Language and literacy learning and teaching in multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal contexts
Our research and teaching in multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal contexts focuses on critical and contemporary issues at the intersections of language and literacy learning and cultural and societal transformation. Students in our programs are teachers and other professional educators who engage in courses, conversations and research addressing a broad range of issues and contexts – in and out of schools, nationally and internationally, and across the lifespan.The work of our faculty considers second/additional language education related to colonial, and minoritized or heritage languages as well as other modern languages, and the intersection of these with Indigenous language reclamation and education. This work draws on applied linguistics, critical applied linguistics, educational and sociolinguistics, critical multiculturalism, critical perspectives on children’s and young adult literature, and decolonizing methodologies and pedagogies.
Students also engage with topics such as cultural literacy, language learner and teacher identity, processes of racialization, raciolinguistic ideologies and the impact of settler colonialism on language and literacy education as well as discourse and multimodal analysis, language socialization, second language acquisition and reading/writing/vocabulary learning, disciplinary literacies, literacy in developing contexts, family literacy, and language policy and planning.
Examples of Course Offerings
LLED 489: Applied Linguistics for Teachers
LLED 510: Language, Discourse, and Identity
LLED 521: Interculturality in Language Education: Theories, Research, and Practice
LLED 526: Second Language Assessment: Conceptual and Empirical Approaches
LLED 525: Bilingual Education: Theory and Practice
LLED 552: Theoretical Foundations of Reading Research and Practice
LLED 553: Theoretical Foundations of ESL/EL Reading Pedagogy
LLED 556: Theory and Research in Early Literacy
LLED 557: Family and Community Literacy: Issues and Perspectives
LLED 558: Literacy and Multimodality
LLED 572: Theory and Research in Teaching English as a Second Language
LLED 573: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
LLED 574: Theory and Research in Teaching Second Language Writing
Faculty
Research and Teaching Areas
A Sampling of LLED Theses and Dissertations