English Literacy Learning Research Articles

English literacy learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia

This study explores the impact of the COVID-19-induced school closures in Indonesia on the decline of secondary school students’ learning, particularly in their English literacy. While numerous studies have delved into the repercussions of school closures on literacy skills in European countries, Australia, and the USA, such investigations have been relatively limited in Asia, particularly within the Indonesian context. Employing a qualitative approach for impact assessment, this research gathered data from diverse sources, including online surveys, one-on-one interviews, and focus group discussions. The survey involved 140 English teachers from four Indonesian provinces, including Java, Sumatra, Riau Islands, and Bali provinces. Ten English teachers were selected to participate in the individual online interviews, followed by a focus group discussion with four teachers. Within an inductive approach and thematic analysis framework, data were analysed, and five primary literacy skills emerged from the analysis that show a decline during the period of school closures: having critical thinking while reading, drawing inferences from texts, summarising text content, having good attitudes toward writing, and composing longer paragraphs. These initial findings, although on a small scale, are anticipated to help educators, school administrators, and policymakers in the Indonesian education sector in devising more effective plans for addressing unforeseen challenges in the future, including the development of programs to help students recover from learning loss.

Elementary School Teachers’ Readiness in Teaching Technology-based Literacy

The Independent Curriculum requires teachers to have the ability to use technology in the learning process and improve students' literacy skills. However, there are still many teachers who experience difficulties in using technology and increasing student literacy. For this reason, this study aims to identify the effect of multimodal training on increasing teacher readiness to implement technology-based literacy learning. This research is a mixed-method study with a concurrent triangulation design involving 24 English teachers. Methods of data collection through questionnaires, interviews and observation. Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. This study found that teacher readiness in implementing technology-based literacy learning increased significantly after multimodal training. These results are supported by qualitative data showing that teachers feel better prepared to teach literacy in English. This study also found that teachers positively perceive multimodal training. It can be concluded that multimodal training positively affects teacher readiness in implementing technology-based English literacy learning. Thus, implementing multimodal training can be used as a solution to solve teacher problems in conducting the teaching and learning process using technology and increasing student literacy.

Assessment equity for remote multilingual Australian Aboriginal students through the lens of Sustainable Development Goals

Purpose The Foundations of Early Literacy Assessment – Northern Territory (FELA-NT) was funded, developed, and implemented as part of a strategy designed to address the English literacy learning needs of the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal student population. In this paper we question whether the FELA-NT English literacy learning benchmarks are representative of remote and very remote Aboriginal students since many speak English as an Additional Language (EAL) or Dialect (EAD). Result Using a new data set of scores from 72 Aboriginal students from remote, very remote, and outer-regional communities on the FELA-NT, we demonstrate that it is the student’s experience with Standard Australian English, not their remoteness, that impacts their early literacy development. Conclusion We use this example to illustrate how current practices and policies homogenise the Australian Aboriginal student population, silencing linguistic diversity in the process. We call for clinical practitioners and educators to shift their practices to assessments and tools that recognise children and youths’ diverse linguistic skills and pathways. We talk about what empowerment, participation, and inclusion might really mean in current Australian educational and clinical contexts. We argue here that we need to fundamentally rethink how we work with children with diverse language and literacy knowledge, skills, and backgrounds if we are to reduce inequalities (SDG 10), honour quality education (SDG 4), and support sustainable communities (SDG 11).

Partnership with Librarians: A Strategy to Improve Secondary School Students’ English Literacy

English literacy education plays a key role in establishing literate societies in the 21st century. Having teachers and librarians as professional educators and educational personnel working together, with the provision of relevant literacy facilities, helps achieve this goal. This study applies the Partnership with Librarians Strategy (PLS) by using an equivalent time-samples design to promote students’ English literacy skills. Forty-five seventh, eighth, and ninth graders were randomly selected as the population for this study. Their literacy achievements were measured by using listening, reading, writing, and speaking tests before and after the teaching and learning process. The students’ learning was also monitored using formative tests during the intervention. The results showed that the students’ English skills improved significantly. The improvement is hypothesised to be influenced by the use of PLS as it is also statistically proven by the contribution of each literacy skill to students’ English literacy total achievement, i.e., reading (63.6%), writing (22.9%), speaking (9.2%), and listening (4.3%). It is concluded that PLS makes a significant difference in English literacy learning and therefore deserves to be implemented in any English class coupled with an assessment strategy based on further classroom research to determine its potential effect.

Intermodality and Multilingual Re-instantiation: Joint Construction in Bilingual Genre Pedagogy

This paper discusses the roles of intermodality and multilingualism in a genre pedagogy program aimed to improve students’ literacy in Indonesia. It draws on data from an intervention program which extended the Reading to Learn (R2L) genre-based literacy pedagogy to embed English literacy learning in biology lessons for Indonesian junior high school students. This bilingual R2L program is innovative in that it involves the use of written and spoken Bahasa Indonesia and English for both teaching materials and instruction. This particular study focuses on the final stage of the program: The collaborative writing process known as joint construction. This is conducted in the bilingual R2L program by jointly making notes from Indonesian (L1) reading texts, jointly re-instantiating these notes as English (L2) lexis, and then using these L2 notes to jointly construct new L2 texts. The methodology is thus intermodal and multilingual, from written L1 texts, through oral dictation to L1 notes, then through bilingual discussion to re-instantiation as written L2 lexis, and finally through further bilingual discussion to re-instantiation as written L2 text. The study applies genre and register theory to closely examine classroom interactions in Joint Construction, from the perspectives of their structuring, the intermodal sourcing of meanings, and relations between teachers and learners. Evidence from student assessments suggest these designed applications of intermodality and multilingual reinstantiation are highly effective in the development of autonomous skills in L2 science writing. This article aims to describe how and why they are so effective.

The Roles of Pinyin Skill in English‐Chinese Biliteracy Learning: Evidence From Chinese Immersion Learners

AbstractPinyin is a sound‐annotating system for Chinese characters using Roman letters. Teaching and learning Pinyin has been an important educational practice in Mainland China for native Chinese children, and it is also typically taught to beginning learners of Chinese as a foreign/second language in tertiary‐level classrooms. However, whether it should be taught to nonnative children who are studying Chinese as a second language has been controversial. This study examined the roles of Pinyin skill in Chinese‐English biliteracy learning among a group of second‐grade learners in a Chinese immersion program across one academic year and found that Pinyin facilitates subsequent Chinese word reading at no cost to students’ English literacy learning. Results are discussed in the context of learning Chinese as a nonnative language among young learners in school settings. Implications for teaching Chinese reading, curriculum, and material design, especially for Chinese immersion programs, are discussed.

Aspects of primary English literacy learning based on understanding interactions of illustrations and texts of picture books.

Aspects of primary English literacy learning based on understanding interactions of illustrations and texts of picture books.

The Effects of SDLMI with English Literacy Learning on English Underachievers’ Self-Directed Learning, English Literacy Abilities, and Affective Domains

The Effects of SDLMI with English Literacy Learning on English Underachievers’ Self-Directed Learning, English Literacy Abilities, and Affective Domains

Two Chinese Medical Master’s Students Aspiring to Publish Internationally: A Longitudinal Study of Legitimate Peripheral Participation in Their Communities of Practice

This paper explores how two Chinese medical Master’s students’ international publication success/failure and their academic English learning outcomes were related to their agency and the social context in which they were embedded by using the notions of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) and community of practice (CoP). While both students were highly motivated and similarly limited in English proficiency, their publication and academic English literacy learning outcomes vastly differed. Analysis via the lenses of LPP and CoP reveals that their differences in scholarly achievement in terms of international publication success and academic English learning outcomes can be convincingly explained by variation in the structure of the CoPs to which they belonged. Their respective CoPs determine their amount and quality of co-participation or mutual engagement with old-timers, particularly the master, which ultimately led to markedly different publication and academic English learning outcomes. Accordingly, I argue that institutions must consider the amount of mutual engagement senior researchers can afford to their research students when allocating advising responsibilities to professors.

The Effects of using K-pop English versions on Korean middle school students’ English listening ability and English literacy learning attitude: With reference to Lonely, Blue, etc

The present study aims to examine the effect of using K-pop English versions for the English listening ability and the English literacy learning...

English Language Learner Status In A Predominantly European-American School

Using status characteristics theory, this study examined a sixth-grade Korean student’s experiences associated with English literacy learning while attending a predominantly European-American school in the United States. Of particular interest was the interaction between race, culture, and learning in a classroom where the mainstream teachers, students, and the English language learner experienced poor communication and unequal social relationships when addressing academic and literacy tasks. The study’s findings suggest that the teacher’s perceptions of and inexperience with culturally and racially different students contributed to the classroom social dynamics, thereby influencing the English language learner’s class interactions and participation in literacy activities. This study provides critical insight for educators regarding the importance of social acceptance and equal status in a teaching and learning relationship in the mainstream classroom with English language learners.

Are the lights coming on? How can we tell? English language learners and literacy assessment

Abstract: This article explores definitions of reading comprehension, research on how reading comprehension is assessed, and issues in assessing the reading comprehension of English language learners (ELLs). By way of illustration, I present aspects of the literacy practices of an intermediate-grade ELL in a suburban school of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. This learner, Aman, is evaluated as being ‘not yet within expectations’ on a reading-comprehension test given by the BC Ministry of Education. The article examines Aman's writing, showing that she has appropriated some important aspects of written language, and argues that her writing and reading comprehension must be supported so that she can achieve as fully as possible the benefits of her education. This case is representative of many ELLs’ trajectories in English literacy learning in BC schools and illustrates some of the human faces behind ELL achievement patterns.

Contributions of Families’ Linguistic, Social, and Cultural Capital to Minority-Language Children's Literacy: Parents’, Teachers’, and Principals’ Perspectives

Abstract: The voices of 21 immigrant parents, 12 teachers, and 10 principals are heard in this discussion of assumptions regarding minority-language parents’ linguistic, social, and cultural capital in supporting their children's literacy development. Interview data show that parents and educators recognize the contributions of children's first language (L1) and their culture to their English literacy learning. Participating minority-language parents provided reading materials in their L1 for their children to read and enrolled their children in heritage language schools. Participating teachers and principals used dual-language books and encouraged minority-language parents to read and write to their children in their L1. They showed interest in linguistic diversity and changed practices and school structures to accommodate the cultures, languages, customs, and values of immigrant families.

Decoding Strategies Used by Chinese Primary School Children

This study explored the ways Chinese children remember and decode characters. Thirty primary school children in two cities in China reported how they recognized and remembered individual characters. Of the ten strategy categories identified from the children's responses, three that analyzed character structure dominated. These three categories, as well as several others, emphasized visual processing rather than phonetic processing and suggest emphasis on visual perception. The first-, second-, and third-grade children readily divided characters into structural components and individual strokes. The study concludes that learning written Chinese engaged these children in using semiotic systems unique to their written code and distinct from those usually emphasized in English literacy learning. Interviewer: Is [the character] right or not? Child: No. Interviewer: How do you know that? Child: Because the end part of it shouldn't be this horizontal bar, but four dots. First Grade Student, China

'How shall we sign that?': Interactions between a profoundly deaf tutor and tutee involved in a cross-age paired reading program

This paper reports on the use of a cross‐age tutoring program designed to improve the literacy skills of a profoundly deaf girl. In a novel approach to such programs, both tutor and tutee participants were profoundly deaf and used Auslan as their common mode of communication. The results of the program indicate that cross‐age peer tutoring has potential as an effective strategy for improving the literacy achievements of deaf children like the tutee participant. Analysis of the videotaped interactions between tutor and tutee over the course of the program provided unique insights into the nature of English literacy learning by profoundly deaf students. These insights point to a role for strategies like cross‐age tutoring where the particular experience of. deafness can be used to promote more effective interpretation and understanding of English for profoundly deaf literacy learners.

‘How Shall We Sign That?’: Interactions Between a Profoundly Deaf Tutor and Tutee Involved in a Cross-Age Paired Reading Program

This paper reports on the use of a cross‐age tutoring program designed to improve the literacy skills of a profoundly deaf girl. In a novel approach to such programs, both tutor and tutee participants were profoundly deaf and used Auslan as their common mode of communication. The results of the program indicate that cross‐age peer tutoring has potential as an effective strategy for improving the literacy achievements of deaf children like the tutee participant. Analysis of the videotaped interactions between tutor and tutee over the course of the program provided unique insights into the nature of English literacy learning by profoundly deaf students. These insights point to a role for strategies like cross‐age tutoring where the particular experience of. deafness can be used to promote more effective interpretation and understanding of English for profoundly deaf literacy learners.

Language, Literacy and Social Justice: The Experiences of Bangladeshi Women in Birmingham, UK

This paper presents a study of the literacy practices and attitudes of Bangladeshi families in Birmingham, UK. In particular, the study focuses on the extent to which the mothers of eighteen six-year-old Bangladeshi children were able to support their children's school-related literacy learning. The paper locates literacy in the context of social justice, and relations of power between majority and minority groups in society. Despite the school's attempts to involve them, the Bangladeshi women were largely excluded from their children's schooling. They did not share the literacy of the school, so they were considered to be 'illiterate'. As they did not possess the linguistic or cultural capital demanded by the school, they were unable to contribute to their children's English literacy learning. The women were committed to their children's English education. At the same time, they reported that they had a clear understanding of how to support their children's Bengali literacy learning. However, the school did not seem to value the mothers' Bengali literacy as a resource. Instead, the women were disempowered by school structures which demanded that they play by the linguistic rules of the dominant-culture school, or put at risk their children's academic progress.