Research recently conducted at the University of Stavanger found that teachers of English at upper secondary schools experience difficulty in getting their students to read longer fictional texts, and have witnessed negative attitudes towards reading. At the same time, the past four years have shown a 22% decline in enrolment across Norway in the Literature and Culture subject in the third year of upper secondary. How can the objectives set out in the basic skills section of the English subject specialization program—“understanding, exploring and pondering demanding texts”—be met if students are losing the cognitive mode of deep attention that helps them read novels and other longer texts? As digital reading has proven to be sloppy, and exhaustive reading is rare online, to what extent can students be expected to gain “insight across cultures and special fields”? Can the overall aims for teaching literature in the ESL classroom, especially those aims regarding the ability to ponder and gain insight, still be achieved through new media and popular culture? This study raises questions concerning the future of reading and offers a critical literacy approach through which teachers and learners can investigate different types of media. Implementing a critical literacy approach in the ESL classroom offers rich possibilities for teaching both language and culture at all levels through both traditional and new media.
This article presents a summary of research conducted on the visual representation of indigenous cultures in four English textbooks produced for lower secondary schools with the aim of investigating the extent to which images of indigenous people contribute to, or contradict, the general cultural aims of the English language learning curriculum in Norway. Over 800 textbook images were analyzed using the methods of visual content analysis and semiotic image analysis. A qualitative analysis of two photomontages also provides a more holistic approach to the study and helps to more clearly explain the quantitative results. The results from the research show a strong trend to focus on traditional aspects of indigenous people, a tendency to represent indigenous people in a lower position of power than the viewer, and to distance the viewer. Comparatively, the images of white people more frequently invite the viewer to interact and empathize with the participants. Consequently, the research concludes that the images in the four EFL textbooks analyzed are, to a large degree, potential carries of ideologies in direct contradiction to the general cultural aims of English language learning in Norway. The implications of these findings are that images and how they position readers should be a part of EFL teaching.
This article addresses key theoretical and practical concerns related to the intercultural encounter with multimodal literature. Previous efforts to incorporate an intercultural dimension into conceptualisations of literary literacy have primarily focused on competences associated with the reading of traditional, script-based texts. However, as the term "literature" is today associated with a wide range of new media texts, there is a need to take this into account in theoretical constructs as well as in pedagogical practice. The article provides insight into how the multimodal elements of film function as a complex meaning-making ensemble which adds layers of potential insight as well as potential misunderstanding to the text interpretation process. With a basis in the Model of the Intercultural Reader (Hoff, 2016), the article sheds light on how issues related to the narrative style and structure of a Hollywood motion picture can be navigated through an exploration of the recognisable audio-visual rhetoric of oft-repeated tropes. Drawing on Baz Luhrmann's film Romeo + Juliet as a practical example, concrete suggestions for pedagogical practice are offered. By integrating practices of script-based intercultural reading with new literacies, the article expands upon previous theorisations of the intercultural reader and provides insight into how teachers may facilitate nuanced intercultural explorations of literary multimodal texts in the 21 st century language classroom.
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