Funds of knowledge in the production of efl students written texts

Abstract

Giroux (2003) asserts that in the past, literacy was considered as a mechanical and passive process in which decoding or repeating what a text said was enough to be considered literate. According to Rudell (1994), the notion of literacy has evolved to a conception in which reading and writing are interactive processes that require the background individuals have about the world for making sense of the unlimited texts we deal with daily. This project takes into account the conception of literacy as an interactive process and attempts to promote literacy practices in L1 and L2 specifically in writing, taking as the main referent children s funds of knowledge as essential tools to make this social practice significant and transcendental in their lives. For me as a researcher meaningful literacy practices in a foreign language are those that encourage writing and reading events in which students can address topics that have to do with themselves and the contexts in which they live as well as their lived experiences, diaries, journals, autobiographies, letters to loving ones, and personal narratives are some of those practices. In this project the students had the opportunity to create narratives in Spanish which content served as a platform to identify the funds of knowledge students would use later in their production in English. The first language is perceived as a valuable resource that gave students confidence to write in English as well as the possibility to transfer to the L2 skills students had already gained in their mother tongue. The relation between these two languages is necessary and pertinent when addressing meaningful production since writing is conceived as a whole process where linguistic funds of knowledge of both languages can be present, so that meaningful written texts production should be encouraged in mother tongue if we want it to take place in a foreign language too.