Emerging multimodal literacies: Second language learners making video

To address the problem of second language (L2) literacy development in children who come to school speaking minority languages, we want to understand better if and how participation in videomaking might afford such learners opportunities to enhance their usage of first and second languages (spoken and written) through the production of visual media and participation in multimodal pedagogies.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Kelleen Toohey
Co-Investigators: Dr. Diane Dagenais
Funding Agency: SSHRC Standard Grant

What's Proposed

This project provides a finely-grained analysis of conditions that affect how videomaking might be more easily incorporated as a multilingual literacy practice at schools in Canada.

How This Project is Carried Out

We observed Grade 4 students in one school in the Lower Mainland as they went about group videomaking projects. We videotaped their videomaking, interviewed the students and their teachers and  are currently engaged in close analysis of our data.

Why This Project Matters

Results will benefit Canadian researchers and educators by advancing our understanding of the literacy learning affordances of video improving the literacy education of language learners will have positive impacts on the social integration and economic futures of

Where to Learn More

Smythe, S., Toohey, K. and Dagenais, D. in press. Video Making, Production Pedagogies and Educational Policy. Journal of Educational Policy.