11th Graders Acknowledgment of Their Community Through Multiliteracies in an EFL Classroom

Abstract

Giving worth to students’ local realities as a background to get meaningful learning not only in the English class but in all the subjects and go further the simple lesson that starts and finishes inside the school walls, is what school communities should expect from education. As Hawkins states: “Learning is enhanced when teachers invite and acknowledge the knowledge, beliefs, and experiences that students bring with them into the classroom” (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2004). 
 This study reports a pedagogical involvement into students’ closest contexts, the school, and their neighborhood, to depict eleventh-grade students' perception of their community context through inquiry in a public school, which is evidenced by the use of multiliteracies. Throughout this study, English was used as a means to communicate what the students found while mapping and observing both contexts, by making connections between the subject syllabus and the findings they made as a result of their local explorations. Data collected from students’ artifacts, the teacher's journal, and surveys showed the student's growing interest in their contexts' recognition which was paramount to make them feel like part of the change in their community contexts. Careful reflections upon findings during the students’ community mapping at their school and neighborhood, encouraged their participation in classroom projects, boosting their critical consciousness by recognizing and assuming a new transformative role that positioned them with a different perspective.