Disciplinary Literacies: Rethinking the role of the language teacher as a disciplinary expert and middle school learners as literary writers

This Case Study provides innovative, longitudinal research which takes a critical look at the role of the language teacher as disciplinary expert in a plurilingual setting. Following the call from the Graz Group (Meyer et al. 2017) to experiment the pluriliteracies concept from a practice-oriented perspective, the study documents how teachers as change-agents co-created learning spaces where literacies and pluriliteracies evolved, interconnected and advanced over a two-year period. Classes of middle school learners of French (11-12 year olds) – including beginners – were empowered to be and become ‘expert’ literary writers within the ‘confines’ of traditionally timetabled language lessons. This radically shifted ways in which learners and the teacher worked together and the nature of languages used for the development of academic literacies in the classroom. The research team consisted of ‘research partnerships’ i.e., the teacher and the learners with support and guidance from teacher-guides and critical-friends. Identifying, developing and evaluating the necessary academic literacy skills for the emergent ‘discipline’ required a shift from a traditional language teacher to an expert in literary writing with particular reference to specific literacies practices. The literary writing themes were chosen by learners themselves and developed according to dynamic learner-led and teacher facilitated experiences. The transformation of classroom learning involved making academic literacies across languages accessible; what worked and why became transparent, co-owned and normalised. Researchers engaged in dialogic exploratory student-led learning episodes which resulted in significant development in writing and oral skills. This impacted on emergent analytical tools for data collection and analysis, the teacher’s role in mentoring learning and supporting affect and learner self-efficacy through ‘learning conversations’, alongside iterative processes in constructing a Theory of Practice. Using international DELF tests integrated into a Pluriliteracies Teaching for Deeper Learning (PTDL) charted how beginner learners could achieve B1 and even higher after one year.