Exploring digital literacies in second language acquisition to develop critical reading

Abstract

This thesis explored the use of mobile applications to foster critical reading with University students in a pre-service teaching English/Spanish program through the use of a set of multimodal workshops and online reading comprehension activities. This study focused on relevant issues to 21st century literacies such as: digital literacies, mobile learning, critical reading and online reading comprehension. Data for the study included blog entries on a Tumblr feed, where students would express through memes, drawings, comments, videos and word maps. Findings indicated that participants displayed a strong sense of creativity and artistic expressions combining the use of new digital literacies and old literacies. The use of online reading comprehension enhanced affinity group spaces, along with their online reading comprehension skills, and the discovery of metacognitive learning strategies encrypted in the development of these mobile learning activities. In addition, other important skills regarding online reading comprehension also contributed to the critical reading of the participants. These elements involved informational text comprehension processes such as: Prior Knowledge, inferential reasoning, self-regulation and affective variables. Future implications can be reflected on the creation of a mobile app that fosters critical reading in second language learning. And the adoption of new educational policies that allow students to make a good use of their smartphones for educational purposes.