Canberra Secondary School - LEAD ICT Programme

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LEAD ICT Programme

Multiliteracies in English Language at Canberra Secondary School
A Project by English Language and Literature Department

The Multiliteracies in English Language project is funded by MOE's Incubator School Scheme ( it is now known as LEAD IT). Multiliteracies pedagogy is used in our Lower Sec EL curriculum. Many of today's students have grown up with a variety of multimodal literacies including new genres of texts which are multi-layered, non-linear and visual as well as various forms of text messaging, video games, social networking web environments and multimedia downloads. Hence pupils learn English through various mediums such as blogging, podcasting, video productions and photography. Pupils are taught basic photography skills, scripting, oral presentation, storyboarding and videography.

In today's world of knowledge economy, pupils must be able to interpret information through various medium and the use of language within a cultural context. For example, they must learn how to interpret photographs and video clips. Pupils are taught to be aware of the use of framing in photos and video clips to tell a story for a purpose.As part of their EL lessons, pupils must tell a story through a video. Pupils work in groups to do storyboarding using ComicLife, produce a short video with a storyline and edit it using iMovie. Script writing will be taught.

There is Multiliteracies Course Page on the drupaled platform (Jan - Dec 2006) and the Canberran's Blog and Podcast on the Wordpress platform (April 2007 onwards) for the pupils and teachers to blog. Teachers will read pupils' EL assignments (reviews, discussions and etc), give comments and other EL work. The pupils can also read their friends' work and provide comments and suggestions. Pupils are able to read work from other classes; across levels and streams.
Pupils get to benefit as they could use their creativity and enhance their IT skills.
They find EL lessons more interesting. EL is no longer just about reading and writing.

Pupils' responses

"We learn about photography and I think it is good that we learn IT related skills because we learn more than English. We are also exposed to more things."

Evelyn Tan, Sec 1E1

"I like to learn new things especially things related to IT. I think they are enjoyable because it is something that I like doing. Learning Comic Life and blogging can make me improve my English. I can plan my storyline better."

Dwi Heryanie, Sec 2E3

One action research entitled A Case Study on pupils' responses to multiple modes
of literacy in English Language learning was done and shared at the N7 Cluster AR Symposium in September 2006.

Another action research is being carried out this year to investigate the effectiveness of the Multiliteracies pedagogy in improving the standard of written English.

Student's Work 2006 : (Comics created using Comic Life)

Comic 1: