Curriculum Appropriation: Bridging ESL Learners’ Needs, Attitudes and Innovations in the Field
Creators: name: Naz, Irum
Publisher: name: Manara - Qatar Research Repository
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 39
subject: Education
classificationCode: 3901
subject: Curriculum and pedagogy
classificationCode: 3903
subject: Education systems
classificationCode: 3904
subject: Specialist studies in education

description: This paper presents the findings of a study that focused on the process of language comprehension leading to language performance of undergraduate learners. Despite learning the English language for 6-12 years, insufficient linguistic performance continues to be one of the primary issues inhibiting learners’ growth and affecting achievements in academic and semi-academic settings. It has been established that learners' interaction and exposure to ample optimal language input aid language comprehension (Krashen, 1982: 16 &amp; 32). However , the context in which learning of English takes place at the target level and context occurs in a non-natural environment and in a situation where learners' interaction is restricted to language content and input at a superficial level. Teaching materials help to facilitate student learning. They must, therefore, be designed considering learners’ interests, needs and habits (Maslow, 1940; Bloom, 1964b; Gardner, 1982). The modern utility of technology is receiving considerable attention in the field of education and has been potentially recognized as having a greater impact upon culture and linguistic repertoire of second language learners than traditional monomodal teaching text.This longitudinal case study examines the influence of multimodal supplementary teaching texts on Pakistani English language learners’ affective and cognitive domains and aims to challenge the hegemony of monomodal teaching texts in practice in correlation with the learners’ needs, attitudes and contemporary innovations in the field of ESL. It also aims to validate the discrepancies in the currently applied mode of teaching materials with reference to the learners’ linguistic repertoire.The analyses of the rich data indicated a limited uptake of monomodal teaching text by these learners and highlighted complex yet positive relationships between multimodal texts, learning needs, attitudes, language acquisition and performance, and other contextual factors. The data provides evidences of mapping learners’ progression in knowledge construction, meaning making and language performance in situations where each system is a representation of knowledge constructed through biological, cultural, historical, political, emotional, religious, and social and subject matter factors. However, there is still considerable date required to determine if the inter-textual connections can help learners progress to the more sophisticated skill of comparing their analysis of two different text types and enable them to communicate with meaning that is constructed as a result of combination of different semiotic systems. The study builds on previous findings in the field that using multimodal texts as a supplement for optimal input for visual, linguistic, spatial, gestural and acoustic contents aids in learners’ development of the CC and contributes additional evidence to support the utility of these multi semiotic systems as teaching texts to inspire innovation and drive improved learning outcomes in the local Pakistani context. It is therefore in the interest of all concerned – policy makers, curriculum designers, publishers, educators, teachers, students, and society at large - that we do everything we can to encourage better comprehension of the language input. The findings have important implications for developing, designing and incorporating multimodal texts as supplementary teaching material in the curriculum at the target level and also serve as a base for future studies and research to determine the specific types of the texts for particular sub skills of CC.Other InformationConference organized by: International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (IAACS)<br>License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/<br>See the conference website: https://www.iaacs.ca/iaacs2018/