Browsing by Author "Shabangu, Sandile"

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    Grade 11 learners' engagement with a literature setwork (Sophiatown) through a tramsmediation project in a third space
    (2025) Shabangu, Sandile; Kell, Catherine
    The study explores the affordances of transmediation as well as translanguaging in an English Grade 11 Third Space whilst engaging with a setwork, Sophiatown, the play. The study also looks at the benefits of using alternative assessment strategies as opposed to traditional assessment methods that tend to favour monomodality and monolingualism. Through the transmediation project driven by translanguaging, the hegemony of English as the sole language of power is challenged, different modes of learning are explored along with digital storytelling as one of the remediations that allow for affective connection with the play under study and a deepening of the understandings of the play's main themes. The study makes use of transmediation as well as translanguaging as the main theoretical frameworks and utilises audio transcripts, video recordings, a WhatsApp group, group focus interviews, questionnaires as well as three(3) digital stories created by the learners to study the affordances of translanguaging and transmediation in a Third Space. Transmediation speaks to the practice of moving a text from one mode to another as each mode offers its own set of affordances and limitations for meaning making and translanguaging describes the language practices of bilingual speakers to use all the language resources available at their disposal to make meaning. In an era where there are cries from the top for Mother-Tongue education, transmediation and translanguaging as rooted in multimodality advocates for no utilisation of one language, dialect, or mode over another but sets the tone for using all available repertoires and modes for making meaning in the context where learners find themselves. This piece explores the writings on Third Spaces such as Guzula, on digital stories like Hafner and on translanguaging and transmediation as Garcia and Mendelowitz respectively. Then the study examines the everyday language practices of learners, the ideologies that they hold about language as well explore their language ontologies. This is a qualitative study that makes use of participatory action research as well as draw on some ethnography to get an understanding of how learners in Grade 11 engage and prefer to engage with literature setworks. Thematic analysis is combined with ethnography as a means to perform data analysis. The data analysed comprises of artefacts(digital stories, drawings) generated by the learners, interviews, pictures, and video recordings from the research site as well as written text produced by the learners. The analysis investigates how has translanguaging and transmediation aid in the better understanding and engagement with the play. The results of the study revealed that the transmediation of the play through the various modes helped learners gain a richer understanding and more meaningful emotional connection with the play and that translanguaging along with alternative assessment methods helped learners better express their identities without any limitations. A close study of the exhibited language ontologies reveals that language cannot be divorced from one's semiotic repertoire as a means for meaning-making as both of these complement and supplement each other. On the same breath, the study found that learners are reluctant to engage in translanguaging in a Third Space, i.e. any learning space, and this was attributed to deeply entranced monoglossic and Anglonormative ideologies. The alternative assessment strategies like the use of rubrics were well received by learners and they generated participation and autonomy in learning.