Multiliteracies Pedagogy in Language Teaching: An Example from an Innu Community in Quebec

Abstract

The use of multiliteracies pedagogy is one approach that we consider well-suited toCanadian Indigenous contexts where language teaching must he responsive to localrealities and driven by local needs. Multiliteracies pedagogy includes a multiplicity ofdiscourses, forms of text (oral, written, digital), language registers, and languages, re­flecting the diverse societies in which learners live. Curriculum is jointly negotiatedby teachers and learners. We illustrate the potential of this pedagogical approach withexamples from an Indigenous community in Quebec. The Innu community of OlamenShipu furnishes an example of Indigenous knowledge underpinning and informinggrassroots-built multiliteracies pedagogy. Although multiliteracies pedagogy was de­veloped and theorized outside the Indigenous context, we show it to be completely com­patible with and, in many respects, identical to traditional Indigenous pedagogies.