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Weekly UpdatesABSTRACT
Adopting a literacy perspective towards student interactions with digital media can extend and develop views of second language (L2) listening comprehension. In this case study, variations in play are grounded in a media literacy perspective as a way to frame student work with authentic videotext. Twenty-two Australian students of Japanese watched three digitized news clips as they talked aloud. Qualitative analysis of their immediately retrospective verbal reports showed that learners do indeed play and replay the media texts as they, for example, perform, fool around, and establish signposts. The article concludes with a discussion urging language teachers and researchers to adopt media literacy perspectives in their use of electronic media.
INTRODUCTION
As we increasingly make use of materials that are non-linear, context-bound, recursive, and constructivist (Kramsch, 1993), a key challenge in our work as educators is to help students navigate new media and text types (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). Investigating the ways students navigate and make sense of texts is the basis for second language (L2) listening strategies research (e.g., Chamot, 1995; Goh, 2002; Graham, 2003; Gruba, 2004; Vandergrift, 2003a, 2003b). Narrow development of such work, however, may distance it from current trends in second language acquisition that emphasize computer-mediated ("electronic") L2 literacies that highlight authenticity, integrative approaches, social aspects, and media texts (Kern & Schultz, 2005; Kramsch, A'Ness, & Lam, 2000). Here, I argue that a media literacy perspective offers a basis to see interactions with videotexts as a form of play (Mackey, 2002) and brings work in L2 listening strategies new perspectives, fresh insights, and greater relevance.
To develop this argument, I first review L2 video-mediated listening, central aspects of media literacy, and a framework for play. Within a descriptive case study, I then use play as a central metaphor to describe learner interactions with digitized videotexts. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications of the results for teaching and research.
Differing conceptualizations of videotext interactions
To date, no single definition of video-mediated listening comprehension has become established; more importantly, no widely accepted model of listening comprehension has been developed (Lynch, 1998; Vandergrift, 2004). One key conceptual issue in defining the skill revolves around the role of visual elements. Riley (1981) suggested that "listening with the eye" best described learner use of video. Willis (1983) argued that "viewing comprehension" was the most accurate term. Tudor and Tuffs (1991) regard video comprehension as a "skill in its own right" (p. 80). Many prominent listening theorists, however, minimize the role of visual elements in comprehension (Kellerman, 1992) Many prominent listening theorists, however, minimize the role of visual elements in comprehension (Kellerman, 1992). Indeed, most theorists define the skill as a "process of receiving, attending to, and assigning meaning to aural stimuli" (Wolvin & Croakly, 1985, p. 74). In an important departure, Rubin (1995) embeds an awareness of video to define the skill as "an active process in which listeners select and interpret information which comes from auditory and visual cues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express" (p. 7). Other researchers offer views that include "listening and viewing comprehension" (Hoven, 1999), "video comprehension" (Coniam, 2000), or "DVD video comprehension" (Markham, Peter, & McCarthy, 2003). If nothing else, researchers recognize there is a broad range of skills required to make sense of video. In line with Kramsch and Andersen (1999, p. 34) perhaps it is best to see the competent decoding of authentic digitized videotexts as part of "textual literacy." If we continue down this path and follow Livingstone (2003, p. 7) so as to reject the ahistorical position that "real" literacy refers to the acts of reading and writing, then videotext comprehension fits the definition of literacy as the "interpretation of any and all mediated symbolic texts." By arriving at a literacy perspective towards learning with electronic media, we open ourselves up to a wide range of possibilities (Table 1).
Now aware of these diverse possibilities, an investigation of videotext interactions could focus on images (visual literacy), on the role of technology in learning (computer literacy, technoliteracy), on educational policy and practice (technoliteracy, multiliteracies, ICT literacy), or on the widespread social implications of using online media (digital literacy, electronic literacies, cyberliteracy). By adopting a media literacy perspective, however, we could maintain our focus on "textual literacy" as well as on an ability to move across technologies, formats, and genres. Taking on this perspective would also land us in the midst of a large, diverse, and contested form of literacy (Hobbs, 1998).
Key concepts in media literacy
Though definitions of media literacy have been widely debated (Christ & Potter, 1998), perhaps the most commonly agreed view is that "media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a variety of forms" (Aufderheide, 1993, p. xx). Further, it is usually agreed that "a media literate person . . . can decode, evaluate, analyze, and produce both print and electronic media" (Aufderheide, 1997, p. 79). Livingstone (2003, pp. 6-14) explains these concepts. Issues of access touch on the digital divide and, as such, bring in an awareness of political and social processes. An ability to analyze lies at the heart of textual decoding, pleasure, and intellectual stimulation. Evaluation involves judgment and engages critical thinking. The knowledge of content creation provides students with insights into precisely how messages communicate effectively.
Media literacy scholars have also generally agreed that (a) media both are constructed and construct reality; (b) texts carry commercial, ideological, and political implications; (c) formats each have unique aesthetics, codes, and conventions; and (d) receivers negotiate meaning (Aufderheide, 1997, p. 80). Potter (2004) develops a theory of media literacy with an emphasis on cognitive approaches. The ability to effectively negotiate meaning, according to Potter, depends on the breadth and depth of knowledge structures. At the lower levels of proficiency, weaker structures are small, superficial, poorly organized and, as such, impose limits on the interpretation of meaning (Kintsch, 1998). Visual media may foster macrostructure development by illustrating abstract concepts in a concrete way, assisting in the construction of mental models and thus "may offer some benefits to learners with lesser skills, abilities, or prior knowledge" (Wetzel, Radtke & Stern, 1994, p. 62). So how do literacy specialists conceptualize learner negotiations of meaning and the construction of knowledge structures?
Playing the (video)text
In Literacies Across Media, Mackey (2002) reports on a longitudinal investigation of learner interactions with a variety of texts. Over an eighteen-month period in the late 1990s, Mackey audio- and video-taped Canadian Grade 5 and Grade 8 student (10 and 13 year olds) responses to novels, picture books, short stories, video-based and digitized movies, computer games, electronic books, an encyclopedia, and a picture book on a CD ROM. At times, Mackey introduced novel media, formats, and texts that were new to the participants. As some of the 20 original participants left the study, more were recruited. Transcripts of semi-structured discussions and textual encounters as well as student diaries formed the core data set.
Early in the study Mackey signals her frustration with how to define engagement with contemporary texts. After describing the rich modalities of interaction that are offered by electronic media, Mackey (2002) disappointedly points out that "we still very often call it reading" (p. 3). Near the conclusion to her study, she abandons attempts to stretch the word read and adopts play as a "generic verb for text processing activities":
Mackey proposes a nascent framework for "playing the text" across a range of media (Table 2).
Mackey (2002) provides a link between media literacy perspectives and video-mediated L2 listening comprehension strategies. With that possibility in mind, I began to review previous work (Gruba, 2004) that I had done with L2 learners of Japanese attending to videotext. This time, I decided to approach the dataset not as listening comprehension research but rather using the frame of "playful media literacy."
Rationale and research questions
Three research questions guide this investigation of L2 student interactions with videotexts:
1) What aspects of Mackey's (2002) play appear during L2 learner interactions with videotexts?
2) Are other aspects of play present in L2 learner interactions that extend Mackey's framework?
3) When reflecting, do L2 students note a sense of play as they recall attempts to make sense of the videotexts?
METHODOLOGY
Aspects of the present study have been discussed elsewhere (Gruba, 1999, 2004). Here, rather than use a listening perspective based on reading theory (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995), my perspective is grounded in media literacy theory (Potter, 2004) with a view of textual interactions as play (Mackey, 2002).
Site of the investigation
This study was situated in the Japanese department of a large Australian research university. In the beginning levels, the focus of instruction is on the acquisition of Japanese syntax and vocabulary and the rote learning of three Japanese syllabaries (hiragana, katakana, and kanji). At the more advanced levels, cultural sensitivity and production skills are emphasized.
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