While developing multilingual students' academic literacies in the context of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course, educators often focus on the linguistic and stylistic conventions more likely accepted in the dominant academic culture while overlooking a rich variety of the learners' linguistic repertoires and academic backgrounds. As a result, students frequently perceive that their way of writing or speaking is inadequate ("non-native-speaker-like"), which results in academic identity confusion, imposter syndrome and decreased levels of motivation.
This presentation offers an alternative approach to teaching EAP that is embedded in the principles of plurilingualism, multiliteracies and experiential education. Rather than prescribing a set of academic genres and conventions, this approach incorporates and enriches students' existing cultural and linguistic expertise. The premise is that multilingual students already possess a plethora of competencies, and the instructor's role is to facilitate their knowledge exchange to the academic medium. Based on the conceptual frameworks of translanguaging (Garcia, 2009), transformative multiliteracies pedagogy (Cummins, 2009), and communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), the researchers have developed curriculum for an EAP course in a Canadian University. In this course, students collaborate to become co-creators of the learning process, enhance academic literacy, research and critical thinking skills, and engage in their transnational identity exploration. The presentation reviews the stages of curriculum design commencing with the selection and adaptation of course materials pertaining to different genres and embedded in Canadian and transnational contexts. The course assignments and activities invite students to examine their transformative experiences as related to the trajectories and authentic voices of minoritized and racialized communities in Canada. Through participating in the webinars with the experts on casual discrimination and immigration and field trips to the site of residential schools, students connect to a wider community and further explore the theme through multimedia blog reflections. Additionally, students act as knowledge generators by composing multimodal identity texts and presenting the findings of their inquiry in a panel student conference. Based on the three-years-long study on the effectiveness of these innovative curricular initiatives in five EAP classes, the presentation concludes with its rigorous findings. The results of pre- and post-instruction questionnaires with 100 students, focus group interviews, and samples of student coursework indicate that students not only feel empowered by multiliteracies-oriented and inquiry-focused learning but have also enhanced their academic reading, writing, research, and communication skills. The positive impact of critical reflection-focused assignments and experiential education-based multimodal activities has been significant for increasing multilingual students' self-awareness and self-appreciation.
References
Cummins, J. (2009). Transformative multiliteracies pedagogy: School-based strategies for closing the achievement gap. Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 11(2), 38-56.
García, O. (2009). Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In A. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson, & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds). Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising the local (pp. 128-145). New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
