This book examines everyday literacy in English as a foreign language (EFL). Focusing on the out-of-school literacy practices of teenagers in Athens, Greece, it challenges the notion that classrooms are the only contexts which provide exposure to English for learners. The author demonstrates that English can be a powerful resource for teenagers, as a symbolic tool granting them additional means of communication and self-expression. In doing so, she makes an original contribution to the areas of literacy, language education, and applied linguistics.

Focusing on adolescent multilingual writing, this text problematizes the traditional boundaries between academic writing in school contexts and self-initiated writing outside of the formal learning environment. By reconceptualizing the nature of adolescent multilingual writing, the author establishes it as an interdisciplinary genre and a key area of inquiry for research and pedagogy. Organized into six chapters, Reconceptualizing the Writing Practices of Multilingual Youth provides an in-depth examination of the writing practices of multilingual youth from sociocultural and social practice perspectives. Drawing on first-hand research conducted with young people, the text questions the traditional dichotomy between academic writing and non-formal equivalents and proposes a symbiotic approach to exploring and cultivating the connections between in- and out-of-school literate lives. By highlighting a bidirectional relationship between formal and informal writing, the text advocates for writing instruction that helps adolescents use writing for entertainment, identity construction, creative expression, personal well-being, and civic engagement, as well as helps them learn to navigate future literacies that we cannot imagine or predict now. This much-needed text will provide researchers and graduate students with a principled overview and synthesis of adolescent multilingual writing research that is significant yet underexplored in applied linguistics, TESOL, and literacy studies.

This edited volume unpacks the familiar concepts of language, literacy and learning, and promotes dialogue and bridge building within and across these concepts. Its specific interest lies in bridging the gap between Literacy Studies (or New Literacy Studies), on the one hand, and SLA and scholarship in learning in multilingual contexts, on the other. The chapters in the volume center-stage empirical analysis, and each addresses gaps in the scholarship between the two domains. The volume addresses the need to engage with the concepts, categorizations and boundaries that pertain to language, literacy and learning. This need is especially felt in our globalized society, which is characterized by constant, fast and unpredictable mobility of people, goods, ideas and values. The editors of this volume are founding members of the Nordic Network LLL (Language, Literacy and Learning). They have initiated a string of workshops and have discussed this theme at Nordic meetings and at symposia at international conferences.

Informal language learning beyond the classroom plays an important and growing role in language learning and teaching. This Handbook brings together the existing body of research and unites the various disciplines that have explored this area, in order to present the current state of knowledge in one accessible resource. Much of adult learning takes place outside of formal education and for language learning, it is likely that out-of-class experiences play an equally important role. It is therefore surprising that the role of informal language learning has received little attention over the years, with the vast majority of research instead focusing on the classroom. Researchers from a range of backgrounds, however, have started to realise the important contribution of informal language learning, both in its own right, and in its relationship with classroom learning. Studies in the areas of learner autonomy, learning strategies, study abroad, language support, learners’ voices, computer-mediated communication, mobile-assisted language learning, digital gaming, and many others, all add to our understanding of the complex and intersecting ways in which learners construct their own language learning experiences, drawing from a wide range of resources, including materials, teachers, self-study, technology, other learners and native speakers. This Handbook provides a sound and comprehensive basis for researchers and graduate students to build upon in their own research of language learning and teaching beyond the classroom.

This volume examines the role of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in education in Europe. Following the implementation of the Bologna process, English has assumed a central role in European education offering institutions the opportunity to cater to the needs of an internationalized student body and increase their competitiveness. On the other hand, the increased use of ELF has become an issue of concern, often perceived as a threat to other languages, tilting the scale towards linguistic inequality and stressing the urgent need for the development of new language policies. Both aspects of ELF are at the center of discussion in the proposed volume, which consists of a variety of papers examining ELF in different parts of Europe (Eastern, Central and Western) and different levels of education. The volume makes a substantial contribution to the lively and controversial debate about what is recognized as a central topical concern of language education policy in Europe and beyond.

The allure and marketplace power of digital technologies continues to hold sway over the field of education with billions spent annually on technology in the United States alone. Literacy instruction at all levels is influenced by these evolving and ever-changing tools. While this opens the door to innovations in literacy curricula, it also adds a pedagogical responsibility to operate within a well-developed conceptual framework to ensure instruction is complemented or augmented by technology and does not become secondary to it. The Handbook of Research on Integrating Digital Technology With Literacy Pedagogies is a comprehensive research publication that considers the integration of digital technologies in all levels of literacy instruction and prepares the reader for inevitable technological advancements and changes. Covering a wide range of topics such as augmented reality, literacy, and online games, this book is essential for educators, administrators, IT specialists, curriculum developers, instructional designers, teaching professionals, academicians, researchers, education stakeholders, and students.

Pop Culture in Language Education provides comprehensive insight on how studies of pop culture can inform language teaching and learning. The volume offers a state-of-the-art overview of empirically informed, cutting-edge research that tackles both theoretical concerns and practical implications. The book focuses on how a diverse array of pop culture artifacts such as pop and rap music, movies and TV series, comics and cartoons, fan fiction, and video games can be exploited for the development of language skills. It establishes the study of pop culture and its language as a serious subfield within language education and applied linguistics and explores how studies of pop culture, its language, and its non-linguistic affordances can inform language education at various levels of proficiency and with various learner populations. Presenting a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research approaches including case studies on how pop culture has been used successfully in language education in and beyond the classroom, this book will be of great interest for academics, researchers, and students in the field of language education, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics, as well as for language teachers and materials developers.

This book examines critical literacy within language and literacy learning, with a particular focus on English as an Additional Language learners in schools who traditionally are not given the same exposure to critical literacy as native-English speakers. An important and innovative addition to extant literature, this book explains how English language teachers understand critical literacy and enact it in classrooms with adolescent English language learners from highly diverse language backgrounds. This book brings together the study of two intersecting phenomena: how critical literacy is constructed in English language education policy for adolescent English language learners internationally and how critical literacy is understood and enacted by teachers amid the so-called ‘literacy crisis’ in neoliberal eduscapes. The work traces the ways critical literacy has been represented in English language education policy for adolescents in five contexts: Australia, England, Sweden, Canada and the United States. Drawing on case study research, it provides a comparative analysis of how policy in these countries constructs critical literacy, and how this then positions critical engagement as a focus for teachers of English language learners. Empirically based and accessibly written, this timely book will be of interest to a wide range of academics in the fields of adolescent literacy education, English language learning and teaching, education policy analysis, and critical discourse studies. It will also appeal to teachers, post-graduate students and language education policy makers.

This book explores the dynamic range of literacy practices in and out of school that are reconstructing youth gender identities in both empowering and disempowering ways and the implications for local literacy classrooms.