Conference 2010

Multiliteracies: Changing Literacies, Changing Worlds

Greenwich University, London, 15-17 July 2010

RaPAL’s 25th annual conference hosted by the University of Greenwich sought to address the following questions:

• How do literacies and languages interrelate in our linguistically and culturally diverse society?
• How can practice and research support diverse literacies?
• What is the power of different literacies to change lives and worlds, in local and global contexts?
• Within the field of adult literacy, how do new technologies and new literacies offer opportunities for critical engagement and learning?

Opening Event

Genevieve Clarke & Michelle Treagust
The Reading Agency: Harnessing the global power of games to win new readers

The Reading Agency is an independent charity, with a mission to inspire more people to read more in the belief that reading can have a profound effect on people’s life chances. They have recently carried out a study into gaming and reading, looking at whether the gaming medium can be used to encourage more adults to read. During their seminar they will explore how reading and meaning are situated within the social and cultural practices of gaming and technology.

Genevieve Clarke has been working for The Reading Agency since November 2003 on all matters related to adult learners and reading including The Vital Link libraries and literacy programme, BBC raw, Quick Reads, the Six Book Challenge and the Chatabout emergent reader network. She was previously Manager of the National Reading Campaign at the National Literacy Trust following the first National Year of Reading in 1998-99. Genevieve has also worked in magazine and book publishing and as an adult literacy tutor in college and community settings.

Michelle Treagust works on adult learning projects for The Reading Agency. As a former Skills for Life manager and tutor she has worked in a variety of settings; workplaces, probation service, family learning, adults with additional needs, FE and also HE. She also worked for over 10 years at the BBC producing radio programmes and websites for BBC Learning such as BBC raw computers, WebWise and Skillswise.

Keynote Speaker

Dr Roxy Harris
Understanding Urban Multilingualism

Literacy teaching in London and other urban centres in contemporary Britain requires a sophisticated understanding of the complex multiethnic and multilingual peoples and contexts involved. This talk will show how these might be better understood through linking local practices and diaspora influences.

Roxy Harris is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education & Professional Studies at King’s College London, and is a member of the Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication there. He has worked in secondary schools, adult education (literacy), further education and has been an activist in the supplementary schools movement. He researches the links between language, power, ethnicity and culture. He authored New Ethnicities and Language Use Palgrave (2006) and co-edited The Language, Ethnicity and Race Reader with Ben Rampton (Routledge, 2003). He is currently working on an ESRC-funded project ‘Urban classroom culture and interaction (2): From Research to Professional Practice’

Conference Workshops

For a full list of workshop presenters, titles, abstracts and supporting materials, please click here.