Application of Learning by Design Into the Cultivation of Multiliteracies: A Case Study of College English Teaching Practice at Soochow University

Abstract

Multiliteracies are an indispensable component of language abilities in the modern age of information technology. First proposed by the New London Group in 1996, multiliteracies refer to the abilities needed to obtain the learning resources that are transmitted through different media and modals, and to apply different modes and means to communicate with others to create meanings. The cultivation of multiliteracies is not only a systematic process of constructing knowledge but also a dynamic cycle of designing learning activities. In undertaking an international multiliteracies project, the New London Group adopted a mode of learning by design to cultivate multiliteracies. Learning by design includes three progressive components of available design, designing, and redesigned, with available design referring to the learning resources available, designing being the work to be done to make use of the learning resources obtained, and redesigned meaning the regenerated and transformed learning resources that are to become the new learning resources for available design. When it comes to the stage of redesigned, the mode of learning by design enters a new cycle. Ever since learning by design was adopted, it became the main theoretical framework used to cultivate multiliteracies. The college English teaching subsequently developed at Soochow University followed and specified the general principles of learning by design while constructing its own specific mode, trying to integrate available design and designing into a dynamic whole geared toward cultivating multiliteracies (one of the three abilities needed to use English, together with language expression abilities and intercultural communication competences). With regard to available design, efforts were made toward building and expanding various learning resources, facilities, settings, environments, and other learning support systems at Soochow University. This was done to provide easy and selectable accesses to the Net+ based126 1. Introduction To satisfy the increasing demands for the cultivation of new skillsets in the 21st century, there have been significant adjustments and reforms of college English teaching as regards its objectives, contents, approaches, and evaluations. To provide nationwide guidance for college English teaching practice and research in China, the National Collegiate Foreign Language Teaching Advisory Board, under the Ministry of Education, revised the College English Curriculum Teaching Requirements (abbreviated hereafter as the Requirements (yao qiu)) and in 2015 completed the Guidelines for College English Teaching (abbreviated hereafter as the Guidelines (zhi nan)). In the Requirements that were put into trial implementation in 2004 and officially enforced in 2007, the main focus of college English teaching was cultivating students' comprehensive abilities to use English, particularly the abilities of listening and speaking. As teaching situations and students' needs for English learning changed, the Guidelines amended the Requirements to make it clear and specific that the teaching objective for college English was to cultivate students' abilities to use English for effective communication in school life, academic study, social exchange, and career development. It was also stated in the Guidelines that different colleges and universities needed to specifically program their own college English teaching objectives in accordance with their respective teaching realities and situations. From the compulsory Requirements to the directive Guidelines, college English teaching is no longer unitary on a national scale; different colleges and universities have been given more decision-making power to carry out their own college English teaching practices. The Guidelines, as the name indicates, lay a practical basis for colleges and universities to define the specific contents of their college English teaching and research programs, in order to tailor their focus on students' English application abilities. 2. Multiliteracies The abilities needed to use English, which are a systematic integration of the knowledge multimedia forms of different learning resources and specific course contents. In designing, different task-based and project-driven classroom and extracurricular/term explorative learning activities, particularly those revolving around the two courses of Film English and Media English Reading, were created for students to actively undertake cooperative and interactive learning, facilitating their language application. The teaching of available design and designing was interdependently progressed and students' language acquisition and application were systematically integrated to promote the effective cultivation of multiliteracies.