Project Spanish Federal Research Fund "Multiliteracies for adult at-risk learners of additional languages"

This research is funding by the Spanish Federal Research Fund  (PID2020-113460RB-I00; Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. I+D+i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad; PI: M Carmen Fonseca Mora (Universidad de Huelva), 36.300,00€; consortium: Universidad de Huelva, Universidad de Sevilla, Universidad de Córdoba, KU Leuven, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Universidad de Columbia (EEUU), Bratislava University).

Literacy in an additional language becomes a survival kit for people who want to find a new life in another country, yet not all adults are fully literate. The European Literacy Policy Network includes a report for Spain focused on adults reading skills with emphasis on the part of the population who got lower results. The results were classified considering some characteristics such as native language, age, gender, family situation or employment. People whose mother tongue was not Spanish got level 1 or below. As regards age, data showed that people at level 1 or below increased with age. According to gender, more women than men scored at these levels. The report also indicates that the literacy needs for adults are usually identified by NGOs or social services. The rate of participation and access to adult education is especially low (mainly women, with no or less education) now also with reduction in public spending due to COVID-2019. Therefore, Spain needs to find solutions to these issues as lack of literacy in an additional language may imply social exclusion. Research on this topic focuses on migrants socio-linguistic problems, but fewer studies consider the perspective of inclusion of members who actually need to work with vulnerable populations. We believe that mediation is a key strategy to cope for that purpose and that future language teachers, usually trained to work with mainstream students, may complement their learning if they become aware of the needs of low-literacy learners. The pedagogy of multiliteracies, designed by the New London Group, adapts well to this goal as the consumption and production of multimodal elements such as visual, audio, gestural and linguistic ones affect meaningprocessing and impact literacy development. Therefore, the main aims of our study are twofold: on the one hand, to identify the needs of young adults with low-literacy and to describe their multi-literacy profile. On the other hand, to analyse the beliefs of future language teachers about the needs of low-literacy students and document the potential shift in beliefs and performance when facing the challenge of multi-literacy practices for these culturally and linguistically diverse learners. This project is a multi-methods investigation that requires quantitative and qualitative analysis, and is divided into three different phases. Firstly, it includes the analysis of relevant literature. Secondly, the silent reading capacity, the digital competence and the musical aptitude of approximately 75 adult low-literacy language learners of Spanish will be assessed, as well as their auditory working memory and phonological awareness as control measures. An indepth
structured interview provides data to analyse their linguistic-socio-cultural backgrounds. Thirdly, 300 university students enrolled in teacher training courses will be initiated in multi-literacy designs for low-literacy learners. Their language mediation and socio-emotional abilities will be assessed. Student-teachers narratives on their awareness of low-literacy learners needs and teachers diary on this learning experience will show the possible shift in beliefs and performance of future language teachers when designing materials for culturally and linguistically diverse learners.