Applying and Adapting Critical Literacy to an Asian context

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Applying and Adapting Critical Literacy to an
Asian context

• Ringo Chan, Arthur Firkins, Gail Forey Cherry
  Wong
• TWGHs Mr and Mrs Kwong Sik Kwan College, Hong
  Kong
• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

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Presentation outline

• The argument
• The pedagogical problem
• Literacy in Hong Kong
• Critical meaning
• Hong Kong as a third space
• Selecting a literacy model
• Adapting a literacy model
• Meeting the needs of the pedagogical situation in
  Hong Kong

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The argument

• Educational systems are the products of unique
  cultures, histories and political economies Luke
  et.al.(2005)
• Yet at the same time, education systems are under
  considerable outside pressure to reform and
  change.
• Our argument is that it is not possible to simply
  embed pedagogies and practices from other systems
  without significant adaptation and change.
• In this process of change the introduced
  pedagogical practice is changed to meet the needs
  of the new context.
• We argue that the teacher needs to be an active
  agent towards this change.

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The context of education

• Large class sizes
• English is an L2 but taught as an L1
• Disjuncture between the language requirement of
  junior secondary school
• As there is a more critical orientation of the
  senior English and Chinese curriculum.
• New curriculum will examine critical reflection
  (to be introduced in the exam in 2007 (HKCC 2005)
• The examination system in Hong Kong needs to be
  taken into account.
• The present study takes place a school where
• children are generally seen as under achievers
• it was a Special Needs, but now mainstreamed

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The pedagogical problem

• Changes to the Curriculum and Syllabus
• place higher expectations on Hong Kong students
  to critically engage with a wide range of Chinese
  and English texts.
• The new expectations place new demands on
  literacy skills
• very different from current pedagogical
  approaches to literacy.
• Curriculum reform in Hong Kong towards - creative
  and critical pedagogogical approach that meets
  the needs of the new communicative order
  (Street,1988)

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In the literacy classroom

• Current conception that Chinese and English
  classroom practices are very different
• Part of the study was to compare Chinese and
  English literacy classroom
• Angel Lins observations
• Both are very similar in their classroom practice

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Current literacy pedagogy

• The effects of wash back on classroom pedagogy
  (Cheng,1997).
• Text book based and text book dependent.
• Current text books do not meet the needs of a
  critical orientation.
• Participation structures teacher centred and
  teacher controlled.
• Language lessons predominately centred on grammar
  activities or information extraction activities.
• No co-ordinated approach to the teaching writing.
• No co-ordination between the two languages.
• Dependent on examinations for evaluation of
  progress.

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Introducing a literacy programme

• Language teachers in the English and Chinese
  departments wanted to introduce a literacy
  programme which promoted critical literacy.
• The details of the development of the programme
  will be discussed at 10.45 am tomorrow.

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Selecting a model

• Four Resources Model (FRM) as a approach to
  conceptualise literacy development within the
  school
• (Freebody and Luke,1990 Luke and Freebody,1999)
• Reasons
• Critically oriented
• Teachers had some familiarity
• Easy to incorporate the schools current
  approaches into the model.
• Although, developed for English, presented
  possibilities to adapt for use in Chinese
  Language Area.
• The FRM is a schema, map of possible practices
  and therefore offered a possibility of using as a
  planning tool to achieve common goals in both
  language areas.

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The Four Resources Model (FRM)
Code breaker decoding the codes and conventions
of written, spoken and visual text Text
participant comprehending written, spoken and
visual texts Text user understanding the
purposes of different written, spoken and visual
texts for different cultural and social functions
Text analyst understanding how texts position
readers, viewers and listeners
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Applying the FRM to the Hong Kong context
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Problems with using FRM

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Advantages of FRM

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Table I The Four levels of Pedagogical
Resources, literacy Roles and literacy Practices
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Culture contested concept

• Individualist Western cultures
• focus on individual goals, needs and rights more
  than community
• Collectivist Asian cultures
• value group
• (Hall 1977 Hoftstede 1980)
• Is this true of HK students in their literacy
  practices?
• Can they be critical in their literacy practices?

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a) Halls low-context (Westerners)

• Western philosophy promotes individualism and
  rationalism, freedom of speech, truth, logical
  thinking and objectivity.
• (Brew Cairns 2004 332)
• value individualist goals
• separate person and issue
• confrontational
• logic deductive thinking
• explicit codes of speech
• express emotion through face, voice and body
  movement

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b) Halls high-context (Asian other Eastern)

• intermesh person and issue
• indirect
• rely on contextual cues and situational knowledge
• implicit referencing
• indirect speech acts
• careful of face and suppress / mask their
  emotions
• Confusion legacy promotes social relationships
  and concern for others requiring essential
  diplomacy politeness.
• These characteristics affect the way an
  individual deals with conflict high/low context
• (Brew Cairns 2004 332)
• The notion of critical is not part of the Asian
  heritage.
• Compare teaching of Aristotle with Confucian

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Hong Kongers

• Intercultural workplace research suggests
• Hong Kongers perceive themselves as a cohesive
  group
• Feel closer to Westerners (incl. British,
  American and ABC) that to traditional mainland
  Chinese
• (Chan and Goto 2003)
• What does this mean with respect to Hongkongers
  and critical literacy?

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Critical literacy

• Taking such considerations into account how could
  we presume that being critical could be the
  same?
• Yet at the same time we are attempting to develop
  students ability to offer a critique of a text.
• Critical literacy in Hong Kong has been
  reformulated to refer to
• Thinking about the text
• Some type of active cognitive engagement
• Higher order understanding
• Reader response

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Literacy needs are different

• Different literacy practices.
• Academic orientation
• Technology
• Students in Hong Kong engage in different
  activities and hobbies.
• Draw on different funds of knowledge (Gonzalez,
  Moll, Amanti, 2005)
• Workplaces, educational places have different
  literacy demands.

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Critical literacy is interpreted differently

• We asked the three change agents in the School
  what they believed Critical Literacy to be -
• Functional literacy is those daily uses, such as
  say reading and writing. Critical literacy is to
  understand the meaning and main points by
  understanding the passage. Students are weak in
  both these areas School Principal
• Some of our students abilities in Chinese are
  comparatively weak. Therefore I think a
  concentration on functional literacy is important
  as they cannot read or pronounce characters
  (referring to Chinese). Students can become
  critical with the help of teachers to stimulate
  their thoughts and ideas Chinese subject
  coordinator
•  I think functional literacy is the tool or
  consideration of the text user in using a
  particular language. Critical literacy is the
  personal response or critical comment after
  reading a text English subject
  coordinator

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Third Space Pedagogy

• In order to bring in and adapt a pedagogical
  model from another context
• Needed to create of a third space where change
  was possible (Moje et. al.,2004).
• A third space constitutes the discursive
  conditions that ensure that even the same signs
  can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized
  and read anew (Bhabha,1994).
• Can be viewed as a space of cultural, social,
  epistemological change in which competing
  discourses of different spaces are brought into
  conversation (Moje et. al. 2004)

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Allowing for a third space

• Build bridges between practices.
• Focus on change
• Focus on adaptation
• Draw on students Funds of Knowledge
• Result in hybrid discourse and pedagogical
  practices.

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Teacher as Bricoleur

• Bricoleur is change on the run (Erickson, 2004)
• Motivated by the need to adapt
• Able to understand and improvise things to suit
  the needs of the situation.
• Important with low achievers
• Innovation a tactical reuse of pre-existing
  elements (Erickson, 2004167).
• The bricoleur is fundamentally an agent who
  makes use. The teacher as Bricoleur is a jack of
  all trades makes do with whatever is available
  at hand, adapting pre-existing materials to
  whatever needs doing.
• Richards (1996), Cope and Kallantzis (1993)

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Changing to meet the third space

• Need to recruit teachers as active agents in the
  process of change
• Understand the demands for the change Demands
  on the
• students
• teachers
• change in curriculum
• Change in classroom practice
• Build network to allow collaboration and change
• Provide metadiscourse to develop collaboration
  and change
• (Bourdieu, 1991 Firkins Forey, forthcoming
  Thomas, 2002 431, Wong Firkins 2005)
• We organised workshops, developed action
  research, brainstormed teaching material, etc.
  e.g from a workshop

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Conclusion

• Ground up change
• Adaptation
• allowing for a space for a critical literacy
  lesson
• meeting the needs of the new of HK Curriculum
• creating and developing a third space
• exploring what it means to be critical from a HK
  perspective
• understanding and sharing literacy practices in
  other language
• Introduction of shared material / shared
  metadisourse
• Action research
• Collaboration

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