Tracing Literacy-as-Events in Online Mandarin Classrooms: A New Materialist Orientation

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Thursday 4:15pm
  In Poster Session: Trends and Issues in Online Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This study traces how literacy-as-events emerged in an online Mandarin program for bi/multilingual children. Grounded in new-materialist theory, it reconceptualises literacies as emergent, relational, and co-constituted by human and non-human actors. Twelve video-recorded sessions, two semi-structured interviews, and two student-created artefacts were analysed diffractively, reading data, theory, and researcher positionality through one another. Findings focus on two literacy-as-events: (1) My Identity Map, where teacher prompts, copyright filters, and image searches shaped a multifaceted self-portrait; and (2) What Can You See When You Meet Me, where GIFs, auto-correction, family feedback, and a sibling’s interruption co-produced complex identities. The study demonstrates how online heritage-language classrooms can foster inclusive, process-oriented, and sociomaterially aware literacy pedagogies.

Authors

• Chuan Liu, Western University

• Zheng Zhang, Western University

• Rachel May Heydon, University of Western Ontario