The development of a multiliteracy-based approach in language learning: engaging students in aesthetic reading

Abstract

Nowadays a dynamic theoretical paradigm, an eclectic approach, is needed for a reorientation of the two methodologies that prevail when we talk about L2 teaching – given the patent limitations of both methods–: the communicative approach and reading and analysis of texts. Literacy is a key indicator of our ability to construct and communicate meanings to elaborate our own thoughts. In this paper, we assure that literacy must be understood as a pedagogical process – that goes hand in hand with the integration of literature in the teaching of a language – and not as final product. To prove it, we will discuss concrete proposals that specifically aim to adapt literacy models to the new social reality of classrooms, the relevance of Aesthetic Emotions that a Multiliteracy-based Approach implies and applies to education, as for example the triangular model proposed by Reyes-Torres (2012-2016). The relevance of picture books in the process of reading comprehension carried out by student-readers is highlighted. That is why it is essential that the student-reader knows the link between the word and the icon, in the same way that it is necessary that the teacher-reader carry out a preliminary approach to the literary text and thus be able to integrate it into the teaching-learning
scheme.