Page 42 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS
The functions of cognitive discourse interact at different levels in the process of constructing and communicating knowledge, for example when classifying, describing, or defining. Thought processes develop through thinking and practice, from the concrete to the abstract.
As learning cannot be separated from language, the learner's progress should be expressed through the ability to:
• extract information from increasingly complex texts in a variety of ways;
• use an increasing variety of genres and literary sub-genres;
• express a deeper understanding of relevant concepts;
• communicate their understanding in a variety of ways appropriate to the subject matter and
content, e.g. in the form of diagrams, maps, tables, drawings, etc., using both analogue and digital media.
However, learners' progress should not only be observed by comparing learners' creations at different levels and over a period of time; it should also be promoted by involving learners in the preparation of their own texts (Meyer et al., p. 5). This means that teachers should not only have an idea of what their students need to get from Task A to Task B, but they should also be able to guide them so that they improve their work in the task area. This is where the assessment system immediately comes to mind – assessment as learning, in which the teacher's role is to create a learning situation in which students not only have access to the results of their learning progress, but are themselves encouraged to self- assess the knowledge, skills, or competencies they are still lacking in order to achieve a particular goal, improve their work after self-evaluation, and set and monitor the achievement of their learning goals themselves (Senge, 2012).
The above terminology was changed by Oliver Meyer and Do Coyle (2021) to Pluriliteracies Teaching for Deeper Learning (PTDL).
The change in term came with a change in the definition of deep learning as the internalisation of subject content and the improvement of students' skills and strategies through the use of broad literacy. Deep learning occurs when a learner is able to transfer what they have learned in one situation to another and apply it to a new situation (National Research Council, 2012: SUM-4). Pluriliteracy occurs when learners actively engage in subject-specific ways of constructing knowledge and express their understanding using appropriate language (Meyer& Coyle, 2017, p. 199), as language use is the primary evidence that learning processes are taking place (Mohan, 2010). This process can be referred to as the development of deep transferable knowledge (Pellegrino& Hilton, 2012).
The pluriliteracies teaching for deeper learning is an attempt to complement the integrated subject- linguistic approach of CLIL, which, if implemented without a focus on broad subject literacy, can promote superficial learning only (Meyer& Coyle, 2017, p. 200). This approach is based on a changed understanding of language and its role in learning, especially where language is seen as a means of knowing the world and learning as a meaning-making process. A narrow understanding of literacy is characterised by significant differences arising from the use of language to construct knowledge and communicate within the domain of a given object of cognition, and this is due to the way in which different disciplines approach texts. Beacco (2015) believes that literacy that is standardised for all subjects is an indicator of the quality of teaching and it is through this that the objectives described
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