Multiliteracies pedagogy in language teaching: An example from an Innu community in Quebec

Abstract

The use of multiliteracies pedagogy is one approach that we consider well-suited to Canadian Indigenous contexts where language teaching must be responsive to local realities and driven by local needs. Multiliteracies pedagogy includes a multiplicity of discourses, forms of text (oral, written, digital), language registers, and languages, reflecting the diverse societies in which learners live. Curriculum is jointly negotiated by teachers and learners. We illustrate the potential of this pedagogical approach with examples from an Indigenous community in Quebec. The Innu community of Olamen Shipu furnishes an example of Indigenous knowledge underpinning and informing grassroots-built multiliteracies pedagogy. Although multiliteracies pedagogy was developed and theorized outside the Indigenous context, we show it to be completely compatible with and, in many respects, identical to traditional Indigenous pedagogies. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]