This presentation introduces the notion of Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT) and relates it to TEFL (Teaching English as Foreign Language). MLT has been developed in conjunction with Professor Diana Masny (Ottawa), and concerns the application of Deleuzian concepts to literacy acquisition and practice. Literacy is opened up and diversified through this action, making it more creative and applicable to today's educative context.

1. MULTIPLE LITERACIES
THEORY AND TEFL
DAVID R. COLE
WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

2. WHAT IS MULTIPLE LITERACIES THEORY (MLT)?
• Literacies are actualized according to a particular context in time and in space in which they operate.
Given the nomadic tendencies of literacies; they are not wed to a context, but are taken up in
unpredictable ways across various contexts. Reading is both intensive (disruptive) and immanent.
Literacies involve constant movement in the process of becoming other. There is potentiality in
releasing literacy from its privileged position as the printed word by not allowing it to govern all other
literacies. In this way, literacies open themselves to what is not already given. In short, literacies are
about reading, reading the world, and self as texts (Masny, n.p.).

3. DEFINITION OF MLT (II)
• Multiple literacies refer to literacies as a construct - machinic assemblages: social, medical, economic,
etc. Literacies consist of words, markings, gestures, attitudes, ways of communicating, human and non-
human. Accordingly, literacies constitute ways of becoming: becoming with the world. They involve
texts in the virtual that actualize as sense emerges. They are taken up as visual, oral, written, tactile,
olfactory, and in multimodal digital. Literacies constitute texts, in a broad sense, for example, music,
visual arts (painting, sculpting), physics, mathematics, digital remixes. Texts are assemblages of events.
Moreover, literacies fuse with socio-political, cultural, economic, political, gendered and racialized
contexts. This is how literacies are coded. These contexts are not static. They are fluid and transform
literacies, and produce speakers, writers, artists, digital avatars: communities

4. Key
A** - Affective literacy. Everything about reading, writing,
speaking and listening that activates desire, and relates to
power in the individual and the group.
Family literacy – close to affective literacy, relates to early
influences on the individual and ways in which their desires are
channelled through family experiences.
Technologically mediated literacies – We live in a
technologically mediated epoch. From an early age children
watch TV, listen to music and interpret ideas through these
processes. These literacies, including visual and aural literacy
develop quickly in most individuals.
Print literacies – These are dealt with through traditional
schooling and home environments where the parent takes an
active role in encouraging reading and writing with their child.
They relate to technologically mediated literacies in that they
are secondary processes

5. Multiliteracies
vs. MLT
Multiliteracies MLT
Philosophy phenomenology transcendental materialism
Technology of primary importance of equal importance with
every other contemporary
literacy practice
Power work towards the
globalisation of literate
behaviours and ultimately
the power of corporations
emphasis is on local
interactions causing
changes and micro-
systems that directed
power from the bottom-up

6. Multiliteracies vs.
MLT
Multiliteracies MLT
Community meanings for communities
of learners aim towards a
standard democratic
direction
meanings are communal
but not fixed nor defined by
any pre-conceived agenda
Creativity organised and structured
projects; interdisciplinary
curricula link knowledge
areas
random collisions of affects;
local knowledge produces
inspiration and art
(Deleuze, 1995).
Otherness tend to shut out such
considerations through
communities of practice
strangeness and alienation
may be explored through
personal literacy and affect

7. MLT PRACTICE
• Literacies are multiple yet completely inter-related
• In any given content there are multiple micro (personal) and macro (political) literacies: MLT goes
beyond such dualism
• For example, students will exhibit literacies from their L1 + culture, hybrid (global) literacies and
emerging Taiwanese-English literacies + any literacies picked up during schooling
• The skill of the EFL teacher using MLT is to encourage the different flows and execution of multiple
literacies.
• Choose examples for pedagogy that offer affordances to these multiple literacies

8. MLT EXAMPLE FOR TEFL

9. MLT AND TEFL - ISSUES
• How can your students understand the multiple literacies in the classroom context?
• Take a pertinent issue for your cohort: e.g., school resourcing, staffing issues, national identity, colonialism,
environmental degradation …
• There are multiple literacies associated with this issue (micro and macro):
• Questions:
1) How does the issue affect me/us?
2) Why is the issue important?
3) What do we have to learn about in order to express ideas about the issue?
4) What are the different modes of expression that are possible with respect to this issue?
5) What is a clichéd, obvious way to express myself about this issue? What usually does not get expressed? How
can I express myself otherwise?

10. MLT AND CINEMA
• An example of multiple literacies …
A Pedagogy of Cinema

11. CINEMA EXAMPLES, SPECIFIC IMAGES FOR ANALYSIS

12. CINEMA IMAGES (II & III)

13. MLT, CINEMA AND TEFL
• Choose specific images from films (5-10)
• Describe what you see
• How can you describe the atmosphere of the shot?
• What does the image ‘do’ – how does it make you feel?
• How does the image imply material processes beyond the obvious, representational level; e.g., decay,
deprivation, realisation, depression, confusion ….
• How does the image work in space & time?
• Can you relate the images/make them work in a different way?
• What other elements are present in the images; e.g. music/dialogue/plot/tension …

14. WHY DELEUZE & GUATTARI?
• A break from the past – for a ‘people yet to come’
• Non-reductive/non-normative/post-positivist (emergent-coded-reciprocating)
• Allows for/encourages methodological arrangements depending on context and requirements
• Pushes research to the ‘nth’ degree
• Always posing further questions
• The concepts that may be evolved from a context/particular study are unknown/open …
• Political-social-cultural-ethical (immanent)
• Have an array of previously evolved concepts for deployment; e.g. assemblage, BwO, desiring-machines, plane
of immanence
• The use of these concepts depends on the study undertaken (toolkit) …
• Are Deleuze/Guattari primarily non-conventional?

15. MLT AND RESEARCH
• Every teaching and learning context is different.
• How do we make sense of the complexity that confronts us in the modern world?
• What is the best way to separate and work with the different literacies in our context?
• How does MLT work with:
1) Language teaching and learning (TEFL)
2) Assessment (formative & summative) - examinations
3) Curriculum matters/textbooks/knowledge progression?
4) Behaviour management
5) Social mores, e.g. class
• MLT includes the impetus to continuously do research and to understand the context in which we teach and learn
(cartography)

16. MULTIPLE LITERACIES THEORY
A complex practice of literacies
Do not assume that literacy is fixed or understandable as a
linear process of improvement
Literacy relates to non human objects and things in the world:
e.g., computers, art-forms, music
Literacy is a political ‘micro’ practice that can make subjects
areas and knowledge ‘take on life’
Literacies are akin to organic life…
Masny, D & Cole, DR, Multiple Literacies Theory: A Deleuzian
Perspective, Sense Publishers (2009)

17. MAPPING MULTIPLE LITERACIES
Teachers and students can map literacies
The mapping of literacies should take account of: affect, power,
group dynamics, digital technology, etc.…
Multiple literacies will increase the affordances and
opportunities that the subject areas represent
The mapping of multiple literacies is cross-disciplinary, e.g.
using mathematics to understand music.
Masny, D & Cole, DR, Mapping Multiple Literacies: An
Introduction to Deleuzian Literacy Studies, Continuum (2012)

18. EDUCATIONAL LIFEFORMS Educational lifeforms: Deleuzian
Teaching and Learning Practice

19. FURTHER READING
• Cole, D.R. (2010). Educational Lifeforms: Deleuzian Teaching and Learning Practice. Rotterdam: Sense
Publishers.
• Cole, D.R. (2013). Deleuze and Narrative Investigation. The Multiple Literacies of Sudanese families in
Australia. Literacy, Volume 47, Number 1, April, 35-41.
• Cole, D.R. (2012). Latino families becoming-literate in Australia: Deleuze, literacy and the politics of
immigration. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Vol. 33, No. 1, February, 33-46
• Cole, D.R., & Bradley, J.P.N. (2016). A Pedagogy of Cinema. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
• Masny, D., & Cole, D.R. (2012). Mapping Multiple Literacies: An Introduction to Deleuzian Literacy
Studies. London: Continuum.
• Masny, D., & Cole, D.R. (2009). Multiple Literacies Theory: A Deleuzian Perspective. Rotterdam: Sense
Publishers .