Summer / Gießler Digital Textualities and Spaces in ELT

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-3-381-12123-6
Verlag: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 14, 228 Seiten

Reihe: Studies in English Language Teaching /Augsburger Studien zur Englischdidaktik

The digital world opens up a vast number of spaces such as immersive virtual reality, digital book corners, and discourses marked by hashtags. In this volume, we argue that digital spaces and textualities should play a more central role in English language teaching and learning (ELT), emphasising their multimodal and interactive nature as a means of engaging with different layers of meaning in the target language. Digital spaces function as contact zones where readers and writers communicate, negotiate experiences, and shape collective identities. Within these spaces, digital textualities create opportunities for competence development across various language-related domains, fostering a critical engagement with texts. Bringing together theoretical insights, conceptual developments, and case studies, this volume explores the potential of digital spaces and textualities for ELT while addressing their practical implications.

Theresa Summer ist Jr.-Professorin für Fachdidaktik Englisch an der Universität Bamberg. Ihre Forschungsinteressen umfassen Perspektiven von Lernenden auf den Englischunterricht, kritische Fremdsprachendidaktik, Popkultur, Grammatikunterricht, Globales Lernen und digitale Technologien. Sie ist Mitherausgeberin zahlreicher Sammelbände sowie der Zeitschrift Englisch 5-10 und im Rahmen des DiSo-SGW Projektes Teil des Kompetenzverbundes lernen:digital (BMBF). Ralf Gießler ist Akademischer Oberrat für Fachdidaktik Englisch an der Bergischen Universität Wuppertal. Seine Forschungsinteressen liegen im Bereich der Sprach- und Mediendidaktik und umfassen u.a. Arbeiten zum digitalen Feedback beim fremdsprachlichen Schreiben sowie zur Wortschatzdidaktik und Professionsforschung

Autoren/Hrsg.

Summer, Theresa

Gießler, Ralf

Leseproben

A. Examples of Digital Textualities and Spaces
TikTok for Book Lovers? – Bookfluencing in English Language Teaching
Christian Ludwig & Michaela Sambanis 1. Introduction
Our world is becoming increasingly digital as digital media now pervade almost all areas of human life (Hepp 2021). Technology is also rapidly transforming when, where, what, and how today’s young generation reads (Johnson 2021; Ludwig et al. 2023). They increasingly read literary texts on digital devices, such as e-readers, tablets, and smartphones, consume new (born-digital) forms and genres of literature, which are often multimodal and interactive, and engage in new ways of online writing such as fanfiction or digital storytelling, often in digital public spaces (McIlroy/Ludwig 2024; McIlroy 2025). Printed literature, in particular, seems to be destined to fall into oblivion as the physical boundaries of paper-bound literature are increasingly dissolving and a new generation of social reader-writers (wreaders) and prosumers (producers & consumers) is taking over (Stalder 2018). While digital media and (print-bound) literature, at first glance, may seem incompatible, the digital realm not only offers new forms of born-digital texts – literature created exclusively on and mostly for digital devices – but also opens up new avenues for choosing and discussing print literature, “inspiring young people to read more in their free time” (Santos et al. 2023: 241). Even before the internet wove itself into the lives of an increasing number of private users, T.V. and radio segments, book clubs, and reading circles were important motivational factors for people who shared an interest in reading and discussing literature. A few decades later, individual and collaborative literary blogs (litblogs) such as LovelyBooks or Goodreads, websites, and podcasts cover a wide range of literary activities, including reading tips, book reviews, and interviews with authors. In addition, in recent years, an increasing number of people have moved to more interactive and trending book corners on social media platforms such as Instagram (Bookstagram), YouTube (BookTube), and TikTok (#BookTok). In these literature-specific subcommunities, book lovers, publishers, authors, and more professional book influencers (bookfluencers) share their literary lives, review and discuss books, and make reading recommendations. These literature-related communities, as Santos et al. (2023: 241) point out, “are generally characterized by their predominantly young participants and preference for [y]oung [a]dult literature […] and have significantly impacted the reading habits of young people” (see also Wiederhold 2022). Taking this increasing intertwining of literary, cultural, and social media practices (Stalder 2018; Thomas 2020) as a starting point, this paper aims to explore the potential of literary microblogging for promoting new forms of (literary) engagement and creative (literary) expression in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) learning. The first part of this contribution provides an overview of contemporary adolescent reading practices and their implications for the modern foreign language literature classroom. The second part explores the contemporary literary blogosphere and provides a glimpse of the massive trend of literature-related social media subcommunities which encourage young people to engage in literary discussions and new forms of shared reading practices (Dezuanni et al. 2022). It then examines how ‘bookish accounts’ on social media can be harnessed for the EFL classroom, where students may no longer be born bibliophiles (Thompson/McIlnay 2019: 63) and increasingly struggle with slowed, deep, long-form reading as digital media multitasking reduces their ability to focus (Spitzer 2022). Closely related to this, it examines the nexus between literary and digital learning, arguing that literary learning can be productively combined with the in-the-wild digital experiences of today’s students. Following this, it summarises some of the potential risks of engaging with ‘bookish’ social media accounts, emphasising the importance of preparing students for the digital threats they increasingly face. It concludes by suggesting a concrete task sequence for delving into the literary spaces on social media platforms. Through these activities, learners not only engage with both literature and conversations about literature but also train their digital critical competences. 2. ‘Reading (Books) Is(n’t) Cool’ – Literary Reading in the Digital Age
With the rise of social media, streaming platforms, and other forms of digital entertainment, we are witnessing how digital technology is changing the way we communicate and express ourselves, as well as how we consume texts. The “end of deep reading [has become] a commonplace in public debates, whenever societies talk about youth, books, and the digital age” (Pianzola et al. 2020: 1). Indeed, there is empirical evidence that the reading practices of young adults are changing as they are constantly connected to their devices. According to the JIM-Studie (mpfs 2022), the number of adolescents aged 12 to 19 who read books in their free time regularly has dropped from two-fifths to a third. Instead, young people increasingly consume shorter multimodal instead of longer purely textual texts and engage in fragmented reading as they quickly move from one text to another (Chalari/Vryonides 2022: 10). They seem to be increasingly losing their ability to focus as they are used to having access to an abundance of instant and short-form content, for example, through reels or posts. This makes it increasingly difficult for them to read longer and denser texts, which cannot easily be skimmed or read superficially. However, it is questionable if we have really entered a “post-textual era” (Chalari/Vryonides: 2022: 10) in which “the communication of culture at large is shifting away from text to other modalities”. As far as the reading habits of the young adult generation are concerned, studies show that adolescents still prefer physical books (Faverio/Perrin 2021; Martens et al. 2022: n.p.). According to the What Kids Are Reading Report for the United Kingdom and Ireland, the number of books that children read has increased by almost a quarter in the 2021/2022 academic year, while reading comprehension is declining. Interestingly, the report also shows that BookTok and similar literature corners on social media – which will be discussed in more detail in section 3 – stimulate interest in reading in the young generation. We seem to be observing the rise of a new reading culture: a culture in which social media play an increasingly important role in finding books to read, discussing or reviewing them and sharing one’s reading habits. These practices, however, may not be validated by conventional literacy pedagogy, often failing to use the ‘dopamine pull’ of social media for engaging with (born-print) literature in the classroom. In other words, the latest trends in teenage literature and reading culture make it necessary to find new approaches that foster literary reading and active engagement with literary texts, especially as reading books can be associated with several positive outcomes such as better general knowledge, improved writing skills, higher reading speed, and increased reading comprehension (Duncan et al. 2016; Wilkinson et al. 2020: 157), a key factor for academic success. As far as English language teaching is concerned, Lütge et al. (2019: 520) argue that the new digital media landscape and the reading preferences of today’s readers necessitate rethinking how we deal with literary texts in the classroom and incorporate the vast out-of-school affinity spaces of today’s students (Jerasa/Boffone 2021: 223) such as video games or social media platforms. In other words, if we want to promote a positive book culture and authentic contexts for (literary) reading in the classroom, we need to take into account the “evolutionary trends of reading practices that intersect the use of digital and social media” (Pianzola 2021: n.p.). One of these trends is Digital Social Reading (DSR), which encompasses “a wide variety of practices related to the activity of reading and using digital technologies and platforms (websites, social media, mobile apps) to share with other people thoughts and impressions about texts” (ibid.), emphasising the increasing importance of social interactions around the reading experience. Against this background, the next section focuses on social media book culture as one out-of-school literacy practice that can potentially motivate young people to read, engage with literature, and enhance in-school literacy instruction. 3. From Litblogs to BookTok
Literature, as Paran and Stadler-Heer (2023: 1) observe, “has ‘been’ online ever since there has been an online, virtual world”. In 2023, there is a thriving and growing literature scene on the internet, and attempting to map the different forms of literature and literary engagement in the digital realm would go far beyond the scope of this paper. Yet, at the same time, no group is “more sensitive to the changes inherent in the shift to digital forms than readers of literature” (Hammond 2016: 4). Since literary texts have been liberated...