Give Literacy a Chance

I believe that through multiple literacies our ELLs able to not only further their education and successfully dominate the English language, but they will also enjoy the learning experience.  The concept of multiple literacies offers teachers and students a window of opportunities.  By considering such a literacy practice teachers are engaging their students through the use of the students’ background knowledge, connecting the two worlds (the outside school and in school literacy learning) and building a positive environment in the classroom.

 By connecting the lessons being learned in the classroom to the students’ background knowledge and interests the teacher is able to engage the students.  Teachers are able to build upon the students’ prior knowledge and challenge them with the new information presented to them.  If the students are not being challenged in the classroom they will become bored and at the end it will impede their learning, for instance, this is seen in the case of Almon.   “As a student who was limited English proficient, he experienced heavy doses of basic reading and writing instruction at school” (Haneda 340) by doing so the students is not being challenged and is missing out on furthering his education.  “Schools should give students opportunities to engage in a wide range of literacy practices so that they become critically literate-not just passively decoding and retrieving the author’s textual intentions but also analyzing texts and using literacy to act on the world” (Haneda 341).

Haneda pushes the idea of connecting the two worlds, the outside and in school learning.  “I would argue that, for all ELLs, it is important for teachers to develop an understanding of students’ personal and community literacy resources and to try to incorporate them into classroom practices in locally relevant ways” (Haneda 343).  By bringing the students’ personal interests and community resources into the classroom the students are able to personally relate to the academic studies and they are able to express and explore their identities in and outside the classroom.  This positive outcome was experienced in the state of Arizona, where the “teachers collaboratively created lessons that drew on the community resources” (Haneda 342) and they tapped into the students’ interests.  By doing so the students were able to learn through an array of projects which were based on hands on learning to the development of their reading, listening, writing, and speaking skills. 

It is very important to build a positive learning environment in the classroom.  By providing a learning nurtured environment the students will feel a sense of stimulation to participate in the classroom discussions and interact with their classmates and teachers.  “It is equally important for teachers to reflect on what it means to help students to become literate and, on this basis, to create learning environments where students feel safe to express their ideas in a developmentally appropriate manner and to engage in critical discussion of substantive issues by using reading and writing as tools for thinking” (Haneda 343).