TESOL Quarterly: Call for Abstracts for the 2022 Special Addition

Call for Abstracts for the 2022 Special Issue 

Digital Literacies in TESOL: Mapping Out the Terrain

Guest Editors  

 Ron Darvin, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

 Christoph Hafner, City University of Hong Kong

By digital literacies, we refer to “the practices of communicating, relating, thinking and ‘being’ associated with digital media” (Jones & Hafner 2012, p. 13). In contrast to educational technology research that centers on digital tools or learning platforms, this issue focuses on learning language to use technology, that is, developing the communicative competence needed to navigate and participate agentively in online spaces.

Aligned with New Literacy Studies that recognizes literacy as a social practice, this issue acknowledges that digital literacies are never neutral: they are contextualized, situated, and circumscribed by different inequalities. As learners use digital media to achieve the social purposes of performing multiple identities, consuming information and maintaining social networks, communication has become more multimodal, hypertextual, translingual and collaborative. Learners need to master the conventions of online genres, recognize cultures-of-use (Thorne, 2016) and develop a communicative competence that allows them to shift codes, registers and styles (Darvin & Norton, 2015).

 Aim: To help English language learners develop both functional and critical digital literacies,  teachers are confronted with three important questions: what comprises these digital literacies, how  can they be taught, and what are the issues that surround them? This special issue responds to  these questions by including articles that: 1) demonstrate how theoretical constructs in digital  literacies research can be useful for language learning contexts, 2) offer approaches to integrating  digital literacies in the language classroom and encouraging autonomous learning, or 3) discuss  critical perspectives in the teaching of digital literacies including issues of inequity and power.

 Areas of Inquiry. To achieve this aim, this issue is interested in articles that provide specific  insights that can fall within a range of topics:   

1. From functional to critical digital literacies: What are the language learning components of building digital literacies? What constitutes a critical understanding of these literacies?
2. From the personal to the professional: How do learners use digital media to perform their identities? How are digital literacies relevant to learners’ and teachers’ professional practices?
3. From structured to autonomous learning: To what extent can we structure the integration of digital literacies in the language classroom, and how do we enable  autonomous language learning?
4. From diversity to inequity: How do learners draw on their diverse digital repertoires to participate in online spaces? To what extent does unequal access to resources shape how learners and teachers invest in different digital literacies?

You can send a 600-word abstract for a Full-length article (based on empirical studies), or a 300word abstract for a Research or Teaching Issue (which discuss methodological issues of digital literacies research or practical challenges teachers confront regarding digital literacies in specific contexts). Contributions from all regions of the world are encouraged. Based on the review of the abstracts, authors will be invited to submit papers by 01 August 2021 for possible inclusion in the special issue. 

To submit: In an email to TQSI2022@gmail.com  1. Indicate in the subject field if you are submitting an abstract for a “Full-length article” / “Research issue” / “Teaching issue”; 2. Attach a PDF file that includes the abstract, title, name(s) of the author(s), institutional affiliation, mailing address, email address, telephone number and 50-word biographical statement. The deadline for abstracts is 31 January 2021.