Josianne Block

A few years ago, while working toward a degree, my tutor encouraged me to try classroom research as part of my dissertation. At first, I was both intrigued and intimidated. The concept of translanguaging had caught my attention, especially since I worked with multilingual learners who used English daily. I wanted to explore how they navigated communication, and I also hoped to better understand translanguaging and apply it as a teaching tool. But classroom research? The idea felt daunting and overwhelming. I had hoped to develop my research skills through something different from the habitual teaching I was doing...

Many of the students I have taught over the years disliked literature with a passion. They often found poetry and prose difficult to comprehend, unrelatable to contemporary contexts, long and old fashioned. However, social media culture, along with the rise of slam poetry in the 1990s and 2000s, has significantly influenced literature trends among young adults. I have often heard students admit they lack the patience to read an entire book but enjoy reading short poems on social media platforms because, despite their brevity, the meaning remains impactful. This shift led me to rethink my teaching approach. I teach induction...