There are more than one way to make meaning in this hugely diversified society and as teachers, we have to take into account the diversity of backgrounds (culture, history, language spoken at home, experiences) and schema that our students possess. The pedagogies should aim at helping students to develop, tapping into their potentials, but at the same time bearing in mind constrains of the situation.
The 6 main assumptions of multiliteracies taken from Stein are:
Pedagogy is semiotic activity within relations of culture, history and power.
Meaning making is bodily, sensory, and semiotic.
Meaning making is multimodal.
Meaning making is interested action.
Language is limited.
Meaning making is transformation, creativity, and design.
To sum up all these 6 points, it aims to say that students learn in many different ways and each one of them are exposed to different types of experiences. What student A possesses, might not be what student B possesses. Every student is different, resulting in diversity and a pool of background knowledge in which students can share their experiences and learn from each other too.
Students learn best when they are involved in their own learning. Knowledge is best gained through acquisition (as learnt in previous lessons). They explore and learn through their exploration, investigation and realization of concepts.
However, we also have to bear in mind that in the local Singapore context, we are still very exam-oriented due to the standardized (PSLE, ‘O’ Levels and ‘A’ Levels) examinations. Therefore, we have to consider the reactions of the stakeholders of our education system, namely the parents, who would want our curriculum geared towards preparing for exams rather than having a range of activities.
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