Development of Digital Literacy – Translanguaging and Transmedia Note Taking Formats for Academic Reading

Abstract

Generative note taking, being one of the strategies applied to manage difficult texts, requires not only comprehension and selection of information but also production. The current study focuses on note taking formats for a text read with the intention to summarise. Its focal aim is to improve both practical and theoretical understanding of this activity. It involves 103 second year English Department students, investigating how readers of FL engage with complex texts, how they were instructed in note taking and what note taking strategies they employ for comprehending academic texts. The analysis of the collected data attempts to indentify how readers’(n=103)  translanguaging and transmedia (n=103) note taking formats help increase their engagement in and access to difficult texts in L2. It shows that the subjects have not transitioned from the paper interface to the digital one, since they still display the screen inferiority effect in their reading habits. The collected data shows that only some subjects (n=42/103) received some form of instruction in paper note taking techniques or digital applications facilitating note taking. The students were not able to enumerate more than 4 note taking applications which would be conducive to their formation of a coherent interpretation of the digital text they read. The author contends that overt note taking instruction in both paper and digital mode will create avenues for encouraging, interacting and engaging in reading. Instruction in that field needs to be modified with regard to digital note taking/annotating tools to make use of the note taking formats available for processing digitally interfaced texts.