Teaching and learning multiliteracies: Examining classroom pedagogy and practices through a focus on teacher talk and dialogic talk

This chapter begins by exploring how the knowledge, skills and understandings about literacies and multiliteracies can be translated into classroom practice. It proposes that implementing the concept of multiliteracies requires change in pedagogy and that simply understanding the concepts of literacies and multiliteracies will not necessarily change classroom practices. Classrooms as social and cultural sites are explored and the relationships among literacy learning, higher order thinking skills, classroom talk and pedagogy are investigated. Tools are presented that will enable teachers to examine the different functions of teacher talk and the structures of lessons in their classrooms. The concepts of dialogic talk and a dynamic multiliterate pedagogy are introduced as effective vehicles for developing multiliterate practices.