Student Name: Tania Douek
Department, Institution: IOE Centre for Applied Linguistics
UBEL Pathway: Education
Supervisor: Dr David Mallows and Professor Amos Paran
Contact details: tania.douek.19@ucl.ac.uk
About Me:
Having worked as a teacher for many years, my research interests stem from my determination to create socially-just learning spaces in which diverse skills and lived experiences are valued and understood. I have ten years’ experience teaching adults in London, focusing on teaching ESOL-Literacies courses with multilingual adults who are have learned orally throughout their lives.
I have also worked as a primary school teacher in London, with specialist training in Teaching and Learning in Multilingual Settings. Prior to this, I taught primary school children in Ecuador and pre-school children in Mexico. In my current role as a PhD researcher in the UCL IOE Centre for Applied Linguistics, I have been a postgraduate teaching assistant on MA modules relating to language teaching pedagogy and intercultural communication.
My Research:
My research focuses on the translingual oral expertise of adult refugees in London who have learned orally throughout their lives, having either grown up in oral societies or in print-based contexts where they themselves were denied access to formal education. I am interested in co-constructing insights regarding print literacy acquisition, with adults who are in this situation.
Through a process of equal knowledge exchange, my study aims to contribute to theoretical understanding relating to adults’ experiences of integrating print into their translingual oral knowledge systems. I will focus specifically on adults’ conceptualisations of familiar versus unfamiliar phonemes, and how they perceive this to be affecting their learning strategies when connecting with print.
I have designed my interdisciplinary study around an iterative process of knowledge co-construction and ethical knowledge exchange, based on an equal partnership that centres translingual orality.
Impact of My Research:
My interdisciplinary, qualitative study aims to broaden the lens through which theoretical understanding of print literacy acquisition is developed, incorporating the varied knowledges of adult oral learners, and bringing their educational rights to the fore. Currently, adult refugees in England who are new to print literacy are prevented from progressing through the print-based ESOL accreditation system. This is due to course design which is based on inadequate pedagogical understanding of teaching print literacy in adulthood. These adults are therefore denied meaningful access to formal education beyond these ESOL courses. Whilst my study focuses on a London context, the theoretical understanding I aim to develop applies to adults in any part of the world, who are learning to read for the first time in a language acquired in adulthood.
It is intended that the pedagogical understanding gained through this study, will be used to develop more informed course design that incorporates translingual strengths and oral knowledge into print literacy teaching. Through using familiar phonemes from across adults’ linguistic repertoires, participants’ perceptions of their own learning strategies will inform pedagogical theory surrounding grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC). The aim is to develop teacher training courses, as well as classroom learning materials, so that teachers are supported in validating students’ diverse strengths as crucial learning resources.
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