Abstract:

The proposed 2009 International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation presentation documents longitudinal research examining the instruction of English as a global language in the Limon providence of Costa Rica. This research contributes to a contemporary discourse examining new literacies framed from a social practice perspective (Cummins, 2000; Warchauer, 1998; 1996). A salient argument is that contemporary paradigms and perspectives for linguistic and pedagogical research and for interpreting linguistic creativity in multilingual situations across cultures is needed (Kachru, 1985). A key aim is to clarify these assumptions and advocate a contemporary design for teaching English as a global language.
The theoretical framework is defined and discussed along with tenets the instruction of English as a global-international language. Highlights of discussion include the importance of theories, knowledge, methods, skills, and technologies for classroom instruction beyond North American and European models. Next, a description of the research setting is provided which leads into an outline of the methodological framework of the study. Findings are contextualized within international trends related to contemporary instruction and use of English as the language of globalization.

The investigation was designed as a longitudinal action research study that spanned five years (2004-2009). It involved teacher-researchers in elementary classrooms who guided service-teachers engaged with a long standing EFL teaching project. This setting encompassed a rural public school and a private bilingual school in the Caribbean coastal plains of Costa Rica. The value of action research was to find answers to authentic questions about practical issues of teaching English as a global language in the Costa Rican educational system. Investigation was guided by an incentive to improve educational knowledge and practices connected with content English language education and to resolve real teaching and learning issues.
Key implications embody the theoretical perspective that literacy is a social practice (Street, 1995) that seeks to shed light upon how students’ cultures, contexts, and histories are embedded within their literacy learning. While new literacies research has been on the forefront of literacy scholarship for the last decade, research concerning the relationship between new literacies and EFL learners is in its infancy (Cummins, & Sayers, 1996). Students’ social perspective of literacy highlighted the idea that EFL learners bring their own cultural resources, agendas, and purposes to classroom learning. Oral language support and a balanced approach to literacy instruction helped elementary students develop complex understanding about English. Students negotiated the service-teachers’ competing literacy orientations and constructed their own interpretations of literacy events. In so doing students crossed the boundaries between conventional literacy and emergent literacy to serve their own purposes for engaging in classroom lessons. Reading and writing behaviors appeared embedded in meaning-making attempts, marked by an interrelationship between oral language and written language uses. In many respects the EFL lessons were globalized by infusing emergent ideas, rather than relying exclusively on established curriculum.