Moving English Language Teaching Forward

Moving English Language Teaching Forward: Festschrift to Ragnhild Elisabeth Lund

Chapter: Deep Reading and In-depth Learning in English Language Education

Book Description

The title of this Festschrift, Moving English Language Teaching Forward, is a tribute to Ragnhild E. Lund’s lifelong devotion to English language pedagogy and teaching. She is – in the words of Juliet Munden – “a Dame of English didactics”. Ragnhild would be the first one to share such praise with colleagues. All the authors of this book have in some way or other moved English language pedagogy forward together with Ragnhild, for example as co-writers, fellow doctoral committee members, colleagues at the University of South-Eastern Norway, or just good colleagues sharing the same commitment to English language pedagogy.

As a researcher, Ragnhild is best known for her work in the field of intercultural competence, which made her one of the original members of the international Cultnet group. The initiative for this group was taken by Michael Byram, arguably the most influential theorist of intercultural competence development in the world. In this anthology, he writes about the first meeting of the Cultnet group in 1997 and charts some of the changes that have happened in “the cultural dimension” of language teaching since then.

Chapter Description

Deep Reading and In-depth Learning in English Language Education by Janice Bland

This chapter focuses on the opportunities of deep reading for in-depth learning. By in-depth learning, not only deepening but also widening of English teaching is meant – embracing cross-curricular learning on subjects that are interdisciplinary and relevant for students’ out-of-school lives. The importance of connectedness for in-depth learning is discussed, and the how of deep reading is examined – both the physical aspect of reading – on paper as opposed to reading on screens, and a suggested structure for responding to texts in the classroom. I describe an example of in-depth learning using a framework for deep reading with The Sleeper and the Spindle (2014) by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell, and incorporating other related texts such as different versions of fairy tales. With the deep reading framework, four interweaving steps suggest ways that students could be supported with unpuzzling, investigating, critically engaging with literary texts, and experimenting with creative response. The suggested activities include reciprocal teaching, exploring the multisensory nature of story, inferencing global issues such as gender, ageism, and ableism, activating agency through media literacy, and creative writing.