Page 73 - Diversity in Action

Global Citizenship Education and English Learning through Picturebooks

a text in the first person; the child’s naïve viewpoint is complemented, con-
tradicted, and expanded by sensitive illustrations which reveal the mother’s
concerned care.
As part of their formative assessment projects, students in small transna-
tional groups created pedagogical activities for specific YLs stemming from
their chosen picturebooks. They structured such activities on the basis of
the storytelling steps and stages outlined above. Through their choices, ac-
companying activities, and sensitive read-alouds in groups, all participating
students fulfilled the core assessment criteria which called for active collab-
orative participation in transnational groups. Criteria which addressed cru-
cial child-directed teacher talk competences were termed as in-progress be-
cause of the brevity of the course and its somewhat distancing online modal-
ities. Happily, participants (particularly those in groups facing fewer techni-
cal challenges) demonstrated a clear understanding as well as enjoyment of
their scaffolding valency. Those criteria included the ability to produce YL-
appropriate teacher talk with a focus on cognitive, affective, embodied, in-
teractive and linguistic strategies.
The teacher development experience arose through an awareness that
transnational communities of learning can be transformative. Multilingual
educational programmes – hospitable to GCED values – can foster equitable,
peaceful, tolerant and environmentally sustainable futures, as advocated by
UNESCO (2014).
Given its brevity, the course’s overarching focus comprised multiple in-
terlinked aims in terms of GCED, teacher values and interactive mediation
competences which may bring read-alouds and related activities to life for
YLs. Embodied multimodal competences and critical thinking are needed to
communicate themes and values to learners with sincerity and presence. Ar-
guably, such teacher education aims need to be coherently aligned as well
as collaboratively enacted and experienced in safe and supportive environ-
ments. This appears especially important as teachers’ ability to confidently
offer appropriate cognitive, affective, embodied and linguistic scaffolding
stronglyimpactsoverallshort-andlong-termlearneroutcomes.Accordingly,
the ‘Head-Heart-Hands’ embodied learning approach and ethos were cho-
sen as an overarching framework for delivering the blended learning course
(Gazibara, 2013).

Reflection Point
1. What do you think could be the main challenges when collaborating on-
line with people from other countries?

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