Literacy Autobiographies from the Global South

"Shizhou Yang has taken an innovative Global South perspective on literacy autobiographies with stories by himself as an EFL writing teacher as well as those by his students from China in diverse transnational contexts. The result is a fascinating and thought-provoking account that not only contributes to theoretical discussions of concepts such as critical pedagogy, translanguaging, and writing ecology, but also to pedagogical practices that will truly enable and empower the learners, and the teachers, to develop their own voices. As such, it is a major contribution to translingual and decolonising turn in language education research."

Professor Li Wei, Director & Dean, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK.

Like his cicada after its long formation,

Shizhou emerges with translingual poetry

Breaking free from the global and colonizing

Pressures against his voice in literacy.

Not alone, he emerges with his whole musical army—

His students—with their own translingual story.

But these cicadas won’t die too quickly;

Their voices will transform the dominant pedagogy.

Suresh Canagarajah, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor, Pennsylvania State University

"This is a captivating book about the liberating intellectual journey of Shizhou Yang, who has found his voice and identity as a multilingual scholar through writing his own literacy autobiography. Also featuring the autobiographical writing of the author’s students situated in a marginalized context, the book celebrates the power of literacy autobiography as an undervalued genre in EFL contexts, demonstrating how it is intertwined with identity work, voice development, and knowledge creation. I highly recommend the book to everyone."

Icy Lee, Professor, Faculty of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China

"Featuring literacy autobiography and poetic inquiry as methodology, this book has provided EFL teachers and students with a proven way to gain liberation from the shackles of modernism and neoliberalism. It is a must-read for anyone who is keen in search for Southern epistemologies in English language teaching."

Xiaoye You, Liberal Arts Professor of English and Asian Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA

"Shizhou Yang has taken an innovative Global South perspective on literacy autobiographies with stories by himself as an EFL writing teacher as well as those by his students from China in diverse transnational contexts. The result is a fascinating and thought-provoking account that not only contributes to theoretical discussions of concepts such as critical pedagogy, translanguaging, and writing ecology, but also to pedagogical practices that will truly enable and empower the learners, and the teachers, to develop their own voices. As such, it is a major contribution to translingual and decolonising turn in language education research."

Professor Li Wei, Director & Dean, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK.

Like his cicada after its long formation,

Shizhou emerges with translingual poetry

Breaking free from the global and colonizing

Pressures against his voice in literacy.

Not alone, he emerges with his whole musical army—

His students—with their own translingual story.

But these cicadas won’t die too quickly;

Their voices will transform the dominant pedagogy.

Suresh Canagarajah, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor, Pennsylvania State University

"This is a captivating book about the liberating intellectual journey of Shizhou Yang, who has found his voice and identity as a multilingual scholar through writing his own literacy autobiography. Also featuring the autobiographical writing of the author’s students situated in a marginalized context, the book celebrates the power of literacy autobiography as an undervalued genre in EFL contexts, demonstrating how it is intertwined with identity work, voice development, and knowledge creation. I highly recommend the book to everyone."

Icy Lee, Professor, Faculty of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China

"Featuring literacy autobiography and poetic inquiry as methodology, this book has provided EFL teachers and students with a proven way to gain liberation from the shackles of modernism and neoliberalism. It is a must-read for anyone who is keen in search for Southern epistemologies in English language teaching."

Xiaoye You, Liberal Arts Professor of English and Asian Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA