This paper discusses a study conducted in the Ledra/Lokmaci Milieu in Cyprus, the area in the centre of the divided walled city of Nicosia where Greek and Turkish Cypriots have to use English to communicate with one another. The aim of the study was to locate the effects of a learning space on language learners, teachers and syllabus designers.…

This article is a call to literacy teachers and researchers to embrace the possibility of attending more consciously to the senses in digital media production. Literacy practices do not occur only in the mind, but involve the sensoriality, embodiment, co-presence, and movement of bodies. This paper theorises the sensorial and embodied dimension of…

This paper explores the treatment of London by two authors who are profoundly influenced by the concept of the power of place and the nature of urban space. The works of Peter Ackroyd, whose writings embody, according to Onega (1997, p. 208) "[a] yearning for mythical closure" where London is "a mystic centre of…

Writing is a complex, recursive and difficult process that requires strategic decision-making across multiple domains (Graham, 2006; Pritchard & Honeycutt, 2006). Students are expected to use this process to communicate with a variety of audiences for a variety of purposes. Modelling and providing effective instruction is critical, especially…

This paper presents a theorised classroom-based narrative discussing the author's interdisciplinary approach to the teaching of English dramatic literatures--in particular, Sophocles' "Oedipus the King" and Shakespeare's "Macbeth"--to i-Taukei, Indo-Fijian and Pacific Islander tertiary students at a South Pacific…

This paper examines the place of poetry writing in the post-16 English curriculum in Malta. In presenting the results of a small-scale study adopting a mixed methods approach, it explores the views of teachers, students and an influential examiner. The paper proposes that while there seems to be an appreciation of what creative writing can…

This article discusses interconnections between research methodology and English pedagogy in a recent study I undertook. The study was designed to deepen understandings about adolescent reading, using particular English teaching approaches to generate data, mindful that ideas about what constitutes the act of reading are often wide-ranging. I…

This article examines ethnomethodology in order to consider its particular yet under-used perspective within literacy research. Initially, the article outlines ethnomethodology, including its theoretical position and central concepts such as indexicality and reflexivity. Then, selected studies are used to illustrate the application of the…

Traditional, cognitive-oriented theories of English language acquisition tend to employ experimental modes of inquiry and neglect social, cultural and historical contexts. In this paper, I review the theoretical debate over methodology by examining ontological, epistemological and methodological controversies around cognitive-oriented theories. I…

Internationally, guidelines for distance education advise the use of feedback from students in designing and redesigning materials. As my own attempt to elicit such feedback was an instructive failure, I decided to draw on theorisations of pedagogy, mediation and subjectivity and on international and local (South African) conceptualisations of a…

Building on the principles of philosophical hermeneutics, Ricoeur (1984) used the concept of narrative to explain how individuals interpret their experiences and make sense of seemingly disconnected elements of life by turning them into the stories. Narrative identities represent the coming together of the stories individuals tell, as well as…

This article considers the role of research in disentangling an increasingly complex relationship between literacy policy and practice as it is emerging in different local and national contexts. What are the tools and methodologies that have been used to track this relationship over time? Where should they best focus attention now? In answering…

This paper details a teacher-researcher effort to investigate effective instructional practices for teaching multicultural literature through a collaborative, iterative process of inquiry driven by tentative, theoretical principles. The study began with a distillation of recent scholarship on multicultural literature response into a set of…

This classroom narrative describes the transformation of one beginning English/language arts (ELA) teacher's perspective and practice as the teacher enacted multimodal inquiry activities that were the focus of both traditional and action research projects. Drawing on field notes, transcripts of classroom discourse, and student-produced artefacts,…

This paper is divided into three parts. It begins by making an argument for the ongoing importance of critical literacy at a moment when there are mutterings about its being passe. The second part of the paper formulates the argument with the use of illustrative texts. It concludes with examples of critical literacy activities that I argue, are…