Teaching with Virtual Linguistic Landscapes: Developing Translingual and Transcultural Competence

Abstract

Researchers have shown that students’ language skills can develop through locally-based linguistic landscape activities such as guided research projects and literacy walks. However, this approach is limited as students need to travel to the sites of these local linguistic landscapes and simply cannot physically get to more distant places. Moreover, students of languages other than English may have far fewer opportunities to examine the languages they study within local places. To address these limitations and contribute to the larger discussion of language teaching with linguistic landscapes, we examine the use of virtual linguistic landscapes, exemplified by various street-view services such as Google Street View and curated collections of digital photographs, as an alternative means of language teaching. Focusing on English language teaching in South Korea, but with relevance to language pedagogy in a wide variety of contexts, we examine classroom practices utilizing virtual linguistic landscapes that can develop learners’ translingual and transcultural competence, understanding these competencies to be the ability to operate between languages; the ability to reflect on oneself through another language and culture; and the capacity to challenge conventional ideas and consider alternative understandings more generally (Modern Language Association, Foreign languages and higher education: new structures for a changed world. Available at http://www.mla.org/flreport, 2007).