Multiliteracies and Multimodality in the SHL Classroom. A Workshop

Abstract

This workshop is organized to engage participants in the four stages (experiencing, conceptualizing, analyzing, and applying) of the “Learning by Design” multiliteracy pedagogy, with a focus on Spanish heritage language education. In the first part of the workshop, participants are introduced to the main principles of a pedagogy of multiliteracies (The New London Group 1996; Kalantzis & Cope 2008; Allen & Paesani, 2010; López-Sánchez, 2014; Kalantzis et al. 2016; Zapata & Lacorte 2016) through examples, reflection on teaching practices, and guided discussions. In this initial stage, the focus will be on discovering the tenets of a multiliteracies approach to language learning, as well as exploring different multimodal discourses and their suitability to teaching SHL student populations in a variety of educational contexts. In the second part of the workshop, participants will experience and analyze a sample set of teaching materials that have been successfully implemented in a Spanish HL university course. The experience phase of the workshop engages participants as students who learn within a multiliteracies framework. The analysis phase, on the other hand, promotes critical reflection on the student experience as well as a discussion of the design process of these teaching materials, from conception to implementation and assessment. In the final section, participants work in small groups to brainstorm and apply multiliteracies principles to design a learning unit that considers the specific needs of learners in their heritage and mixed classrooms.