Remixing in the EFL Classroom: The Interlanguage Mash-up

Being Labeled Radical: the “artsy” one  

With my commitment to meaning-making language education comes my cross to bear: I am labeled.

Yes, I am the “artsy” English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructor at my higher education institution. Art, in this case, is mistaken for poster making by my unenlightened colleagues; aesthetic teaching methods reduced down to the redheaded stepchild of “real” academics and legitimate language instruction.

There is a misconception that art-based methods are less rigorous and/or effective than focusing on correcting student errors and teaching them language/grammar points. (Side note: I most certainly don’t advocate for only having one style of teaching. Students need good instruction on the structure and form of English by instructors who get it. They just also need the balance of instruction based on the creative process of communication.)

My teaching methods admittedly privilege meaning-making over language rules and form. I seek to engage my students in authentic experiences where learners use their creative process to communicate meaningfully in their new language (Chappell and Faltis, 2013). Our (my students and me) classes are dedicated to, not only giving them the tools for creative communication, but providing them opportunities to get dirty using them, as well.

The Re-mix: focusing on the student’s interlanguage

In my last post, remixing and the mash-up were introduced as a natural creative process that human’s use to adapt to an ever-changing environment. I believe an effective language classroom is a microcosm of these bigger mash-ups of life; as students engage in their language-learning environment in creative ways, their perception begins to evolve and morph as they decode the English language/world. Therefore, they need strategies on processing this experience outside of just verbal and written communication.

The creative process as the bridge
between interlanguage and
language production. 

A students’ internal ‘interlanguage’ is the mash-up that my teaching methods focus on bringing to the surface. Chappell and Faltis (2013) summarizes Selinker’s (1972) definition of a student’s ‘interlanguage’ as “an internal system of language constructed by the learner, based on cognitive and linguistic interactions between the first and second language, coupled with how the learner experienced learning” (p. 8).

In an active and engaging learning environment, students’ are working from a continuous remixing as they learn to engage in meaning-making activities and therefore, their production of language in this environment are inherently mash-ups, in every sense of the word (even once they’ve become fluent whether error-free or not).

My goal is to get my students’ mash-up (interlanguage) from the inside out. I want to give my students the tools and strategies to creatively explore remixing and to understand that these moments of collage communication are legitimate. Mistakes are part of the learning process and some of the most profound works of fine art were thought to be mistakes by the artists themselves; an adjustment to real world obstacles that produced more interesting products then the artist’s original intention (here is list of quotes that work with this idea.) 

Visual literacy provides the students with a bridge between their interlanguage and their outer expression. The use of images and cultural symbolic representation provides students with the tools to improve their storytelling in English and to provide a more malleable structure to communicate within.

Students' pictorial autobiographies.
Their written narratives were separate.
Their final project combined them
together in a digital format. 

The use of collage via digital tools provides the students the ability to piece together their narratives with sound, image, and video. By loosening the structure of the acceptable classroom composition assignment, students have more freedom to explore the unknown creative meanings as they work to speak their stories that originate in Korean, but have to travel into effectively being told in English. Collage (mash-ups) gives students the opportunities to add texture to their storytelling that they can’t yet say in full-color via their foreign language(s).

Now, I am not advocating that your students simply stand in front of a video camera and talk. I don’t believe that is storytelling, nor does it apply the rigorous critical thinking that is embedded in the creative arts-based process. Students are still accountable to construct well-thought out compositions. They are just given more creative tools and vocabulary to produce them and the instruction to scaffold them.

Resources

Chappell, Sharon Verner & Faltis, Christian J. (2013) The Arts and Emergent Bilingual Youth: building culturally responsive, critical and creative education in school and community contexts. New York and London: Routledge.