Visual Representations of English Language Learning and Literacy in Greece

Abstract

This chapter draws on an ethnographically oriented study of the everyday English literacy practices of 15 Greek teenagers in order to explore the way they visually represent their relationship with English literacy and language learning. Theoretically and methodologically the study is rooted in socio-cultural approaches to literacy practices and language learning. These approaches call for considering individual learners’ understandings about the role of literacy and language learning in their lives. In response to such a need, our focus here will be on two sets of self-made visual data through which teenagers depict the ways they make sense of and relate to English literacy and language learning. Our findings illustrate that teenagers’ resources are drawn mainly from their out-of-school interests but also from the world of education. It seems thus that their representations are framed by an everyday life discourse and in part by a school-based literacy discourse. The analysis highlights the strong presence of global forms of popular culture and media in teenagers’ English literacy practices and the high priority attached to formal literacy and English language study in Greece.