Grit Alter

Pädagogische Hochschule Tirol / Pedagogical University Tyrol, Institut für fachdidaktische und bildungswissenschaftliche Forschung und Entwicklung, Faculty Member

University of Innsbruck, School of Education/Bereich Didaktik der Sprachen, Post-Doc

Universität Regensburg, Department of English and American studies, Faculty Member

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I'm professor (full) of Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the Pedagogical College Tyrol, Innsbruck, Austria. As a researcher and teacher in this field, I'm interested in children's literature and young adult fiction in the EFL classroom, media literacy, diversity education, critical pedagogy, curriculum studies, textbook research and educational philosophy/theory.

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Joseph Carroll

University of Missouri - St. Louis

Judith L Green

University of California, Santa Barbara

Adam Gaudry

University of Alberta

Andrea Peto

Central European University

Ali Fuad Selvi

Middle East Technical University

Marc Champagne

Kwantlen Polytechnic University

David Seamon

Kansas State University

Paul Frosh

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Junko Yokota

National Louis University

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Talks by Grit Alter

A new model of literary competences and the revised CEFR descriptors

This article presents a new theoretical model of literary competences for use in the language cla... more This article presents a new theoretical model of literary competences for use in the language classroom. The work has been both triggered by an unintended consequence of the introduction of the original CEFR in 2001, namely the marginalization of literature teaching, and inspired by the inclusion of literature in the 2018 Companion. It proposes ways to move away from a pure languagebased approach to using literature by providing a model for developing literary literacy in the learner. It outlines four basic literary competences, defines each, and illustrates how they can be both used in class and related to the new CEFR descriptors and existing levels.

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Re-thinking picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners

"Find more online“: Digitale Erweiterung und Differenzierung in, mit und durch neue(n) Englisch-Lehrwerke(n)

Potenziale des Orientierungsrahmens ‚Globale Bildung‘

Academic life after the PhD

“It starts with one…” – A TEFL perspective on Education for Sustainable Development

Ties that b(l)ind – Inter- and Transcultural Learning in ELT

Canadian Picturebooks in ELT: From Primary School to Advanced Learners

Globales Lernen und Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung im Englischunterricht der Primarstufe und der Sekundarstufe I

ICC meets ESD: Shaping cultural learning for the 21st century

Taking Romeo and Juliet to the British seaside. Adaptation theory and intertextuality in Star Cross’d

Developing literary competences in the EFL Classroom: A CEFR-based model of literary competences

Digital learning and Literature: Transmedia narratives in the EFL Classroom

Multimodal and transmedia texts in the EFL Classroom

Differentiation and Inclusion in ELT Textbooks

E-learning and digital tools in foreign language teacher education

Womit lernen Schüler*innen eigentlich im Fremdsprachenunterricht?

Don't beLIEve what you see – Visual und Media Literacy am Beispiel von Bildmanipulationen entwickeln

Society’s Cataclysmic Decline in Picturebooks and new Visualizations of Fairy Tales

Differenzierung in Englischlehrwerken – Potenzial und Herausforderungen

A new model of literary competences and the revised CEFR descriptors

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Re-thinking picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners

"Find more online“: Digitale Erweiterung und Differenzierung in, mit und durch neue(n) Englisch-Lehrwerke(n)

Potenziale des Orientierungsrahmens ‚Globale Bildung‘

Academic life after the PhD

“It starts with one…” – A TEFL perspective on Education for Sustainable Development

Ties that b(l)ind – Inter- and Transcultural Learning in ELT

Canadian Picturebooks in ELT: From Primary School to Advanced Learners

Globales Lernen und Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung im Englischunterricht der Primarstufe und der Sekundarstufe I

ICC meets ESD: Shaping cultural learning for the 21st century

Taking Romeo and Juliet to the British seaside. Adaptation theory and intertextuality in Star Cross’d

Developing literary competences in the EFL Classroom: A CEFR-based model of literary competences

Digital learning and Literature: Transmedia narratives in the EFL Classroom

Multimodal and transmedia texts in the EFL Classroom

Differentiation and Inclusion in ELT Textbooks

E-learning and digital tools in foreign language teacher education

Womit lernen Schüler*innen eigentlich im Fremdsprachenunterricht?

Don't beLIEve what you see – Visual und Media Literacy am Beispiel von Bildmanipulationen entwickeln

Society’s Cataclysmic Decline in Picturebooks and new Visualizations of Fairy Tales

Differenzierung in Englischlehrwerken – Potenzial und Herausforderungen

Education as usual is not an option. Literatur zur Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung

Rez. Grimm, Nancy, Meyer, Michael, Volkamnn, Laurenz (2015). Teaching English. Narr. FLUL 45/1, 135-137.

Rev. Hass, Frank/Kieweg, Werner: I can make it! Englischunterricht für Schülerinnen und Schüler mit Lernschwierigkeiten

Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch

Reflections on Multiculturalism in Canadian Fiction for Young People since 1950: A Contribution to National Identity Formation

Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, Jan 1, 2012

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Diversifying Cultural Learning in the Digital Age

Digital Teaching and Learning: Perspectives for English Language Education, 2021

This chapter takes a detailed look at how digitalization has changed social and cultural contexts... more This chapter takes a detailed look at how digitalization has changed social and cultural contexts. Digital media are ubiquitously present and have become a highly frequented space of information, entertainment and interaction. Web 2.0 applications and social media have increasingly become means which are not only used, but which have shifted former users to of cultural content. Cultures themselves have thus become produsers participatory cultures which less than before are confined to time or geographical space. In order for individuals to benefit from the huge potential digital spaces of cultural practices offer for realizations of individual and collective cultural identities, it is necessary to foster respective competences. This chapter will offer more details on such developments and suggest a model of digital cultural competences. A final section suggests examples of how these digital cultural competences could be developed in intermediate and advanced ELT.

Sociological Perspective on Diversity in ELT Coursebooks

The Praxis of Diversity, 2019

Taking Romeo and Juliet to the British seaside. Exploring a Contemporary Short Film Adaptation with Language Learners

A new model of literary competence for the new CEFR descriptors

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Womit lernen Schüler*innen eigentlich im Fremdsprachenunterricht?

Ein Lehrwerk für Alle? – Eine rezeptionsanalytische Studie zum fachdidaktischen Prinzip der Differenzierung und seiner Spiegelung in Englisch-Lehrwerken seit 2000

Society’s Cataclysmic Decline as Presented in Picturebooks and new Visualizations of Fairy Tales

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Award-winning Canadian Teenage Fiction 2013 to 2017 – Context, Gender and Ethnicity

Visual and Media Literacy Put into Practice: Creating Multimodal Texts in ELT

In this chapter, the author explores the concept and teaching potential of visual and media liter... more In this chapter, the author explores the concept and teaching potential of visual and media literacy and discusses the creation of digital visual narratives as a means to develop critical media literacy. Based on an example from her university class, the author argues that a hands-on approach of creating digital visual reader-responses to literary texts is a highly beneficial tool to not only develop but also experience visual and media literacy. In the process of creating digital visual narrations using the Web 2.0 application Pixton, students additionally reflect the representation of the protagonists' ethnic and cultural identity within the text and in their surrounding environment, thus fostering intercultural awareness.. This creative reader-response approach allows combining literary literacy with the development of visual and media literacy in digital learning settings.

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‘Just Like Me, Just Like You’: Narrative Erasure as Disability Normalization in Children’s Picture Books

The article analyzes contemporary representations of disability in children's picture books that ... more The article analyzes contemporary representations of disability in children's picture books that elide visual markers of difference in the name of inclusion. Based on detailed readings of the picture books Susan Laughs (Willis) and My Pal, Victor/Mi Amigo, Víctor (Bertrand) from a media literacy perspective, the argument is that a potentially productive inclusion of characters with disabilities can lead to their narrative erasure by constructing the disability as an individualized problem that needs to be hidden. This narrative erasure and individualization of disability is also prevalent in pedagogical texts including current English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks in Germany, where disability is only superficially engaged. The investigation of online commentaries confirms that the promotion, circulation, and reception of children's picture books remains strongly embedded in an ableist framework that manifests in "special needs" language use, inclusion discourses, and overcoming narratives. Contrasting these two picture books to No Fair to Tigers/No Es Justo Para los Tigres (Hoffman), the article encourages a DisCrit discourse about picture books that juxtaposes individualized readings of disability with narratives about disabling societal structures that do not shun depicting the lived reality of impairment.

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Integrating Postcolonial Culture(s) into Primary English Language Teaching

This article argues in favour of using picturebooks to extend the limited view of cultural learni... more This article argues in favour of using picturebooks to extend the limited view of cultural learning that is entailed in textbooks for teaching English at primary school. A critical view looking into textbooks for primary English education reveals that despite the general recognition of postcolonial literatures and cultures, target culture input almost only refers to the UK and the USA. Furthermore, the information students receive is over-generalising and stereotypical and does not pay tribute to the diversity of postcolonial cultures. This paper suggests that postcolonial literatures can be shared with primary English learners to broaden their perception of the English-speaking world. In view of the marginalized representation of these literatures and thus their respective cultures in ELT, this paper suggests closing the gap by using picturebooks from the Inuit and from Kenya and India. A comparison of two picturebooks from each geographical area reveals that one of these needs to be seen critically for its representation of cultural identity, whereas the other can be recommended for enhancing intercultural learning.

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