Research Line
Overview

Literacies and Language Education in the P-20 Context is the last research line we established at LSLP, in 2015. This research line takes a different stance from our other two lines: Community Literacies and Gaming Literacies have served as gateways for our undergraduate students. This line from the outset has hosted experienced teachers. Our first researchers were all graduate students in the MA in Learning and Teaching Processes in Second Languages. This is the research line that brings us closer to the school system, as all of our researchers are directly linked as instructors in different levels of the P-20 spectrum, including some of our senior researchers already teaching and advising at the master's level. Recently, we have also added doctoral students (one of whom recently finished his Ph.D.) as part of our team, hoping that more of our researchers will continue their advanced education into their doctorates. 

Meet #TeamLiLE Researchers

 The Notion of Literacies in Second Languages and #TeamLiLE

Although the notion of literacies in second languages is the driving force behind all of LSLP, this notion has been instrumental in defining the purpose of #TeamLiLE and the idea of "Reinventing Education" that we proposed as our vision. In the case of this research line, our understanding of literacies in second languages has a clear intention:

 [Literacies in second languages] studies how to incorporate and adapt contemporary concepts and frameworks in literacies research, such as critical literacy, mutliliteracies, multimodality, or gaming literacies, to name a few, to today’s learning and teaching of languages.
In that sense, what the idea of literacies in second languages proposes is a paradigmatic shift in the way we look at second languages in and out of school. This shift involves looking at literacy practices beyond traditional notions of language and paying more attention at the epistemological features of literacy as the basis to construct instrumental proposals to implement in research and pedagogy.
(Mora, 2017, LSLP Micro-Paper 45)

The idea of literacies in second languages applied to the P-20 settings has already spun off several studies and conceptual frameworks, including: Multimodal storytelling, Multimodal Critical Consciousness, an updated view of affinity spaces, critical literacy, critical digital literacies, podcasting, and culturally sustaining literacies, to name a few. (You can find working definitions for all of these concepts in our LSLP Micro-Papers)

Three Projects, One Goal

The Literacies and Language Education research line has already developed one research project, which had already several major publications, and is at present developing an expanded version as a second study. In addition, a third project, closely linked to the LSLP Micro-Papers, is in progress.

You can learn more about them in the links below:

Stories in and from our Classrooms

Micro-Writing Study