Classroom Texts Research Articles

“Por que você tá rindo, professora?”: leitura e alteridade no ensino de história

This article aims to address the specificities of reading in History classes, based on the concept of dialogism from Mikhail Bakhtin's Linguistic Philosophy (2011; 2017). For this purpose, the article centers on an episode analyzed in a master’s thesis, that investigated the role of text and reading in middle school History classrooms. We begin from the premise that reading is a responsive act — one in which the reader actively engages with the text to construct meaning — thus challenging reductive conceptions of reading. Therefore, taking into account the interrelationship of time and space, a concept that allows the analytical approach regarding the past in History teaching, we aim at reflecting on the place of alterity in the act of reading in this curricular subject. We understand that establishing a sense of alterity in relation to time allows the attribution of meanings dialogically from an exotopic point of view, that calls for counter-words - new texts - that move towards the current time.

A pilot study on the usage of multimodal texts to enhance learner engagement during online classes

The rapid advancement of technology has significantly impacted education, particularly in language classrooms where multimodal texts have become crucial. These technology-based texts facilitate diverse meaning-making methods, shifting literacy pedagogy from traditional to modern teaching approaches. Integrating technology into English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms is essential for this transformation. This research aimed to assess the effectiveness of using various multimodal texts to enhance student engagement in virtual classrooms in Sri Lanka. Conducted as an action research project over a month, the study involved 35 grade 10 students from H/Thalawa Vidyalaya, employing quantitative and qualitative methods. The teaching sessions incorporated a range of multimodal texts suitable for the learners and the lesson goals, each featuring at least one multimodal text. These lessons aimed to teach aspects of the four language skills: grammar, and vocabulary. Tools like Google Classroom, presentation slides, videos, Padlet, Slido, Google Forms, and chat options via Zoom and WhatsApp were utilized. Quantitative data were collected through a Google Forms survey, while qualitative data were obtained from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Additionally, observations and student work reviews were used for data collection. The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS, and the qualitative data were analyzed thematically. The study found that using learner-friendly and familiar multimodal texts significantly enhanced student engagement and fostered a positive attitude towards their use for various purposes in language learning. These findings highlight the importance and effectiveness of diverse multimodal texts in English classrooms, particularly in virtual settings, to boost student motivation, interest, and engagement.

Real-Time Interactions with Photos and Texts in Large Classrooms

Real-Time Interactions with Photos and Texts in Large Classrooms

Integrating Source Texts and Building Up Genre Awareness in ESP Classrooms: a Focus on Law Reports

Integrating Source Texts and Building Up Genre Awareness in ESP Classrooms: a Focus on Law Reports

Designing a digital portfolio as an instrument to address literary texts in the EFL classroom

This study discusses the use of a digital portfolio as a means of incorporating literary texts as didactic resources in the EFL classroom. It is structured as follows: (i) introduction, (ii) advantages of using literary texts in the EFL classrooms; (iii) an analysis of portfolios in general, and digital portfolios in particular; (iv) a description of the current proposal for teaching and learning, involving an e-portfolio which focuses on the book Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley; and (v) conclusion. In using such a digital resource, students not only read the book itself, but need to complete the three components of the portfolio – a language diary, a language biography, and a section about literary landscapes – all at the different stages in the learning process. The benefits to students were expected to include a positive effect on their overall acquisition of the foreign language, along with the development of other skills and competences, particularly self-assessment and digital competence, while also gaining knowledge about the literary text in question.

The Monstrous Hospitality of Canonical Text Selections: The Need for a Hospitable Literacy Framework

Recent political excursions into classroom text selections by local and national politicians and pundits have made teaching canonical texts more appealing to many school districts and teachers. In this study, we used conceptions of Derridean hospitality alongside monster theory to examine what common canonical texts teach students about who is welcome and worthy of hospitality in American society and who is viewed as wholly monstrous and outside the bounds of hospitality. The results of our critical content analysis revealed that in commonly taught canonical novels, identity categories like race and gender shape determinations of who is welcome and who is othered. The findings suggest that critical readings of canonical texts cannot offer a hospitable welcome to marginalized and othered youth in ELA classrooms. Instead we offer a hospitable literacy approach to text selection in ELA classrooms.

Films as emergent educational resources in Indian upper primary social studies classrooms: a multimodal inquiry

PurposeThis study explores the relevance of film texts in Indian social studies classrooms for students at the upper primary level. It examines how different types of visual texts can facilitate awareness, critical thinking, discussion and action.Design/methodology/approachUsing multimodal discourse analysis (MDA), this paper critically evaluates five selective films from regional cinemas in India and explores their teaching implications for social studies. The study argues that films are vital multimodal resources that can challenge the prevailing narratives in social studies pedagogy. It conveys how the suggestive revised taxonomy could benefit the students. It proposes a classification system for film analysis with discussion and states how films can bring out interrelated themes and encourage deeper, critical inquiry within the curriculum. The study finds discourse around the films and qualitatively stresses dialogue exchange with sentiment analysis using MAXQDA software. Developed by VERBI software, MAXQDA is a product whose name is inspired by the German Sociologist Max Weber, while the ‘QDA' stands for Qualitative Data Analysis.FindingsThe films act as multimodal texts, navigators, metaphors, communicative circuits and catalysts. The paper concludes that films can improve and expand multimodal learning of social studies in three ways: films help learners connect emotionally with the concepts, films make the learning process more appealing and extend it beyond classroom boundaries and films offer a unique insight into the socio-cultural subtleties that are often limited in textbooks.Originality/valueThis research pioneers an intersectionality-driven framework for film analysis in the curriculum for Indian upper primary social studies, offering innovative pedagogical tools to enrich Indian curriculum insights and bridge existing knowledge gaps.

Becoming Daisy, Living Mildred: on Challenging Our Own Canonical Complicity

The authors reflect on their own past classroom text selections and practices to illustrate their unintentional complicity in upholding whiteness within their classrooms.

Incorporating literature in EFL classroom: attitudes and experiences

This study presents findings about first-year undergraduate students' attitudes to and experiences with reading literary texts in an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) context. It also explores the degree of literature integration in EFL lessons in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We conducted the research with ninety-eight students at the International University of Sarajevo (IUS); we examined their attitudes towards different literary genres, difficulties they face while reading literary texts, the type of assistance they prefer while reading, and their general interests concerning literature. The findings indicate that students prefer short stories to other genres and learn best through exploring themes meaningful to them. The results also show that literary texts in EFL classrooms are frequently used for vocabulary purposes. Literature is mainly integrated into EFL classrooms, except for technical high schools and madrasahs./ Keywords: EFL, literature, literary texts, attitudes, experiences, literature integration

Silent Folks: A Modern Lore Preserving The Indigenous Folktales, Myths And Legends In The Digital Era

Innovations in second language teaching are desirable because such practices will help to maintain students’ interest and motivation in the classroom. Various research has reported the significance of incorporating stimulating reading texts in ESL classrooms. This paper aims to report how innovative ideas on using reading texts which are based on the tales of indigenous people in Malaysia can leave significant impact in an ESL classroom. This innovation project was in the form of a project work given to a group of 30 diploma students undergoing a proficiency class. Reading is one of the main components in the syllabus. One of the sub-components in reading for this subject is to read, understand, and provide personal responses to short stories. The students were asked to read a few ghost stories based on the lives of Semai people from a book entitled The Myths of Semai prior to their folktales project. The project required the students to retell the story in the form of animated videos. They made story boards to help dramatize the tales and then used video editing apps to compile the story boards into videos of the chosen folktales. They played the videos in class and uploaded them to YouTube for other ESL learners. At the end of the project, students were asked to write a reflective journal about their learning experiences with Semai folktales. The responses were analysed based on the emerging themes which occur in the students’ reflections. The findings on this innovative project should contribute to deeper understanding on how animating the folktales can impact ESL students’ learning and how using the stories from indigenous people can enhance cross-cultural awareness and acceptance of different traditions.

E Derek Taylor, Melvyn New, and Elizabeth Kraft (eds). The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Richardson’s prolixity is legendary. The sheer physical heft of his collected work posed a challenge: when confronted with ‘19 Volumes in Twelves, close Printed—In Three Stories—Monstrous!—Who that sees them ranged on one Shelf, will forgive me?’ (xxxix), he fretted. While modern readers often plead ‘TLDR’, being unwilling to excuse the extended psychological vacillations and moral qualms of his heroines, contemporary admirers begged the author for yet more of his fictions. Richardson’s final novel, The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753–54), was partly the product of readers’ requests for a good man to complement his virtuous heroines. Yet, despite being Jane Austen’s favourite novel, Grandison has remained out of favour with readers and critics alike. This is partly due to the lack of a good critical edition. Unlike Clarissa and Pamela, which have both benefitted from affordable and readily available paperback editions, Grandison was last available in Jocelyn Harris’s 1986 edition. Though not quite a classroom text, her Oxford University Press edition granted Grandison a small but growing demographic of academic readers committed, possibly perverse, and compelled by Richardson’s story of the divided love of a painfully perfect hero, told in letters by a roster of women correspondents significantly livelier than Sir Charles himself.

Criteria for Multimodal Texts in English Language Classrooms

The purpose of this article is to investigate multimodal texts and employ multimodaltexts in the curriculum of English classes. Due to the swift development of technology andglobalization since the late XX century, the growing multimodality of communication is evidentin education. Multimodal texts may be any written text which is followed by a large varietyof audio, visual, and other symbolic representations or some information from this text isaccompanied by images and sounds. Hence multimodal texts include picture books, textbooks,graphic novels, comics, and posters, conveying meaning to the reader through combinationsof visual written language and spatial modes. The article follows a qualitative paradigm. It isreferred to primarily two case studies which consist of recorded trailers and created multimodaltexts by students. The assessment criteria were also designed for the tasks presented in this article.Thus, the result found in the current study showed that students appeared to accept multimodaltexts in English foreign language teaching and this research is useful for teachers and studentsas a practical guide on how to implement multimodal texts based on the tasks introduced in thisarticle. And finally, we may say that the outcomes of the current article support and reinforceprevious research studies regarding multimodality in teaching and criteria for choosing theappropriate pedagogically designed multimodal texts.

EFL Learners' Attitudes towards the Use of Literature Regarding Cultural Awareness, Personal Reflection, and Language Skills

In recent years there has been a renewed interest concerning the usage of literary texts in EFL classrooms as the usage helps learners enhance not only their reading and writing skills but also speaking skills on the role of cultural awareness as well. This study investigates the supporting role of literature and illustrates learners’ attitudes towards integrating literary texts while learning a second language. Convenience sampling technique was used, and the sample utilized in this research was randomly chosen 67 English major students at a public university in Turkey. The data of the study were collected through the questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale (Likert, 1967) including 20 close-ended items. This study aims to demonstrate what kind of attitudes the second language learners have on the usage of literary texts in EFL classrooms and also whether the usage has any positive effects on raising cultural awareness.

Challenges of Reading Comprehension in Early Primary Classrooms of India

The present paper provides details of a significant classroom based research study that explored the status of reading and comprehension instructions in early primary classrooms of Indian context. It is significant as there has been dearth of research in any of these fields—early reading, reading comprehension in early school years, and early grade classrooms in India. The study was exploratory, descriptive and qualitative in nature. It examines the nature of comprehension instructions, quality of reading experiences, whether reading experiences are meaningful for learners or not, kinds of reading materials present and accessible to students and nature of their engagement with texts in second grade classrooms. It describes various challenges of reading comprehension in early primary classrooms and evaluates the situation in light of the recommendations provided in the policy documents.

Motivation to Read Authentic Narrative Texts: A Focus on Pre-University Students in an ESL Class


 
 
 
 
 
 
 Second Language (L2) instructors often use authentic text, although it is designed for real-world communication among speakers of a target language. However, it is criticised for being too complex for L2 learners. This study explores the level of acceptance of 85 pre-university students of authentic narrative text in their ESL lessons and the factors that influence their reading motivation. The quantitative data were collected using a 9-item questionnaire. The findings show that the students had a high acceptance of reading authentic narrative texts in the classroom. Their motivation was positively correlated with the length of the text, level of interest, relevance and appropriateness of the storyline. This study supports the use of authentic narrative texts in ESL classrooms.
 
 

Reproduction Rather than Comprehension? Analysis of Gains in Students’ Science Text Comprehension

The use of texts is an indispensable resource for students’ learning, especially in science domains. While developing understanding of a specific topic usually is the main goal of reading expository texts, an important consideration is how to best measure whether this understanding has been reached. In this study, we aimed to analyze gains in students’ reading comprehension based on reading three expository texts on chemistry and physics topics. By means of a pre–post design, we assessed the reading comprehension of 261 eighth grade students with regard to three levels of reading comprehension. Latent change scores were estimated to analyze changes in students’ total test scores, while also calculating difference scores based on the single items. Results indicate that students’ topic-related comprehension increases from pre- to posttest, while gains seem to be limited to word and sentence level questions. In line with other studies, these findings stress that students would benefit from explicit strategy instruction, at least when learning from reading is the goal of using science texts in classrooms.

Review Essay: The Sicilian World of Gaetano Cipolla

Review Essay: The Sicilian World of Gaetano Cipolla

Exploring Female Saudi EFL Teachers’ Instructional Practices in Using Authentic Texts for Teaching Reading Comprehension

This research study explored EFL teachers’ instructional practices (e.g., adaptation, selection, elaboration, and simplification) in using authentic texts for teaching reading comprehension. In fact, a considerable amount of research has been devoted to investigate the use of authentic texts in teaching reading comprehension. However, there is an academic and professional need to explore how teachers exploit authentic texts while teaching reading comprehension. The study employed a mixed method research design. Teachers’ instructional practices were explored through a self-reported questionnaire. Also, the study examined teachers’ perspectives on these practices and how their Personal Practical Knowledge (PPK) affects their practices by conducting semi-structured interviews. From two Saudi universities, 50 female EFL teachers responded to the questionnaire, while additional five teachers were interviewed. The questionnaire results revealed that EFL teachers adapt authentic texts for advanced students more than beginners. In contrast, most of the teachers in the interviews highlighted that authentic texts are applicable in teaching beginners with the use of technology. The quantitative and qualitative results showed that teachers select authentic texts that match students’ language level, their cultural background, and course book objectives. It was also found that the aspects of PPK knowledge affected teachers’ instructional practices in using authentic texts. Based on the research findings, several suggestions and recommendations were presented to enhance the effectiveness of authentic texts in the EFL classrooms.

Oh, God: evangelical teachers, textual interpretation, and ELA classrooms

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how evangelical teachers’ religious identities influence their interpretation and teaching of texts in high school English Language Arts classrooms. Further, this paper examines how evangelical teachers make choices about how to balance the demands of their religious and teacher identities as they interact with texts in their own classrooms.Design/methodology/approachUsing Derridean deconstruction of the concept of ethical decision-making, the author uses critical discourse analysis to examine a conversation between two evangelical teachers as they talk about the tensions they feel as they teach The Crucible with their high school–aged students.FindingsThe findings show evangelical teachers’ religious and teaching identities were in tension across three themes: literary analytic frameworks, authorial intent and eternal truths and evangelism and fellowship.Originality/valueBy highlighting how evangelical teachers’ religious and teaching identities influence their classroom decisions, teaching practices and textual interpretations, this study offers another pathway through which teacher educators and researchers might examine the connection between teachers’ religious and teaching identities with the intent to invite more complexity into literary analysis.

Conceptual Tools to Inform Course Design and Teaching for Ethical Engineering Engagement for Diverse Student Populations.

Contemporary engineering education recognises the need for engineering ethics content in undergraduate programmes to extend beyond concepts that form the basis of professional codes to consider relationality and context of engineering practice. Yet there is debate on how this might be done, and we argue that the design and pedagogy for engineering ethics has to consider what and to whom ethics is taught in a particular context. Our interest is in the possibilities and challenges of pursuing the dual imperatives of socialization and critique. Socialization involves creating opportunities for all, in a diverse cohort of students, to access and engage with the dominant professional engineering ethics knowledge, while critique involves engaging with a range of ways of knowing, valuing, being and using language as relevant in contemporary engineering practice. We identify conceptual tools from engineering ethics and ethical pedagogy in education scholarship for our context. We illustrate how we use these tools systematically to strengthen our reflective practice in a first-year university engineering ethics module to a deeper form of reflexivity. Specifically, we explore the ways in which we attend to the dual imperatives and also highlight opportunities that we miss. We identify as key opportunities design choices such as how we formulated questions and prompts, and how we attended to content, context and language in selecting classroom texts. Other key opportunities were pedagogical choices of when and how to use student contributions in discussion, and what was made explicit in the classroom and assessment. We share our plans to take our learnings forward in our practice and consider the generative possibilities of these learnings and the concepts in other contexts.