mismo nombre.
S2: Es que hay un Liceo de Cervantes llamado Retiro y este, que es el Norte.
Guest Speaker: Si claro, pero primero nació este colegio, pero dentro de la misma
comunidad se crearon 3 colegios que se llaman Liceo de Cervantes, El Retiro, que queda
en el barrio el Retiro y hay otro Liceo de Cervantes en Barranquilla, pero es lo mismo, de
la misma comunidad.
S3: ¿Y el que lo fundó, todavía sigue vivo?
Guest Speaker: no, el falleció hace muchos años.
T: the group of S7, S8 and S9 does the next question. Who is going to read the question?
S4: When was the school built?
Guest Speaker: Este colegio se empezó a construir en 1976 y se termina de construir en el
año de 1979 cuando se inaugura oficialmente con la visita de los reyes de España al
colegio, Don Juan Carlos y Doña Sofía.
S5: ¿Qué?, ¿Qué?, ¿Qué?
S1: ¿Vinieron acá?
Guest Speaker: Si, allá en ese sitio, en la mitad de la cancha aterrizó un helicóptero y lo
reyes vinieron a visitar el Liceo de Cervantes
S6: ¿Los reyes de España?, ¡En serio! (algunos los niños se paran con cara de sorpresa a
ver la cancha desde la ventana donde aterrizó el helicóptero en aquella época)
T: ¡Que información tan interesante! Ok, boys, what is the next question?
S6: ¿Y los reyes de España todavía siguen vivos?
Field note (Interview to the Academic Supervisor) – May 19
th, 2016.
Since socio cultural sources of knowledge were essential to fulfill students‟ wonders
during the interview, they reflected upon their experiences and positioned themselves as
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114
responsible agents of the inquiries to accomplish common goals. Similarly, student‟s agency
allowed students to take action and promoted collaborative work, when they were asked to
present the information gathered by using the modes of their preference. As part of these literacy
events, collaboration and multimodal literacy were key aspects for students to accomplish the
goals proposed in this stage of their inquiries. In so doing it, they distributed their tasks and each
one was in charge of writing, drawing, helping each other or looking for images to nurture their
multimodal and expository text.
Students did such a great job. They talked, advised each other with respect to the use
written English and the colors they should use for their drawings. They used their dictionaries to
check the spelling of words and asked for my help when they needed it. As result of their
collaborative work, they understood that all members of the group were important to accomplish
the project. Moreover, some students helped other groups, who had not finished at time due they
could not agree to carry out the task properly. The next image shows the moment when students
worked collaboratively to create their first multimodal text and presented it to the class;
accompanied with the transcription of a group reflection about their performance in collaborative
work, and some agency traits of their language and literacy learning.
Figure 29. Data source 7. Students‟ Artifacts. Collaborative work and agency traits in students‟ language learning
and literacy events. August 22nd, 2016.
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T: Bueno, ahora vamos a reflexionar sobre lo que hicimos durante la primera parte de
nuestro proyecto de indagación. ¿Qué cosas creen que hicimos muy bien?
S1: Los posters del museo de historia del liceo nos quedaron bonitos
S2: La forma en que expresamos lo que tuvimos que decir en Inglés contar la historia del
colegio.
T: Bueno, ¿Qué otra opinión, tienen respecto a las cosas que hicimos bien en nuestro
proyecto?
S3: nos fue bien, porque pudimos aprender más palabras en inglés y la historia del
colegio.
T: Buenos ahora vamos a pensar en los problemas que ustedes tuvieron cuando estuvieron
haciendo la indagación.
S4: Cuando yo me hice con Alberto estábamos un poquito distraídos y Julián nos ayudó
escribir nuestro mini-poster.
T: ¿Alguna otra opinión?
S5: Mi grupo de trabajo estuvo muy desorganizado, Nicolás estaba muy distraído y
jugando, ellos no me ayudaron mucho
S6: ¡distraído yo!:
S7: Yo me puse nervioso en la presentación del museo de historia del colegio.
T: ¿Algo más
S8: Que Juan José y Michael son los mejores ayudantes del mundo
T. ¿Por qué?
S8: Porque trabajamos muy bien y ellos me ayudaron a dibujar.
S9: Nosotros peleamos mucho porque nos sabíamos quién iba a escribir y a leer. Si Juan
David, Felipe o yo…Al final, fue por tu ayuda que nos pudimos organizar.
T: ok, bueno…Ahora, ¿Qué cosas fueron positivas o buenas durante todo el proyecto de
indagación?
S10: Qué aprendimos a hacer posters en inglés.
S11: Cuando nos pusimos de acuerdo en todo, nos pusimos un propósito, que es trabajar
en lo nuestro, que si alguien necesita algo, le ayudamos, y así terminamos todo como un
equipo que se ayuda entre sí.
Students‟ Journal-Transcription of group reflection, August 23rd, 2016.
The other element that the present subcategory elucidates is related to the way
students became owners of their language and literacy learning, when students inquired
through other multimodal modes such as viewing, making personal connections to convey
meaning upon the information they found in another local source of information. In this
case, students read the yearbook of 1979 in black and white images, and compared past
events, people and places to the way the school is nowadays. This literacy event allowed
them to make three different kinds of connections: text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-
world (Keene & Zimmerman, 1997).
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The text-to-text has to do when readers remember other things they have read in
others book, as in this case students looked at the hairstyle and clothes of the first enrolled
students from the yearbook of 1979 and remembered them to the way „the Beatles‟ band
members looked like. The text-to-self connection is a highly personal moment that a
reader makes between a piece of reading material and the readers‟ own experience of life.
Such connection took place when one of the students considered that would be good, if
they were allowed to use normal clothes instead of using uniforms and employed the
English word „cool‟ to give more meaning to his opinion. The text-to-world connections
are larger connections that a reader brings to a reading situation and go far beyond
personal experiences, as in the particular case, when my students are surprise because
their first grade teacher had worked in the school before 1979, and expressed their desire
of having her as one of their current teachers.
The previous connections awoke prior knowledge and experiences of learners by
means of their experiences, opinions, and emotions, as a good point of departure for
developing ownership in their language and literacy learning. The next field note shows
the way the aforementioned connections took place within the literacy event and the
students‟ sense of ownership.
T: ¿En qué forma es este anuario diferente de otros que ustedes hayan visto?
S3: profe, en este anuario, los estudiantes se parecen a los Beatles. Ahora no…
S5: si profe, ahora los estudiantes deben usar uniformes y no pueden tener el pelo así
como ellos.
S8: ¡sí!, ¡miren el pelo!, parecen los Beatles.
S4: Ojala nosotros pudiéramos vestir sin uniforme, como lo hacen en los colegios de
estados Unidos. Sera más „cool‟ venir con otra ropa, es que con el uniforme nos vemos
todos iguales… ¡Qué aburrido!
T: Aquí está la profesora Pepita, la que nombró nuestro coordinador ¿Se acuerdan?
S6: ¡Sí!, ¡yo la dibuje en el museo de la historia del colegio que hicimos!
T: Miren como era. Bueno, acá esta la profesora Rosalba.
S10: ¿Rosalba Mendoza?
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T: Si, Rosalba Mendoza.
S11: ¿Ella lleva todo ese tiempo en el colegio?
T: Si, ella está desde el año 1979.
Students: ¡Que!
T: Si, bueno, ¿Qué piensan de la siguiente pregunta?: ¿Qué elementos de este anuario son
similares a los de ahora?
S8: Que Rosalba sigue siendo una profesora de nuestro colegio. Ella fue nuestra tutora en
primero B.
S11: ¡Nuestra profesora es una leyenda!
S8: ¡Eso es genial! ¡Rosalba es una leyenda!
S6: ojalá, ella fuera nuestra profe otra vez…
Field Note- July 19
th, 2016
In a similar attempt to be owners of their learning, students took the initiative of
presenting their results in English to teachers and students from other grades. Children used their
abilities to think and communicate through the “sign systems as ways of making and sharing
meaning in their lives, including music, art, movement, drama and oral and written language”
(Short et al. 1996, p. 43). As part of this situation, students used written and oral communication
to present the timeline as a whole group, which enhanced their sense of ownership in their
language learning. Such literacy event encouraged them to use integrated ad meaningful literacy
practices to construct meaning as they learn language and literacy. In a similar way, the sign
systems students drew on to make sense of their investigations allowed them to experience an
authentic context in which they could excel using language and literacy, while learning with and
from each other through dialogic inquiry. Moreover, third graders became into self-regulated
learners since they engaged and took active participation in their inquiry projects by unfolding
their multimodal literacy practices as modes to support and develop their language learning,
instead of demonstrating the acquisition of new skills.
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The image below showed the moment students as authors displayed their inquiry
outcomes and collaboratively presented the socio cultural knowledge they were able to re-create
through the „Liceo Cervantes Timeline‟.
Figure 30. Data Source 8. Oral presentation of the Liceo Cervantes timeline.
Another moment where students shared the responsibility for selecting the topics to
investigate and the tools to accomplish such task was in the second work unit. Third graders drew
on their KWL chart to address their learning with respect to the previous inquiry project, and
linked them to new wonders they liked to pursue, taking into account the umbrella term of
„school community‟. In this sense, students made decisions and decided to inquire about some
teachers of the school, so they talked in pairs to choose a teacher they wanted to interview. Such
moment evidenced a “dialogic process” Wells (2002), where they considered others peers
perspectives “to support each other learning and inquiry” Short and Burke (1991, p. 68), as part
of the development of collaboration skills. The following image shows the KWL chart of one of
the students who agreed to their classmate to know more about the personal life of the co-
existence supervisor from elementary section. This chart has three columns, but for showing
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learners‟ sense of ownership, just two of them are displayed. The first one shows learning
outcomes of their previous inquiry project and the second, the new topic they wanted to learn.
Figure 31. Data Source 9. Students Artifacts. KWL Chart. September 28th
, 2016
Subsequently, students made a set of questions to interview the community helpers they
chose. Third graders used Spanish to create and write the questions through a constant interaction
with me to shape their inquirers. Such interaction guided them to work within their zone of
proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) as a scaffolding process where knowledge is not simply
handed down from one to the other, but as a reciprocal practice where “meaning is […]
constructed through joint activity rather than being transmitted from teacher to learner” (Lee and
Smagorinsky, 2000, p. 2).
Additionally, they asked for the permission of community helpers to respond to their
questions and carried out the interview in Spanish. Before the interview, students talk about the
way they had to make the interview and took turns to ask questions to their interviewee.
Similarly, students were very engaged during the interview, since they had close connection to
their interviewees. As result, third graders were able to carry out the interview with enthusiasm
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and a friendly attitude. Such features, allowed them to complete their work and know more about
their teachers. In this respect, Wells (2002) asserts that the sense of ownership students developed
through collaborative inquiry, “enable [students] to sustain their engagement and to develop
strategies of responsible collaboration that lead to successful completion [of their investigations]”
(p. 6). The next images shows the manner in which children worked by pairs and interviewed the
community helper they chose to inquire about his personal and professional life.
Figure 32. Data source 10. Students as owners of their inquiries. October 3rd
, 2016.
T: Bueno chicos. ¿Ustedes a quién van a entrevistar?
S1: A Orlando, nuestro profe de Educación física.
T: Y, ¿Cuántas preguntas llevan?
S2: Pues vamos en la primera. Le vamos a preguntar en que año nació.
T: ¡Muy bien! buena pregunta. ¿Y que más les gustaría preguntarle a él?
S1: Pues, pues, queremos preguntarle Por qué empezó la carrera como
Profesor de Educación Física y cuántos años lleva trabajando en el colegio.
T: Excelente…esas preguntas están muy interesantes.
S2: También queremos preguntarle a que universidad fue y si tiene hijos.
T: Si claro, o también puedes preguntarle en que universidad hizo su carrera.
T: En ese momento un estudiante de otro grupo interviene para ayudar diciendo:
S3: Yo les puedo ayudar con esa respuesta, Orlando tiene un hijo.
Data Source 11. Field note - September 29th, 2017
The previous transcript also evidenced the scaffolding process that students were part of,
when one of them helped a group to complete one its questions. This means that learners are
capable of assisting peers with first-hand information when doing inquiry-based activities, which
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awakens developmental processes in children that can operate, as argued by Miller (1993), only
when “they interact with others in their environment and cooperation with other children”.
In this regard, learners turned their roles from receptors of information to be knowledge
holders of their social and cultural community and contributors of other classmates‟ inquiries. In
this sense, Newman, Griffin and Cole (1989) contend that “we cannot lose sight of the
continually role of the child” (p.58) as agents, owners and possessors of knowledge that enrich
and transform their individual and collaborative inquiry experiences, while develop a variety of
literacy practices embedded in social and cultural assets of their context.
In a similar way, the interaction I had with my students in the above data source, provides
insights about my role of teacher as a “Community teacher” different from the “banking concept”
of education (Freire, 2011). In this regard, I could construct and environment that encouraged
peer collaboration, articulate the local knowledge of the school community via inquiry-based
practices and oriented my students to be owners of their own learning process. Similarly, the
community teacher addresses the idea that “learners are active in the creation of their knowledge,
proactive in the use of knowledge and interactive in social contexts that give that knowledge
meaning and value” (Murrell, 2001, p. 3)
To sum up this category, the emerging multimodal literacy practices were essential in
students‟ meaning making of their school community, while inquiring collaboratively through the
pursuit of questions that are significant in their lives. Similarly, language was linked to social and
cultural constructions, as the result of what students already know and the new information they
obtained from their local context for “knowledge building” (Wells, 2002, p. 8), through
collaborative interactions among children and their teacher. In this sense, students as active
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multimodal literacy users were able to collect images of people and historical facts, by either
taking photographs or coping images from internet or conventional texts to support the co-
construction of multimodal texts, which enriched and recreated the local knowledge, positioning
them as agents and owners of their own language learning.
Expressing feelings and learning of collaborative inquiry experiences. This second
category emerged as the result of students‟ collaborative inquiry practices and the use multimodal
modes to build new knowledge regarding the local information they found. Such experiences,
strengthened their confidence during their language and literacy learning, bringing up the
expression of their feelings in relation to the way they performed as community inquirers.
Similarly, students‟ reactions and feelings allowed them to strengthen their confidence as authors
and language users, since they felt part of a collective endeavor that made worth their efforts and
previous knowledge of the inquiry topic they research.
This category presents a variety of students‟ feelings, perceptions and reactions
concerning the inquiry projects they carried out and the meaningful learning experiences they
experienced, since the literacy events they were immersed included the social dimension of
learners. In this regard, a social situated perspective of literacy allowed third graders to naturally
show the “values, attitudes, feelings and social relationships” (Street, 1993, p. 12) that any social
activity entails. Likewise, the reflections and interactions within the classes led third graders to
see themselves as active learners of language, users of literacy, inquirers and decision – makers.
The present category is underpinned by two subcategories named: Valuing collaborative work
and Acknowledging language and literacy learning.
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Valuing collaborative work through students‟ reactions, feelings and perceptions took
place before, during and after students‟ shared their multimodal texts. They talked about how to
present their inquiries and decided through a common agreement doing oral presentations to
teachers and students from other grades, as well as displaying their texts in the writing exhibition
of the school. They also, published their timeline in the institutional magazine of the school. The
next transcription of my field notes reflects the manner students give value to the importance of
collaborative work, my students and I talked about the development of their inquiries and took
decisions about the project, and the next conversation was transcribed:
T: Bueno, como ustedes han encontrado información sobre la historia del colegio, yo
quiero saber si ustedes quieren indagar más sobre este tema ¿Qué piensan?
S1: si, teacher, yo quiero que sigamos buscando información porque me parece chévere
saber sobre el pasado del colegio. Además en mi grupo no ha ido muy bien.
S2: si, si vieron los dibujos que yo hice, me quedaron bonitos porque Richard me ayudo.
El colorea muy bonito.
S3: En mi grupo también, nosotros nos pusimos de acuerdo y terminamos rápido, y
cuando yo termine, me sentí muy bien porque pude ayudar a Juan, porque sus compañeros
estaban jugando y no le ayudaron mucho.
T: Bueno, ¿Qué más piensan los demás?
S3: Si teacher, yo creo que debemos seguir averiguando más cosas porque este no es el
único colegio de los padres agustinos y falta incluir las cosas que han pasado hace poco en
el colegio, por ejemplo que ahora el colegio tiene niñas, eso es importante…
S4: ¡Uy! ¡Sí! mi hermanita Carolina, entro a kínder el año pasado.
Students: ¡Sí!, sigamos buscando más información, se acuerdan que Cecilia nos dijo que
había un anuario con información del colegio…ahí podemos encontrar más cosas.
T: ok, ¡súper!, entonces organicemos lo que vamos a hacer…
Data Source 12. Field note – September 5
th, 2016
As it is evidenced in the previous piece of data, students valued their collaborative efforts
and felt encouraged to be active and informed community agents to learn best since language
learning connects strongly with their school community context. In this respect, Wells (2002)
believes that when students are “affectively and intellectually engaged [the ] problems have no
single answer and there is not an all knowing authority”, which implies the importance of
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following the inquiry needs of students beyond the classroom walls to let their literacies and
learning take the paths according what matter to them.
In a similar way, students decided to make a timeline as part of their previous experiences
in second grade to represent the historical information they gathered from their inquiries. They
worked in groups and completed their multimodal text. Afterwards, I talked to them and heard
their ideas about sharing their pieces of work to other members of the community. The next
conversation was transcribed:
T: Bueno y ahora, ¿De qué manera van a empezar a compartir su línea del tiempo sobre la
historia del colegio?
S1: Podemos presentarla en una izada de bandera, cada niño presenta el año que le
correspondió hacer.
S2: si y cada uno va pasando al frente hasta que la línea queda completa.
T: Esa es una muy buena idea. Aunque tenemos que averiguar cuando es la próxima izada
de bandera, creo que ya no tenemos más izadas de bandera.
S4: Profe, tengo una idea, podemos invitar a los profes y a otros estudiantes de la clase
para que vengan a vernos y escucharnos.
S5: Teacher, o también podemos poner la línea del tiempo en la revista quijotadas que nos
dan al final del año escolar y así los estudiantes de bachillerato y otros profesores la
podrían ver.
S6: ¡Sí!, y nuestros papas también la pueden ver.
S7: ¡Uy sí!, que bien, todo nuestro trabajo lo podrán ver todos en el colegio.
S8: Si, además nosotros trabajamos juntos para hacer la línea del tiempo, nos quedó
bonita.
S9: aja, todos buscamos información, recortamos, escribimos y pegamos la línea del
tiempo afuera del salón.
T: Claro chicos, es un esfuerzo de todos, además ustedes trabajaron juntos y se pusieron
de acuerdo en muchas cosas.
Data Source 13. Field note-September 14th, 2016
The previous piece of data shows how students joined their ideas to keep working
collaboratively, where some of them adapted easily to the classroom, when their thoughts
mattered. As result, learners can lessen initial feeling of isolation by interacting in their zones of
proximal development, where peers‟ ideas awake others thoughts to contribute and shape a
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common endeavor. This situation, allows the creation of comfortable and friendly classroom
environments, as well as emotional sides of learning and identity.
Similarly, the following piece of data, presents the way on of the students perceived his
performance while he inquired collaboratively during the development of both inquiry projects.
The student highlighted the fact of knowing what topic to search about and how well he worked
to his classmate to accomplish his inquiry projects. This means that when students are exposed to
collaborative practices and have the choice to learn what they want, they are able to use language
to be agents and decision makers in order to fulfill their learning needs.
Figure 33. Data source 14. Students‟ artifact: Describing inquiry experience .November 10th
, 2016
Another important feature of students valuing their collaborative work entails the
relevance of working collaboratively to overcome difficulties that they faced during the inquiry
project. For instance, in the next piece of data, one of the students acknowledged his classmates‟
support to accomplish the assigned work, since he struggled to make it. In this regard, students
exchanged experiences and knowledge through their zones of proximal development, since
learning is in some way collaborative Vygotsky (1987), particularly when it takes place in
inquiry processes and involves the enterprise of authentic questions and learning as the
exploration of socio-cultural knowledge of the students‟ school community.
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Figure 34. Data source 15. Student Journal. Describing inquiry experience. November 10th
, 2016
After students shared their timeline through oral presentations and published it the
institutional magazine, each student received a copy of the magazine. They immediately showed
their happiness, awesomeness and proudness of being part of the 2nd
issue of Quijotadas
Magazine as authors, inquirers and English language users. Then, students wrote their journals in
Spanish for authentic expression of their thinking to reflect about the publication of the timeline.
Students‟ feelings and reactions emerged showing how relevant was for students to be part of the
inquiry project. The following pieces of data show the publication of the timeline in the
institutional magazine and students‟ reflections where they acknowledged their experience as
authors, owners and agents of their collaborative inquiry experiences.
Figure 35. Data Source 16. Students‟ artifact: Timeline. October 15, 2016
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Figure 36. Data Source 17. Students‟ Journal: Expressing feelings. October 16, 2016
The previous students‟ reflection evidenced how they value their collective efforts all in
order to show their investigation of the history of the school, through different sources of socio-
cultural knowledge they possessed, namely English language, literacy and inquiry skills.
Similarly, students felt acknowledged, famous and proud of their work, since they adopted
common challenges from their real world to “cultivate a context of cooperation and community
building” (Independent Together, 2003, p. 63) as an opportunity to involve them in the
construction of the language and literacy curriculum taking into account their needs, wants and
learning expectations.
Additionally, students‟ expression of feelings attains relevant aspects of language
learning, as in this particular case, literacy as a social situated perspective. According to Guthrie
(1996), literacy learning “links the personal/motivational needs to the social milieu in which
these needs might be fulfilled and to the potential of literacy, as an avenue for gaining
knowledge” (p. 435). Additionally, the way students felt within the development of challenging
literacy and inquiry activities give them insights to be aware of their own progress when they
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have specific goals and maintain a positive motivation in school. In the same way, when children
participate in various activities where they read, talk, discover and construct meaning, and then
share that meaning with others, they can experience literacy by themselves to convey their ideas
and express their feelings. As consequences, learners will be successful in classrooms activities,
where language is channel for constructing meaning in multiple ways.
The following excerpt from field notes is a sample of other type of feeling the students
experienced when worked in groups to search information about the history of the school in
English and Spanish within their EFL class. Students acknowledged how fun was to discover the
school history through different sources of information and how lucky were them of learning
English in this way, while other students were learning English according to the normal class
plans.
…Similarly, students valued their efforts and showed pride about the publication they did
of their time line as result of the inquiry project. They felt content about others work and
appraised each other as a way to recognize the importance of working collaboratively.
They also valued the fact that while other students were having the normal classes, they
were so lucky of being inquiring about the history of the school and how fun had been to
explore the school through walking, looking information in the internet, interviewing
people and checking the first yearbook of the school.
Data source 18. Field Notes - October 17th
, 2016
By the previous observations of my classroom, I understood that students conceived this
inquiry project as a way to put in practice the socio-cultural knowledge of the school that they
own, the use of English and the multiple modes that literacy offer them to make meaning and to
co-construct new understandings of their realities. Thus, literacy embraces the social, cultural and
personal knowledge of students when opportunities to work together and share their experiences
are brought to the EFL classroom.
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Another relevant moment where students drew on to express their feelings while doing
collaborative work, was that of choosing a member of the school community to be interviewed
and know more about him/her, since the second inquiry project implied looking for information
of human assets of the school. Students chose teachers to inquire about their personal and
professional life, since they appreciate them or liked the subject they taught. Regarding the
previous fact, third graders extended the social knowledge of people they admired or liked within
the school, since they had the chance to ask them questions written up by their own and nurture
their development of English and Spanish languages.
Additionally, the literacy event students were part of, as this particular case, the interview,
created dynamic tensions between their language learning and personal constructions of literacy,
since they were able to orchestrate communication and social skills, attitudes and time
management to successful accomplish their inquiries. In this regard, language and literacy were
not isolated practices anymore and became sources for meaning construction that implied “the
interrelation between the knower and what is to be known” (Rosenblatt, 1976, p. 27), where third
graders connected their knowledge background to what they wanted to know within their social
realities.
Figure 37. Data source 19. Students‟ Journal: Explaining inquiry choices. November 10th
, 2016
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The second subcategory Acknowledging language and literacy learning relates directly to
the way students used the language for different purposes, since they were able to interact,
inquire communicate and convey meanings in English and Spanish by means of multimodal
literacy, including writings compositions, drawings, oral presentations and multimodal texts. The
previous experiences developed in the EFL classroom allowed me to observe two types of
learning that my students experienced within their inquiry projects: learning about language and
learning through language (Halliday, 1994). Such learning is the consequence of students‟
publication in the school magazine, sharing their understandings and supporting each other to use
language in a coherent mode. Consequently, the school context where students experienced such
learning does not devoid of the socio-cultural value, which grants the semiotic constructions to
provide meaning and understandings of third graders inquiry projects.
Learning about language, took place when students wrote the third column of their KWL
to describe what they have learnt during the first inquiry project. For instance, Diego
acknowledged that he learnt to speak English when he presented the timeline to other members of
the school and write a biography in English about the community member he chose with his
partner. As part of this experience, I provided the context in which students could interact and
construct their own concepts and ideas through the language use to maximize their potential of
meanings.
Apart from learning about language, students also shaped their confidence when they
experienced literacy events as the interview they made and shared the outcomes of their
investigations in English. Therefore, such experiences that only can begin when inquiry is part if
the EFL classroom as the particular case of this study, are essential to build up learners‟
confidence to success in their academic life. Moreover, the resulting learning outcomes of
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students showed how working together was part of the good results they acknowledged, as Short
et al (1996) contends that “students [work] collaboratively in supporting each other‟s learning
and inquiry” (p.68) and recognize other as important part of the group. The following image
presents the learning about language that third graders experienced when presenting information
in English and writing his biography.
Figure 38. Data source 20. Student artifact: KWL Chart. November 15th, 2016
Another trait of students learning about language and literacy took place when the
students were writing their biographies in English to display them in the writing exhibition of the
school. Since I recorded most of the observations during the projects, for then, writing my field
notes, the next oral interaction among my students took place, where they evidenced how much
they know about English use when writing their biographies.
While I was supervising the work of the whole class, one student came to me and asked
for help.
S1: Teacher!
T: Yes, what do you need?
S1: How do you write “estuvo” en Inglés? es que quiero escribir que Aida estuvo
estudiando en la universidad por 5 años.
at that moment one students came to student 1 and told him.
S2: se escribe “was”, te acuerdas que para he y she, se usa was…cuando es pasado.
S1: Thanks Eduardo….
T: Wow! Eduardo, me encanta que ayudes a tus compañeros…
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Data Source 21. Field note-November 2nd, 2016
The second type of learning students describe was learning through language. Such
learning experiences are described in detail in the below image, which is part of the publication
of students‟ timeline. Learning through language entails the way students learned much more
than the English language. How they went beyond the language use to discover many
sociocultural events that framed interesting historical facts of their school, which strengthened
their sense of belonging to their school community and expanded their knowledge about inquiry
practices as collecting data through interviews, search on the Internet and the first yearbook of
the school.
This type of learning, demonstrates how inquiry-based learning situated the literacy
practices of students within a social cultural perspective that nurture the EFL field of meaningful
learning experiences, through which they can uncover what they really want to learn and make
sense of what they learn within their social context being the main actors of the development of
their education.
Figure 39. Data source 22. Students‟ artifact: Publication of the Timeline October 15th
, 2016
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133
Another feature of students‟ learning through language is presented in the third column of
the following KWL Chart, where students described what they learned after culminating the two
inquiry projects. In this piece of data, one of the students recognized how important was to co-
exist with the teachers, as a feeling that came from the interview did to the Art teacher, since he
felt affection toward her and enjoyed being in her class. Likewise, the student acknowledged that
he learnt to make an interview and felt more confident to present the information orally to a
specific audience.
Figure 40. Data source 23. Student artifact: KWL Chart. November 15th, 2016
This chapter has widely presented the way in which data gathered throughout the
pedagogical platform gave account of the research question that emerged from a concern that
embraced language and literacy learning in Liceo Cervantes School. The previous analysis
provided and overview of how the social situated multimodal literacy practices and the
expression of feelings and learning of collaborative inquiry, were the emerging literacy practices
third graders drew on, when they inquired collaboratively upon their academic surroundings.
Such categories, became the entry points for sense making processes, inquiry practices, EFL
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134
learning and literacy development that spread confidence, autonomy, ownership, agency,
authentic communication processes and strengthened students‟‟ collective zones of proximal
development. The findings explained throughout this chapter adhere to the conclusions,
pedagogical implications and further research presented in the following chapter.
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135
Chapter 6
Conclusions
This research was meant to describe the emerging literacy practices that students used when they
inquired collaboratively into their academic surroundings, having as theoretical reference Inquiry
and Literacy. Such a goal was addressed based on one research question: What literacy practices
emerge when third graders inquire collaboratively into their academic surroundings at a private
school in Bogota? As part of this research purpose, three specific objectives were proposed to
have more insights and respond to the research question. These were: 1) To determine the types
of literacy processes students develop when working with collaborative and inquiry-based
methodology; 2) To explore the modes that students use when they develop literacy practices
with respect to socio-cultural elements of their school surroundings; and 3) To determine how
meaning making takes place when children use literacy by means of collaborative inquiry. This
chapter presents the conclusions regarding the data analysis process and findings, the
implications, limitations and further research.
As point of departure, it is worth mentioning how students‟ school community provided
alternatives for students to unfold their language and literacy abilities through meaningful
learning environments in the EFL classroom, which also allowed me, as teacher-researcher to
make a transition from fragmented and decontextualized language practices into more enjoyable
and flexible ways to communicate what mattered to students. In this respect, the first category
that emerged to describe the way students disclosed their literacies and respond to the research
question was Social situated multimodal literacy practices.
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136
The previous category implied that third graders adopted a role of community researchers
who used a variety of modes namely drawings, writings, reading and viewing printed literacy,
searching information on the web, representing and drawing to convey and co-construct meaning
of socio-cultural knowledge present in their academic surroundings. Such role, implied the use of
language and literacy from a social dimension of learning that acknowledges children‟
interactions with their peers to develop their inquiries, flexible thinking and collaboration.
Likewise, this category also displayed students‟ authorship, agency and ownership
practices within several literacy events, namely interviews to community members, oral
presentations and the creation of multimodal and expository texts to convey and co-construct
meaning of their investigations, while they nurtured their thoughts, as entry points to use literacy
from a social dimension.
Another relevant trait of the aforementioned category entails the manner students became
authors, owners and agents of their own education within and inquiry mindset. This means, that
while students planned, organized and developed their inquiry projects, they took control of their
learning experiences and switched their roles, from receptors of knowledge to be active literacy
and language users. Similarly, the role of the teacher as the only knowledge holder within the
EFL classroom was faded and opportunities were given for students to bring authentic pieces of
personal and local knowledge, as part of their learning interests. Consequently, this category
depicts language as a “powerful mediational tool for learning activity” (Gutierrez, 2001, p. 564),
since students‟ EFL learning implied the use of English and Spanish, as paths to read their
worlds, convey and co-construct new meanings collaboratively, while they interacted within their
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
137
collective zones of proximal development through scaffolding practices among them and their
teacher (Vygotsky, 1987).
Additionally, I can conclude that the methodological practices implemented to discover
the previous category, have a wide impact within local and national EFL field, since inquiry
based-learning approach entailed democratic processes that involved all the participants in
negotiations around the phases of the inquiry projects. Thus, the inquiry based-practices that took
place within this study, increased students‟ motivation, active participation and promoted their
senses of agency and ownership to be life-long learners.
In tune with the previous conclusions, I am inclined to believe that my research work
adheres to the “emancipatory literacy” that Freire and Macedo (1987) contend, in which students
and educators become active agents of change to transform our communities of teaching and
learning and enlighten a more democratic construction of curriculum. That is to say, that third
graders were able to make meaning of their social worlds through multimodal literacy knowledge
they already possessed, while fostering their EFL learning within a social situated processes that
embraced their realities. Such experiences were displayed in the subcategory “Using
multimodality to convey meaning of socio cultural knowledge” where students were authors of
multimodal texts that allowed them to weave previous and new understandings of literacy and
language use. Additionally, it is paramount to highlight how the “emancipatory literacy” took
place in the present research, since third graders developed authentic processes of communication
to express their intended meanings using English and Spanish, and drawing to represent what
they know, learnt and felt which shaped and strengthened their literate identities within cultural
and social practices within their school community.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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Another important trait of this first category is related to the way students took active
participation into their inquiries and literacy events, as it was presented in the subcategory
“Students as agents and owners of their language and literacy learning”. In this respect, children
worked collaboratively to be agents of their literacy and learning experiences, and shared
common goals that awake that hidden knowledge, that only emerged through collaborative
inquiry and social situated literacy practices. Similarly, students developed ownership processes
in their language and literacy learning, where they felt responsible of the collaborative endeavor
they were experiencing. As result, they made different types of connections to share their
experiences and knowledge to others through oral and visual presentations of their expository
texts, namely the timeline and the biographies that evidenced their abilities to create and re-create
the socio-cultural knowledge of their school community through multiple modes.
The second category that emerged to answer my research questions was Expressing
feelings and learning of collaborative inquiry experiences. In this respect, students were
immersed in inquiry based learning experiences they never have lived before in the EFL class and
had the opportunity to explore historical facts of their school community and interact to members
of their school to know more about their personal and professional, since they felt appreciation
towards them. Such experiences, allowed them to co-construct their own meanings, strengthen
their confidence as literacy and language learners. Consequently, students were intellectually and
emotionally engaged to achieve better learning, since their personal knowledge and socio-cultural
information became into valuable sources to accomplish their inquiries and learn what really
mattered to them.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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Moreover, the expression of feelings and learning of collaborative inquiry experiences
within this category, implied students‟ reflections, where they valued their collaborative efforts
within their inquiries and showed their happiness and proudness of outcomes. Such situations
leaded me to conclude that literacy within this research involved the “values, attitudes, feelings
and social relationships” (Street 1993, p. 12) of learners which depict it as a social practice since
it includes the social dimension of children. Similarly, this category is devoted to conceive
literacy as a “community resource realized in social relationships, rather than a property of
individuals” (Barton & et al. 2000, p. 13), since students expressed their feelings and learning
after working collaboratively throughout the literacy events and inquiry projects as it was
evidenced in the subcategory “Valuing collaborative work”. In this regard, collaboration allowed
third graders to decrease their initial feelings of isolation and promoted the interaction within
their zones of proximal development, to help each other, strengthen friendship ties and
accomplish common goals. This situation brought to the EFL classroom more comfortable and
friendly learning environments, as well as emotional sides of learning and identity.
Another aspect to bear in mind to conclude this research has to do with the subcategory
“Acknowledging language and literacy learning”, as students‟ development of social situated
multimodal literacy practices entailed the use of both languages to exchange meaning and new
understandings that portrayed themselves as authors, owners and agents of their learning. As
consequence, students learnt about language and learnt through language, since they created their
own multimodal texts, worked together, supported each other to use English grammar and
vocabulary in a coherent mode, always with the support of their teacher or other peers. Classes
were dynamic and fruitful, as students worked collaboratively and were aware of their language
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
140
abilities to present their inquiries through multiple facets of language either, visually, orally or in
written form.
The previous conclusions evidence the completion of the research and specific objectives,
since students developed social multimodal literacy practices when collaborative and inquiry-
based methodology took place in the EFL class and felt confident to express their feelings and
learning, turning EFL learning into a more enduring and life-long experience. In addition, third
graders used a variety of modes within their literacy events to co-construct knowledge based on
the socio-cultural elements of their academic surroundings and fulfill their inquiries. In this
respect, Spanish and English, connections, drawings, oral interactions, search on the internet,
viewing, oral presentations and publications, became on those modes that students drew on to
develop their literacy practices from a social dimension. That is to say, that literacy practices
were launched as tools to convey and make meaning, rather than decontextualized skills to be
acquired and assessed. Similarly, meaning making took place when children inquired
collaboratively and gradually used different multimodal literacies, which naturally emerged when
they engaged, explored, worked together, drew, talked to their teacher and peers, and supported
each other within the literacy events they need to be part of to complete their inquiry projects.
Finally, I consider that the role of teacher-researcher I assumed during this academic year
was different from the role I used to have, because the inquiry-based methodology allowed me to
provide students with opportunities to pose questions and find answers, taking in consideration
the local sources of knowledge to fulfill their learning needs. Similarly, I also became into an
active inquirer, and students‟ guidance to unfold their literacy and language knowledge to follow
the collaborative inquiry process within the pedagogical innovation. Similarly, students‟ modes
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
141
of using language and literacy are valuable outcomes that depict them as knowledge holders,
owners, agents and authors of their own education.
The present research made students and teachers being cognizant of the relevant
information their academic surroundings offer them to carry out more meaningful and enduring
experiences of literacy and language learning, for instance, the local knowledge that community
helpers possess, which is neither in textbooks nor in the internet. In this respect, the way
collaborative inquiry and Literacy as a social situated practice were launched within this research,
acknowledged and turned the academic surroundings of students as remarkable opportunities to
experience meaning-rich activities that embrace socio-cultural resources, enhance written and
oral language development and facilitate opportunities to interact with multimodal modes for the
co-construction of unique knowledge. In the same way, this research highlights effective means
of constructing knowledge through dialogue arising from cooperative inquiry.
In other words, by creating collaborative community […] students learn with and from
each other, as they engage in dialogic inquiry (Wells, 1999). Consequently, the outcomes of this
study might illuminate new understandings to overcome the limitations and boundaries that
skills-based approaches bring to the EFL curriculum through scripted literacy programs that
consider reading and writing as the only skills learners need to develop to accomplish the
mandated curriculum standards.
Implications
Collaborative inquiry as a pedagogical innovation implies a shift from mono-modal EFL teaching
and learning practices to more learner-centered and democratic spaces that allow teachers to
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
142
approach the mandated foreign language curriculum and go beyond its standards. In this respect,
collaborative inquiry helps to find a topic in which language turns into a source for co-
constructing knowledge and foster the development of multiple literacy practices in young EFL
learners, bearing in mind the social dimension of their learning. That is to say, that language and
literacy complement each other to easily adapt inquiry-based methodologies and fulfill students‟
learning interests and wants within the language class.
Consequently, the present research brings new language and literacy perspectives to EFL
teaching programs, pre-service and in-service teachers to understand that language and literacy
teaching should not be isolated entities without context. On the contrary, they should be
integrated within inquiry-based learning environments to provide authentic contexts in which
children can excel and see themselves as valuable members of the learning community, who are
expected, taught and encouraged to use multimodal literacies to construct meaning, as they
develop both language and social abilities. Furthermore, inquiry-based instruction entails many
benefits as the increase of students‟ engagement, responsibility and abilities to search information
related to topics of their concern, which position them as agents, owners and self-regulated
learners who perceive EFL learning as an enjoyable and rewarding activity.
Limitations
The first drawback I had to face during the development of my research was the educational
praxis present in the classroom, where traditional teacher-directed classroom and the
development of grammar-based activities from the textbooks perpetuated students‟ passiveness
and hindered their inner literacy and language abilities. The previous fact brought difficulties
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
143
when they had to develop collaborative inquiry-based activities that implied autonomy,
collaboration and self-regulation. As students used to work only by pairs or individually, they
struggled when I grouped them in teams to initiate their investigations. Similarly, third graders
struggled while splitting responsibilities and tasks to accomplish common goals within the first
inquiry project. As the innovation thrived, I could evidence changes in students‟ attitudes towards
collaborative work, as they started to consider others‟ perspectives and ideas with respect to the
development of inquiry assignments.
Another constraint was the tight schedule for the English class because I had to split the
time between filling the English grammar textbooks, preparing the English day celebration and
opening possibilities to pursue personal and group learning interests in order to carry out the
pedagogical units of my pedagogical innovation. Similarly, since inquiry-based activities implied
certain time to reflect and discuss, the amount of time per session was not enough and I had to
stop some reflection moments to let students be ready for the upcoming classes.
The last limitation dealt with the permission of the principal to carry out the project
beyond the classroom walls because of the amount of academic duties students had to do at
home. As consequence, I could not to ask students to interact with external community sources,
as their families and their neighborhoods to feed my innovation purposes based on the umbrella
term of community. As consequence, I only used the socio-cultural sources of the school
community to develop the pedagogical innovation.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
144
Further Research
Taking into account the result of this study, further research could be based on the following
questions:
In what manners collaborative inquiry fosters English language learning through content
knowledge of other areas of the curriculum?
How might multimodal literacy practices allow EFL learners to adopt a critical perspective when
students inquire about co-existence issues within their school context?
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
145
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Appendix A
Semi-structured interview to EFL teachers
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Appendix B
Structured questionnaire to students
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Appendix C
Field Note Layout
Field Note # 1 Date:
Title of the Unit:
Learning Objectives:
Context of observation
Observer‟s Reflection
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Appendix D
Student Artifact
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Appendix E
Student Journal
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Appendix F
Parent Consent form
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Appendix G
School Consent Form
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Appendix H
KWL Chart Sample
Running Head: FOSTERING LITERACY IN EFL LEARNERS 162
Appendix I
Working Plan Unit 1: The History of my school Community
STAGE Life experiences
SESSION 1-2
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes activities in written form regarding the basic parts of the sentence (subject + verb +
complement).
STANDARDS Menciono lo que me gusta y lo que no me gusta.
Escribo información personal en formatos sencillos.
TOPIC Describing my friend (Simple Present tense)
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To appropriately use parts of the speech such as nouns, adjectives and verbs for the description of
peers‟ preferences and physical appearance.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To start the process of discovery by exploring preferences and physical appearance of their peers.
To introduce students the act of inquiry.
ACTIVITIES 1. What is an interview?: Teacher launches the term “interview” for students to describe what
they think it means or works for, and listen students‟ opinion.
2. Knowing my peer: Students fill out the interview, taking turns to ask and answer personal
information about each other.
3. Sharing Experiences: Students talk about the experience of doing an interview to their peers.
Then they write a journal to express what they learn and how did they feel.
DATA Students‟ journal and Field note 1
Running Head: FOSTERING LITERACY IN EFL LEARNERS 163
STAGE Life Experiences
SESSION 3
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes activities in written form regarding the basic parts of the sentence in Simple Present Tense (subject + verb +
complement).
STANDARDS Respondo a preguntas sobre personas, objetos y lugares de mi entorno.
TOPIC Exploring my classroom.
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To appropriately use parts of the speech such as nouns, adjectives and verbs to describe the classroom.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To continue the process of discovery by exploring physical and non-physical settings of the classroom.
To see the classroom as a place to learn and share.
ACTIVITIES
1. Teacher and students watch a video of a non-fiction story named “Go to School” by Stan and Jan Berenstain to
introduce elements of a classroom. Students answer the next questions orally
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHOaaoZ41AI):
a. How is the classroom from the story?
b. Why it is important to have classrooms in the school?
Exploring my classroom
2. Teacher provides students with linguistic input such as adjectives and nouns to describe physical and non-
physical features of their classroom.
3. Students observe their classroom, describe it in a chart where they register what they can see, smell, and touch,
and listen using the adjectives and nouns provided by the teacher.
4. Sharing Experiences: Students talk about their exploration of the classroom and share something they like or
did not like about it.
DATA Field note 2
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
164
STAGE Life Experiences
SESSION 4
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes activities in written form regarding the basic parts of the sentence in Simple Present Tense. (subject + verb
+ complement).
STANDARDS Respondo brevemente a las preguntas “Qué, Quién, Cuándo y Dónde” si se refieren a mi familia, mis amigos o mi
colegio.
TOPIC People and places in our school community.
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To use parts of the speech such as nouns, adjectives and verbs to describe parts of the school.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To continue the process of discovering by exploring ecological, human and linguistics assets of the school community.
To explore the idea of community through observation of close surroundings.
ACTIVITIES 1. Exploring my school community: Students walk around the school and write down words or wonders about
their school community.
2. My school community in pictures: Teacher presents a power point presentation with pictures of the places
students walked by. Students comment about the pictures and ask questions about concerns they might have.
DATA KWL Chart, student artifact and Field note 3
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
165
STAGE Building from the known
SESSION 5
SCHOOL
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes activities in written form regarding the basic parts of the sentence in simple Present Tense. (subject + verb +
complement).
STANDARDS Respondo brevemente a las preguntas “Qué, Quién, Cuándo y Dónde” si se refieren a mi familia, mis amigos o mi
colegio.
TOPIC People and places in our school community.
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To use parts of the speech to answer interrogative sentences
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To share the experience of exploring the school community.
To wander and wonder regarding personal interests.
ACTIVITIES
1. Constructing meaning as a team: After having commented on the pictures, students use their previous knowledge
to make a spider web through answering the next questions:
a. Where is our school community located?
b. How big is our school community?
c. Who is part of our school community?
d. What building or places are here?
e. What elements of the nature are present in our school community?
f. What makes our community special or unique?
Teacher registers students‟ answers in a spider web.
2. Writing a KWL Chart: After having explored physical and social surroundings of the school, students individually
brainstorm on what they know and what they want to learn about their school community in a KWL chart.
3. Community inquiry groups: Wonders about students want to know are recorded on the KWL chart. Questions are
assorted in 7 groups for students to inquire collaboratively.
DATA KWL Chart and Field note 4
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STAGE Taking the time to find questions for inquiry
SESSION 6
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes past events using Simple Past Tense regarding the basic parts of the sentence (subject + verb + complement).
STANDARDS Respondo brevemente a las preguntas “Qué, Quién, Cuándo y Dónde” si se refieren a mi familia, mis amigos o mi
colegio.
TOPIC The History of My school Community
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To use L1 to jot historical aspects of the school.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To explore the historical background of the school through the human sources of knowledge present at the school.
ACTIVITIES 1. Inquiry groups: Wonders are assorted in 7 groups with a specific questions:
a. Who founded the school?
b. When was our school community created?
c. When was the school built?
d. What subjects did the school teach at its beginning?
e. Who were the first students of the school?
f. Who were the first teachers of our school?
g. Why our school has the name of Miguel de Cervantes?
Students belong to an inquiry group according to their interests.
2. Looking for inquiry tools: Teacher and students talk about the tools needed to answer the questions posed by each
group. Students brainstormed some ideas such as asking people who have been working in the school for many
years, look for books in the library that contains information about the school history and search information on web
sites.
Teacher launches the term “interview” again to check student‟s previous knowledge about this data
collection instrument.
3. Doing the interview: Some community helpers who have worked in the school for many years are the guest
speakers in order to answer inquiry groups‟ questions.
Students work by groups, ask in English and teacher translate the questions for the guest speakers. Students take notes.
DATA Students artifacts and Field notes 5
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STAGE/CYCLE OF
INQUIRY
Gaining new perspectives
SESSION 7-8-9
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes past events using Simple Past Tense regarding the basic parts of the sentence (subject + verb + complement).
STANDARDS Respondo brevemente a las preguntas “Qué, Quién, Cuándo y Dónde” si se refieren a mi familia, mis amigos o mi
colegio.
TOPIC Exploring the History of My school
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To create opportunities for describing historical facts based on group inquiries.
To use L2 to present the outcomes of partial inquiries in groups.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To show the historical background of the school based on the information provided by community helpers as social
knowledge holders.
ACTIVITIES 1. Our Museum of the School History: Students will display partial results of their inquiries through a mini-
poster and make a museum with the outcomes of their first collection of data. Each member of the groups write
and draw to show the results of their inquiries.
2. Editing historical facts of the school: Teacher supports students by checking student‟s pieces of writing in
terms of punctuation, capitalization and grammar.
3. Presenting initial findings of group inquiries: After making the seven mini-posters, students paste them on
the classroom wall and make the Museum of the School History; students have to present orally what they
have found. Teacher supports with pronunciation and intonation. Then, each group present the mini-poster.
4. Sharing experiences: Students talk about their experiences of presenting in front of the whole class.
DATA Students‟ artifacts and Field note 6
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STAGE/CYCLE OF
INQUIRY
Gaining new perspectives
SESSION 10
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes past events using Simple Past Tense regarding the basic parts of the sentence (subject + verb +
complement).
STANDARDS Respondo brevemente a las preguntas “Qué, Quién, Cuándo y Dónde” si se refieren a mi familia, mis amigos o mi
colegio.
TOPIC The history of My school
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To read information in L1 from the web site of the school and graduated students‟ web site to complement
information of the inquiry project.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To explore the historical background of the school by searching information in the web page of the school.
ACTIVITIES 1. Feeding our inquiry project: Students use the second source of information to keep shaping the inquiry
project. Students read information about the school history and complement their perspectives and
inquiries. Students take notes of the relevant information to complement their inquiries in a sequence chart.
http://www.liceodecervantes.freeservers.com/historia.htm
http://www.liceocervantes.edu.co/historia.html
DATA Students‟ sequence chart And Field note 7
STAGE/CYCLE OF
INQUIRY
Gaining new perspectives
SESSION 11
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes past events using Simple Past Tense regarding the basic parts of the sentence (subject + verb +
complement).
STANDARDS Respondo brevemente a las preguntas “Qué, Quién, Cuándo y Dónde” si se refieren a mi familia, mis amigos o mi
colegio.
TOPIC The history of My school
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To read printed and visual information regarding historical facts of our school community.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To explore historical facts of the school community through a yearbook of 1979
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
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ACTIVITIES 1. Our school in 1979: Teacher shows students the first yearbook of the school that contains pictures of
teachers, students and community helpers to broad the understanding of the history of the school
community through images.
DATA Field note 8
STAGE/CYCLE OF
INQUIRY
Attending to difference
SESSION 12
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes past events using Simple Past Tense regarding the basic parts of the sentence (subject + verb +
complement).
STANDARDS Respondo brevemente a las preguntas “Qué, Quién, Cuándo y Dónde” si se refieren a mi familia, mis amigos o mi
colegio.
TOPIC The history of My school
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To learn about timelines and its uses to display information.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To make students voice worth to take decisions regarding the presentation inquiry outcomes.
ACTIVITIES 1. Taking decisions to present inquiry outcomes: Students and teacher talk about different possibilities to present
the inquiry project. Students and teachers decide to make a time line to portray the history of the school
community.
2. Talking about present events to complement the time line: Students and teacher talk about current events of
the school to give elements of the present to our timeline.
3. Searching another sources for meaning making: Students visited the technology room to search pictures that
complement the facts of each year in the timeline. They used the same web sources from previous exploration
among others. Students also use the library sources and local other local sources of information.
DATA Field note 9
STAGE/CYCLE OF
INQUIRY
Sharing what was learned
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170
SESSION 13
TOPIC The history of My school
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes past events using Simple Past Tense regarding the basic parts of the sentence (subject + verb +
complement).
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To use multimodal modes to make a timeline about the history of the school community.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To make students voice worth to take decisions regarding the presentation inquiry outcomes.
ACTIVITIES 1. Our School Timeline: Students work together to make a timeline with all the information collected through the
interviews, web sites and yearbooks. Teacher assigned different roles to students in order to work collaboratively
and present their inquiry outcomes.
2. Editing historical facts of the school: Teacher supports students by checking student‟s pieces of writing in
terms of punctuation, capitalization and grammar, as well as support students‟ use of L2 to translate the
information collected.
3. Informal sharing of Liceo Cervantes’ Timeline: Students present orally the outcomes of their investigation to
other members of the school community.
DATA Field note 10 and students‟ artifacts
STAGE/CYCLE OF
INQUIRY
Sharing what was learned
SESSION 14
TOPIC The history of My school
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Describes past events orally using Simple Past Tense regarding the basic parts of the sentence (subject + verb +
complement).
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To examine difficulties with language functioning, organizing and managing data and collaborative work throughout
the inquiry project.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To reflect on the inquiry process and create possibilities for improvement.
ACTIVITIES 1. Sharing experiences about presenting the timeline: the class as a whole Students talk about their
experiences of sharing their project to other members of the community and reflect about the whole inquiry
project to consider improvement.
DATA Field note 11 and Students‟ journal
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STAGE/CYCLE OF
INQUIRY
Planning new inquiries. (What new inquiries are we going to pursue?)
SESSION 15
TOPIC People in my school community.
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To create opportunities for self-expression on issues of personal interest.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To pose students‟ school community as a source for new inquiries
ACTIVITIES 1. KWL Chart: Teacher presents a power point presentation to students with different assets of the school
community for them to make connections and awake new wonders and questions regarding the school community.
Then, they register their wonders on the KWL chart sections what I know and what I want to learn.
2. Planning new inquiries: Having as basis their new gained perspectives upon the history of the School Community
History, students are invited to think of a possibility for redirecting immediate experiences into another broader
field of the school community.
DATA Field note 12
STAGE/CYCLE OF
INQUIRY
Planning new inquiries. (What new inquiries are we going to pursue?)
SESSION 16
TOPIC People in my school community.
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To create opportunities for self-expression on topics of personal interest.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To address students school community as a source for new inquiries.
ACTIVITIES 1. KWL Chart: The class as a whole goes back to their KWL chart in order to remember the point of departure, which
involved their personal experiences, and the “what I know” section of the chart about prior knowledge of the school.
They move through the “What I want to learn” column and remember the questions on which their inquiries were
based, and end in the “What we learned” section and complete it by writing the meanings they constructed through
the inquiry process.
2. Planning New Inquiries: Having as basis their new gained perspectives upon the history of the School Community
History, students are invited to think of a possibility for redirecting immediate experiences into another broader field
of the school community.
DATA Field note 13
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172
Appendix J
Working plan Unit 2: People of my School Community
STAGE Life Experiences
SESSION 1
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Asks and gives information about present events by using yes no questions
STANDARDS Describo lo que hacen algunos miembros de mi comunidad
TOPIC Our school in pictures
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To appropriately use parts of the speech such as nouns, adjectives and verbs to describe orally the assets of the
community.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To appreciate the human, ecological and physical assets of the school community.
ACTIVITIES Observing our school community assets through pictures: Teacher shows a power point presentation with pictures of
ecological, human and linguistics assets of the school in order to provoque students curiosity and wonders and bring a new
topic for inquire.
DATA Field note 1
STAGE Life Experiences
SESSION 2
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
Asks and gives information about present events by using yes no questions
STANDARDS Describo lo que hacen algunos miembros de mi comunidad
TOPIC Our school community helpers
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To appropriately use parts of the speech such as nouns, adjectives and verbs to describe orally people of the school
community.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To observe and appreciate what people do in our school community.
ACTIVITIES Visiting community helpers’ workplaces: After students decided to explore the roles and activities of people in the
community, they visit the offices of some members during the workday to observe and feed their inquiries.
COLLECTED Field note 2
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DATA
STAGE Building from the known
SESSION 3
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
To identify characters, places and events in a short story.
STANDARDS Asocio un dibujo con su descripción escrita
Describo lo que hacen algunos miembros de mi comunidad
TOPIC Our School Community Helpers
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To write statements about school community helpers
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To show relevance to human assets of the community.
ACTIVITIES 1. My school community helpers are important: Students watch a story in YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-zd7sqqTlM&list=PL5hFHAEVlO0oNdtSJdgmop_cqJEHrdIzb about
community helpers and identify the role of characters orally. Then, teacher asks students to mention characteristics of
people in the school that they know.
2. Describing my school community members: According to what students know, they are asked to describe one of
community members they use to interact with.
3. KWL chart: Students write the “What I know” column from the KWL chart with regard to their previous knowledge
about the school members.
DATA Students´ artifacts and Field note 3
STAGE Taking the time to find questions for inquiry
SESSION 4
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
To describe past and present events in Simple Past and Simple Present Tense using the popper sentence structure
(subject + verb+ complement)
STANDARDS Describo lo que hacen algunos miembros de mi comunidad
TOPIC Our School Community Helpers
LINGUISTIC To write questions or wonders about a school community helper.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
174
OBJECTIVE
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To bring social elements of the community to the classroom through students‟ wonders.
ACTIVITIES 1. Sharing multimodal text to my class: Students share the descriptions of the school community member they
chose to the whole class.
2. KWL Chart: Students are asked to write their wonders in Spanish in the 2nd
column of their KWL charts in order
to shape the topic of their coming inquiry project.
3. Grouping students wonders: Teacher reads students wonders in order to find commonalities among them and
have a clear topic for inquire.
DATA Students‟ artifact
Field note 4
STAGE Taking the time to find questions for inquiry
SESSION 5
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
To describe past and present events in Simple Past and Simple Present Tense using the popper sentence structure
(subject + verb+ complement)
STANDARDS Escribo sobre temas de mi interés
TOPIC Our School Community Helpers
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To shape written questions in Spanish as part of the students inquiries.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To bring social elements of the community to the classroom through students‟ wonders.
ACTIVITIES 1. Grouping students wonders: Teacher shows a power point presentation with the most common wonders for
students to establish a topic for research. They noticed that most of the class focused their curiosity on teachers‟
lives.
2. Knowing more about my school community helpers: Students work by pairs and chose a teacher to inquiry
about him/her.
3. Deciding what instruments use to collect data: Students take decision about instruments for collecting data.
They re-design the questions they had made before and add more to their inquiry list.
DATA Student‟s artifacts
Field note 5
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175
STAGE Gaining new perspectives
SESSION 6
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
To describe past and present events in Simple Past and Simple Present Tense using the popper sentence structure (subject
+ verb+ complement)
STANDARDS Escribo sobre temas de mi interés
TOPIC Our School Community Helpers
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To shape written questions in Spanish as part of the students inquiries.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To discover the role of the teachers beyond the classroom
ACTIVITIES 1. Asking for permission to do interviews: Students talk to teacher for time to answer some questions they have for
them. Teacher transcribes the interviews on a word file and gives copies to students in order to start with their
inquiries.
2. My teacher is more than a teacher: Students interview teachers in different moments of the school day. They take
turns to make the interview.
DATA Student‟s artifacts/pictures and Field note 6
STAGE Attending to difference
SESSION 7
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
To describe past and present events in Simple Past and Simple Present Tense using the popper sentence structure
(subject + verb+ complement)
STANDARDS Escribo sobre temas de mi interés
TOPIC Our School Community Helpers
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To decide what type of text or mode students will use to present students‟ inquiry outcomes
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To reflect about the inquiry process so far.
ACTIVITIES 1. Reflecting about our investigation: Students write a journal about the difficulties they had and the experience of
inquiring about a member of the school.
2. Looking for modes to show my inquiries: Students an teacher choose a way to present their inquiry outcomes.
DATA Student‟s journal and Field note 7
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176
STAGE Attending to difference
SESSION 8-9
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
To describe past and present events using the popper sentence structure (subject + verb+ complement)
STANDARDS Escribo sobre temas de mi interés
Asocio un dibujo con su descripción escrita
TOPIC Our School Community Helpers
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To use collected data in Spanish to write a biography in English
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To portray community helpers in a multimodal text.
ACTIVITIES 1. Writing a biography of my teacher: Students write a short biography to show their inquiry outcomes and draw or
take pictures of their teachers to illustrate their writings. Teacher revises and shapes their writing using editing marks
without changing the meaning of students‟ authorship.
2. Shaping my biography: Students edit their biographies and correct the errors they wrote while translating it from
Spanish to English.
DATA Students‟ Artifacts and Field note 8
STAGE Sharing what was learned
SESSION 10
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
To describe past and present events in Simple Past and Simple Present Tense using the popper sentence structure (subject +
verb+ complement)
STANDARDS Escribo sobre temas de mi interés
TOPIC Our School Community Helpers
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
To read aloud the biographies students did in front of the class.
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To share what students investigated and know more about other teachers.
To make public students‟ inquiries and value their collaborative work.
ACTIVITIES
1. Sharing my biography: Students sat down in a circle and read aloud their biographies.
2. Displaying my biography: Students present their biographies in the “Writing exhibition” that takes place at the end of
the academic term.
FOSTERING LITERACY PRACTICES IN EFL LEARNERS
177
DATA Students‟ artifacts and Field note 9
STAGE Sharing what was learned
SESSION 11
ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS
To describe past and present events in Simple Past and Simple Present Tense using the popper sentence structure (subject +
verb+ complement)
STANDARDS Escribo sobre temas de mi interés
TOPIC Our School Community Helpers
LINGUISTIC
OBJECTIVE
Students
SOCIAL
OBJECTIVE
To write a reflection taking into account students‟ experiences.
ACTIVITIES Reflecting about the whole inquiry process: Students write a journal to reflect about the whole process where they had to
use the interview to collect data and how to present, as well as their experiences and difficulties.
DATA Students‟ artifacts and Field note 10
Running Head: FOSTERING LITERACY IN EFL LEARNERS 178
178
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