Balancing the equation: New times and new literacies = New LOTE teaching knowledge base demands

Abstract

I was invited to the MLTAQ Conference, not as a LOTE specialist, nor even as a (competent) LOTE speaker, but to offer some perspectives and participate in conversations about the teaching of LOTE, in particular, the complexities that arise from ‘New Times’ (Hall, 1996a; Anstey, 2002) and ‘New Literacies’ (The New London Group, 2000; Anstey, 2002; Kalantzis & Cope, 2005). My presentation was founded on empirical research undertaken as part of my doctoral thesis (Exley, 2005) where I examined the knowledge bases of three Queensland teachers (two LOTE teachers and one Studies of the Society and Environment – SOES - teacher) providing EFL (English as a Foreign Language) instruction to secondary students in a village area of Indonesia. This research found that in current times, teachers drew on four interrelated professional knowledge bases: content knowledge, pedagogic knowledge, and knowledge of their own and their students’ pedagogic identities. The currency of the study’s findings for present debates in and about LOTE teaching in Queensland were explicated through an analysis of (i) Education Queensland’s frameworks for literacy, ‘Literate Futures: Reading’ (Anstey, 2002), (ii) pedagogic knowledge, ‘Productive Pedagogies’ (Education Queensland, 2002), (iii) my experiences as the Japanese Internship coordinator, and (iv) data from the three language teachers that focused on their own and their students’ pedagogic identities. The plenary was presented as an auditing framework for LOTE teachers’ professional knowledge bases. Teachers were invited to consider both their strengths and possible gaps and from this identify topics for future school- or association-based professional development.