Past Seminars

The global spread of English has led to discussions and debates regarding its teaching. Some argue that language teacher education should prepare pre- and in-service teachers to teach English from a Global Englishes (GE) perspective. In this talk, I will discuss the need for GE-informed teacher education by firstly examining the need to move away from traditional assumptions about native speakerism in language teaching and then linking it to individual cognition in GE-informed teacher education. I will present five cases of GE teacher education in various contexts and discuss the various challenges and future directions for GE-informed teacher education. The implications for GE language teacher education from the perspectives of “looking inward”, “looking around”, and “looking forward” will be discussed at the end of the talk.

Registration:
https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=91115
Abstract:
In this interactive session, we will consider key stages and aspects of the publishing process and discuss
common pitfalls as well as best practices that may lead to a less painful and more successful experience
in getting our work published in top journals.

Registration:
https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=91114
Abstract:
There has been much interest in the notion of embodiment within literacy research over the past decade or so,
coinciding with a broader turn toward the affective dimension of human experience and meaning-making within the
social sciences. Several strands of research have developed along somewhat different epistemological dimensions.
Sociomaterial approaches focus on the body’s relational engagement with objects, texts and people and how they
shape the nature and process of literacy-as-event (Burnett & Merchant 2018) while multimodal literacy scholars
have investigated embodiment as corporeal resources (Lim, 2020, p. 2) in an attempt to map sensory literacies
(Mills, 2016) within the increasingly digital literacy terrain. Yet this intense focus on embodiment and the body and
theoretical advances in its relation to literacy has not been matched with the same level of methodological innovation.
Drawing on a study of home literacy practices of secondary-aged youth in Singapore, in this talk I explore
embodiment at the intersection of theory and method in literacy research. The teenagers in the study were observed
engaged in various literacy activities and their levels of arousal tracked through a wearable sensor that measured
galvanic skin response. The question I aim to pursue in the talk is not so much what the measures ‘tell us’ about
literacy, but rather how we may conceptually integrate new methodologies into the study of embodiment in literacy.

Registration:
https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=91113

Abstract:
Digital literacy as a field of scholarship has seen rapid developments over the past several years, with numerous
frameworks now in existence that aim to capture and/or measure the skills, competencies and dispositions that
are thought to be essential to be digitally literate. Much less emphasis has been placed on developing pedagogic
approaches that can facilitate the development of digitally literate learners, particularly in formal educational
contexts. Yet the sharpening of focus on pedagogy, I argue, is even more important given the continued
proliferation of large language model-powered generative-AI tools. In this talk, I discuss how our
conceptualization and pedagogy of digital literacy may need to take on new dimensions in order to respond to
the myriad of opportunities and challenges that these new technologies present. Drawing on my experience
teaching digital literacy at the university level, I illustrate some of these pedagogical tenets with examples of
classroom and assessment practice.

There is a resurgent interest in digital literacies along with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence. This forum brings together seminal applied linguists to address crucial aspects of digital literacies, specifically with regards to language and literacy education. The forum comprises two presentations that look at the nature of digital literacies and the development of digital literacies, followed by a panel discussion.

Time: 12:00-14:30 pm, November 8, Wednesday, 2023

Venue: Room 411-412, Meng Wah Complex, HKU.

The forum will be in hybrid mode. The Zoom link will be sent to the registered participants before the event. 

The digital literacies forum is open and free to all. Please register here: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=90939

You can also register by scanning the QR code:

The agenda of the forum is as follows:

Abstracts of the two presentations

Talk1

The ideological nature of digital literacy

Csilla Weninger, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

In this talk, I consider what it means to say that digital literacy is an ideological practice and what such a recognition entails for teaching or developing it in schools. I do this by taking a historical look, since as Green and Cormack (2015, p. 201) have argued, history as “a distinctive epistemological and methodological resource” can bring critical insights to our understanding of literacy and literacy education. In specific, I will draw parallels between debates around ‘traditional’ literacy and digital literacy, reaching back to New Literacy scholars’ arguments about literacy and ideology. As I will argue and illustrate, we can see striking similarities between then and now, especially concerning the prioritization of certain aspects of (digital) literacy, the trend toward quantification and measurement, and a massive cultural divide between home and school uses of (digital) literacy. The key implication of these insights is that as teachers and educators we must have awareness of the ideological nature of digital literacy before we can develop it meaningfully and without alienating our students.

Talk2

Developing digital literacies through digital multimodal composing: Teacher perspectives

Christoph A. Hafner

Department of English, City University of Hong Kong

Developments in digital media communication technologies have challenged the way that we think about the teaching and learning of writing in English language teaching contexts. Outside of class and in their personal lives, students and their teachers are often involved in creating complex and sophisticated texts, like short videos in social media, for example, that draw not only on writing but many other forms of expression, like visuals, soundtrack, speech and accompanying gesture, facial expression, and gaze, to name a few