Subaltern Practice: A practical guide Ahmar Mahboob, Aurelie Mallet & Lee Cheng Koay University of Sydney 2022  Table of Contents About this book ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Section 1 ...................................................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2: The CREDIBLE Approach ..........................................................................................................10 Chapter 3: Positive Discourse Analysis ......................................................................................................18 Chapter 4: Say no to sugar.........................................................................................................................30 Section 2 ....................................................................................................................................................40 Chapter 5: Reducing Sugar Intake .............................................................................................................41 Chapter 6: Garbage Sorting .......................................................................................................................45 Chapter 7: Bins for the future....................................................................................................................49 Chapter 8: Handwashing ...........................................................................................................................53 Chapter 9: Choose to Reuse ......................................................................................................................56 Chapter 10: Supporting Online Learning ...................................................................................................62 Chapter 11: Promoting the Learning of Taicang Dialect ...........................................................................65 Chapter 12: Know Your OHSC ....................................................................................................................68 Chapter 13: Creating Awareness for Sex Education ..................................................................................73 Chapter 14: A Guide for Dealing with Menstruation ................................................................................77 Chapter 15: Rental Issues ..........................................................................................................................80 Section 3 ....................................................................................................................................................84 Chapter 16: Moving forward with education ...........................................................................................85  About this book Subaltern Practice: A practical guide questions both the goals and the theoretical foundations of colonial education as well as provides alternative practices and approaches. Therefore, in doing subaltern education, we need to develop a new array of tools and resources. This book provides a broad introduction to one way in which this can be done. The authors and contributors to this volume all participated in a unit on Language, Society, and Power, which a core unit for the Masters in Crosscultural and Applied Linguistics, University of Sydney. Most of the material shared in this book was first developed for this unit and then expanded and modified to be of use and relevance to a broader readership. This book is divided into three sections. In the first section, we will introduce some of the broad tools and resources that we developed to help our students achieve the goals of subaltern education. Then, in the second section, we will look at actual student projects and share how these were developed and carried out. Finally, in the third section, we will come back to the issue of use of literacy in education in more detail and share examples from another part of the world. Section 1  Chapter 1: Introduction In Indigenous and nomadic contexts, youth were trained to develop skills to be independent, that is, be able to take care of themselves. These independent adults then contributed to the community. School and college graduates today are dependent on others for employment and for their means of existence. This observation leads to multiple questions, including the following: If modern education is taking us in the right direction, why does it not prepare graduates for an independent existence, where they have the ability to both: 1) take care of themselves; and 2) contribute to their communities? Observation of current events from around the world provide evidence that the current forms of education are failing the majority of youth worldwide. Schools train students in and through literacy so that they can be employed; however, every year, millions of graduates around the world find themselves unemployed. In addition, they lack skills and training to contribute to their local communities or meet their own needs. The reasons for this failure are myriad and complex; however, most of these reasons are grounded in the following observation: modern education was set up by special interest groups during the rise of European colonisation and has never been decolonised. Problems today lie in the fact that most of the assumptions and approaches to knowledge and knowledge-making that were embedded in “schooling” continue to dominate educational theories, practices, and policies. This book, based on observational and practical evidence, provides one alternative approach to current colonial-influenced ways of doing education. Subaltern education is designed to train students to develop material, resources, and economies to address issues faced in their contexts. In order to achieve these goals, subaltern educators and researchers identify issues and develop material to address those issues. And, in order to do this, subaltern education and research rejects the theoretical assumptions and foundations of colonial education, in particular, its dependence and use of literacy. The problem with using literacy as the primary means of education and educational assessment is that literacy is NOT a universal human ability (see Section 3 for a detailed discussion of this). Literacy is a visual representation of meaning. And, while oral/sign language is a universal human ability (unless a person is physically disabled), literacy is not. Thus, using literacy as the primary tool of education excludes and marginalises large numbers of people who do not come to school prepared or from contexts where their literacy development is sufficiently scaffolded and supported by those around them. In order to avoid the literacy trap and to achieve the goals of subaltern education, it is essential that we are very careful in drawing on current (colonial-influenced) understandings of knowledge and knowledge making. We will therefore begin this book with introducing some ways in which we can make sense of the world around us, without alluding to or drawing from colonial sources. Making sense of the world The world around us is made of physical-biological things. In addition, we also know that there is a world that is non-material: a world full of ideas, and thoughts, and feelings, and knowledge, and beliefs, and dreams, and questions. Let us call this the socio-semiotic world. A world which exists for each of us; but its existence is not material. Its existence is socio- semiotic: it evolves and exists in some social contexts; and, it can change or alter at any time for any reason. From observation of other living beings, we can note that all living things have the potential of having socio-semiotics. However, given our differences, it is not feasible for us to understand how other living beings experience or make sense of life. In fact, in our experience of life, we know that we can’t even really know what another person thinks and feels like. We note that in studying material-biological sciences, people tend to agree upon the use of atom as the primary material particle. And, based on an agreed set of assumptions, material-biological scientists develop and use different methodologies and approaches in doing something to manipulate atoms in order to achieve their goals. In contrast, people who study social sciences do not have a unified approach. Instead, they study each subject area within social sciences differently. This implies that there is little consensus between people about the nature and substance of social sciences; and, this leads to different disciplines and specialists doing their own things. However, this can change if we consider symbols as the central building block of our socio-semiotic worlds. Symbols are used across all our sensory and socio-semiotic systems to create and exchange meanings. For example, in economics, money is a symbol; in mathematics, numbers and signs are symbols; in linguistics, sounds and scribblings are symbols; in religious studies, various objects and practices, e.g., food, clothes, smells, calendars take on symbolic meanings. We live in both the material-biological and socio-semiotic worlds simultaneously. And, these two worlds interact in and through each one of us – individually and collectively. Table 1 below sets out some of the key differences between these two worlds. Material-biological world Socio-semiotic world Made of matter: it has physical existence Not made of matter: it does not have physical existence Comprised of particles, called atoms Comprised of non-particles, called symbols Material particles interact with each other Non-material particles are placed into based on physical properties patterns Mathematics can be used to study them Mathematics does not operate Existence may or may not be dependent on Existence is dependent on human existence humans May exist without socio-semiotics Does not exist without being material- biological Material force required to make changes Material force is not necessary to make changes Changes are influenced by principles of the Changes can occur at any time and for any material-biological world reason Studied in a university in disciplines such as: Studied in a university in disciplines such as: physics, chemistry, biology… sociology, linguistics, economics, religious studies… Once we realise the centrality of symbols and patterns of symbols (made by humans) in our understanding and engagement with the world, we can develop this understanding to create and develop resources that can be used to meet our needs. In order to do this, we need to study the relationship between material-biological and socio- semiotics. In human experience, our understandings and perceptions of the material-biological world develops out of our interaction with it. And this interaction occurs through our sensory systems. As humans, we may use up to five sensory systems to make sense of the world. These sensory systems interpret the different types of material stimulus (light, sound, smell, touch, and taste) in relation to a person’s previous experiences and socio-semiotics. These sensory systems, it needs to be noted, are not totally independent of each other and often work together. In addition, not every person has access to all the sensory systems, nor do they use them in the same ways. Figure 1 below provides an overview of how our material-biological self relates to our socio- semiotic self through our sensory systems. It shows how the five senses differ in terms of two features: distance/proximity to us; and, ingestion (taking things inside our body). And, it includes examples of how we experience and understand these. Note that all relationships between the material-biological world and the socio-semiotic world are symbolic and dynamic.  Human Sensory systems experiences (socio- (connect us to the physical-biological world, semiotic world, which which is formed of atoms) operates through symbols) Sense Distance Ingestion Group A Sight +++ - Literacy, movies… (things may be in our presence or Sound ++ - Boli, music… recorded) Group B Smell + + Food, manure… (things must be in Touch 0/- -/+ Braille, human… our present) Taste - +   Food, flavour… Group A sensory systems operate on things that are never ingested; hence, they don’t always need to be very close to us. We can see and hear things that are around us and also things that have been recorded (e.g. through writing, art, audio/video recordings). In contrast, Group B sensory systems operate on things that can (and, in some cases, must) be ingested; hence, they always have to be in our present. We cannot smell, touch or taste things that are not in our present. Note also that things that we access through Group A senses can injure or hurt us, but they are unlikely to kill us. On the other hand, things that we access through Group B, have the potential of causing serious harm or of even killing us. Current colonial models of education are primarily dependent on Group A – formal school education happens through literacy and oral language. Relying solely on Group A sensory system is a potential trap in education because things that we read and listen from are not directly observable and hence not verifiable. For education to work through Group A only, we need to lower our guard and trust information given by others. In other words, by accepting Group A based colonial knowledge, we are placing our trust into the people who built their knowledge and power by exploiting people, land, and environment. In contrast, Indigenous and holistic approaches to education consider all five sensory experiences in thinking about education and training. Infants and children – in all parts of the world – start learning through Group B first. They learn through taste, touch, and smell before their eyesight and hearing is developed sufficiently to use language (including sign language) or other resources. This is one reason why babies put pretty much anything they can get hold of in their mouths. The world around us is a mix of things – most of which we do not know or recognise. We make sense of the world that we come into contact with by using our sensory systems and developing and sharing interpretations of the stimulus we receive. Over time, as our ideas, thoughts, knowledge, beliefs, and goals change, our perception and engagement with the world changes too. And, this engagement can impact and change the material-biological world – through our actions or inactions. At present, especially in the exploited communities, our sense making abilities have been crippled by colonial policies and practices. Reversing this is not an easy task. However, it is a feasible one because things that are socio-semiotic are, by definition, dynamic and always fluid – thus, they can change to harmonise our societies and eco-systems.  Chapter 2: The CREDIBLE Approach Subaltern education aims to empower local ways of being, doing, and saying by encouraging and supporting local economies, practices, projects, and resources. This work can therefore be done by anyone and in any language/dialect, in any setting. Ultimately subaltern education is practice, not theory. In this chapter, we will introduce the CREDIBLE approach as one way in which subaltern education can be practiced. What is the CREDIBLE approach? The CREDIBLE approach (see Figure 2.1 below) guides people to start their work with identifying an issue or problem that they want to address by designing and producing contextually relevant material and resources. As such, it responds to and is driven by practical needs rather than theoretical questions. To do this work, the project team collaborate with other stakeholders, whoever these might be. By doing so, CREDIBLE projects avoid exploiting people for data that serves only academic needs. In order to engage with stakeholders, it is essential that we are sensitive to local ways of being and doing. At the same time, in order to develop the project, we also need to look at examples of similar or relevant work in other parts of the world (focus of Chapter 3). By developing material and resources to address a community need, we can benefit the community. And, when this work is done ethically, it becomes a model for others and moves the field forward. Contextually relevant {think locally} Responds to practical needs {not driven by theory} Engages stakeholders {not just collection ‘data’} Draws on an understand of local on knowledge and practices {pay attention to local beliefs, practices, and expression} Informed by diverse approaches and experiences {not just western} Benefits local communities {without benefit, there is little credibility of a project} Leads the field/discipline and contributes to the larger (global) theories {there is no one way of doing things} Ethical {responsible and respectful; not just having consent forms signed} Figure 2.1. One approach to Doing Subaltern Linguistics: CREDIBLE research In this chapter, we step through the acronym CREDIBLE by providing an example of a project undertaken by an Indigenous community in Central Australia to address issues surrounding mental health in their community. This project, the Smiling Mind meditation app, is an independent project – not developed or associated with our Language, Society, and Power course or with any of us. We chose and shared this example here to highlight how CREDIBLE projects are carried out in the real world – outside academia. And, by studying the impact of CREDIBLE projects in community, we will be able to better appreciate how training our students to do CREDIBLE projects can help them contribute to other real-world projects later. Smiling Mind meditation app The Aboriginal peoples of Australia are among the oldest living populations in the world, and have the oldest living culture (Australian Geographic, 2011), having occupied the mainland of Australia for at least 65,000 years (National Museum of Australia, 2021). Aboriginal people have always had a profound connection to the land (Creative Spirits, 2021). It is intrinsically linked to their language, culture, laws, and health (Creative Spirits, 2021). However, with the invasion of the British in 1788, this connection to land was abruptly disrupted with the forced removal of Aboriginal people from their homes and land. This dispossession has been directly linked to poor physical and mental health outcomes of Aboriginal Australians (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2021). Today, the incidence of mental illness among the Indigenous peoples of Australia is significantly higher than non-Indigenous Australians (Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, 2019). To improve the mental health and well-being of Indigenous communities, women from Central Australia’s Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council (NPYWC), teamed up with the producers of the Smiling Mind app, a non-for-profit mindfulness meditation app, to record a series of meditation in three Australian Indigenous languages: Kriol, Ngaanyatjarra and Pitjantjiatjara (Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, 2019; Beaven, 2019). Image 2.1 illustrates a screenshot of the program developed in three the Indigenous languages, and some of the meditation activities in Kriol.  Image 2.1. Meditation programs and activities in Kriol, Ngaanyatjarra and Pitjantjatjara Mindfulness is about being fully present in the moment and allowing your thoughts to float by without attaching any opinions, judgements or preferences to them (Beyond Blue, 2019). Mindfulness can be practiced in our everyday lives while engaging in our daily activities or it can be practiced through meditation (Headspace, 2020). The Indigenous mindfulness series adopted the latter approach to mindfulness training. It contains evidence-based programs such as breathing exercises, meditation and singing for 28 Indigenous communities in the cross-border region of Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia, highlighted in the red square in Image 2.2 (Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, 2019; Beaven, 2019).  Image 2.2. Map of cross-border region of Northern Territory, South Australia, and Western Australia The app combines knowledge from ngangkari (traditional healers) and western psychologists and health professionals to provide a program in the languages of the Indigenous communities that is also culturally appropriate for the mental wellbeing of the Indigenous communities (Australian Geographic, 2019). The app is a part of the Council’s Uti Kulintjaku project, translated to “to think and understand clearly” which began in 2012 to improve education around mental health and wellbeing (Australian Geographic, 2019). Having been downloaded by thousands of people, the world’s first ever Indigenous language mindfulness program is also currently being trialled in schools of remote South Australia (Beaven, 2019). Let us now look at how this project can be seen as a CREDIBLE one. C stands for ‘contextually relevant’ When undertaking projects or interventions, it is important to ensure that the project is relevant to the community that it is designed for. And the easiest way to ensure a project is contextually relevant is to create projects that directly address issues in a given community. The Smiling Mind app is contextually relevant as it was specifically designed to address mental health issues in the 28 Indigenous communities of Central Australia. R stands for ‘responds to practical needs’ If we are being contextually relevant, and designing projects for specific contexts, we are by default designing projects that will address practical needs. This again shows why it’s important to design projects to address issues in the community. The Smiling Mind app was designed to combat mental health issues in these 28 Indigenous communities by using mindfulness, and breathing exercises, among other techniques, and therefore responds to the communities’ practical needs. E stands for ‘engaging stakeholders’ Community members hold the most knowledge regarding a community’s people, culture, beliefs etc. Therefore, when those outside of a community design and implement a project, it is invaluable that they engage with the local people. Engaging with local stakeholders will ensure that the project responds to practical needs and therefore is contextually relevant. One of the wonderful aspects of the mindfulness app is the various stakeholders involved in creating the app. In creating the app, the women of the NPYWC involved “skills of ngangkari, or traditional healers, with interpreters and western mental health professionals to improve mental health literacy and wellbeing” (Beaven, 2019). Working with the ngangkari meant that they were able to understand how “mindfulness could be translated into their language in a culturally appropriate manner” (Beaven, 2019). D stands for ‘drawing on understanding of local knowledge and practice’s As we can see, the CREDIBLE approach to doing projects is very much concerned with creating projects by drawing on local stakeholders and their local knowledge and practices. If we do not draw on the understanding of local knowledge and practices, the project may not be contextually appropriate or relevant and the local community may not respond favourably to the project. The creators of the Smiling Mind app not only utilised western knowledge and practices from the western psychologists and health professionals, but they also combined knowledge from traditional healers to create a culturally appropriate app. I stands for informed by ‘diverse approaches and experiences’ When creating projects, it is important that we use a diverse range of approaches. This might mean talking to people from different communities who have undertaken similar projects to draw on their knowledge and experience. The Smiling Mind app was part of a bigger program aimed at improving education around mental health and well-being called Uti Kulintjaku translated to “to think and understand clearly”. The app was one approach to both improve education around mental health and to also combat mental health issues. B stands for ‘benefits local communities’ Something that we will keep emphasising throughout this book is that any project that is undertaken needs to benefit the local community; that is the ultimate goal of a CREDIBLE project. Projects must be designed with the needs of the local communities at their core to ensure that the people in these communities will benefit from the project. This is also clearly evident in the Smiling Mind app project which was specifically designed to benefit the local Indigenous communities of Central Australia to combat mental health issues. L stands for ‘leading the field/disciple and contributes to the larger (global) theories’ As we create projects, it is a good idea to keep a record of what was done, how it was done, and what its impacts were. This means we can share our projects with other people, and in this way, we can contribute to the wider community. The Smiling Mind app was initially developed in Ngaanyatjarra and Pitjantjiatjara, then working with school staff and community in Jilkminggan in the Northern Territory, the meditations were also translated in Kriol, as shown in Image 2.2. This shows how the project expanded to also include another language and a new set of users: children. It shows how when we create a project that addresses practical needs, the project has the potential to expand and be used in new contexts. E stands for ‘ethical’ When designing and implementing projects, it is crucial to be ethical in our approach. While in research being ethical is often translated to consent forms and permissions slips for protection against legal action, what we mean by ethical here is to always ensure projects are being created for local people’s needs and with their continuing involvement and guidance. It is about designing projects that benefits the local community instead of exploiting them for research purposes. Research with no benefit to the community is an exploitation of participants’ time and well-wishes; it cannot be turned ethical by getting people to sign a page. The Smiling Mind app of the Uti Kulintjaku project is an excellent example of how community members can undertake a project that addresses local needs and benefits the local community and empowers its people. Furthermore, it demonstrates how outside stakeholders and local stakeholders can collaborate and draw on their diverse expertise to create a program that can have a beneficial impact on people’s mental wellbeing. Activity 1 In Section 2 of this book, we have included a number of CREDIBLE projects developed by students in the Language, Society, and Power course. Go through a selection of these and identify how they are CREDIBLE by completing the following form in Figure 2.2. CREDIBLE Project Analysis Project title: Below, please outline how the project meets each of the following criteria: Contextually relevant: Responds to practical needs: Engages stakeholders: Draws on an understanding of local knowledge and practices: Informed by diverse approaches and experiences: Benefits local communities: Leads the field/disciple and contributes to the larger (global) theories: Ethical: Figure 2.2. CREDIBLE form Activity 2 Now that we’ve stepped through the CREDIBLE approach to doing projects, it’s your turn to start thinking CREDIBLE. What is an example of a CREDIBLE project from your local community? This can be a current project or a past project. It can be a project that addresses a specific issue in your local community such as littering or domestic violence, or it can be a project that seeks to improve something in your local community. Explain how the project is CREDIBLE by completing the form. References for Chapter 2 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2021). Stolen Generations survivors face poorer health and wellbeing outcomes than other Indigenous Australians. Retrieved from https://www.aihw.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/2021-1/june/aboriginal-and-torres-strait- islander-stolen-gener Australian Geographic. (2011). DNA confirms Aboriginal culture one of Earth’s oldest. Retrieved from https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2011/09/dna-confirms-aboriginal-culture-one-of- earths-oldest/ Australian Geographic. (2019). Aboriginal women have created a new mindfulness app in their own language. Retrieved from https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2019/03/aboriginal- women-have-created-a-new-mindfulness-app-in-their-own-language/ Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, T., Regional Development and Communications (2019). IY2019: unique Indigenous meditation app. Retrieved from https://www.arts.gov.au/departmental-news/iy2019-unique-indigenous-meditation-app Beaven, K. (2019). Aboriginal women create mindfulness app in language, bringing outback meditation to the world. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-17/outback-meditation- aboriginal-women-create-mindfulness-app/10901896 Beyond Blue. (2019). What is mindfulness? Retrieved from https://www.beyondblue.org.au/personal- best/pillar/wellbeing/what-is-mindfulness Creative Spirits. (2021). Meaning of language to Aboriginal people. Retrieved from https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/land/meaning-of-land-to-aboriginal-people Headspace. (2020). What is mindfulness? Retrieved from https://www.headspace.com/mindfulness National Museum of Australia. (2021). Evidence of first peoples. Retrieved from https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/evidence-of-first-peoples  Chapter 3: Positive Discourse Analysis In order to develop and carry out successful CREDIBLE projects, it is crucial to identify, study, and learn from similar or related projects. To do this, we need to identify examples of successful projects and then analyse them to identify and learn from key techniques and strategies used in the project. To do this, we carry out broad Positive Discourse Analysis. The idea of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA) is an extension of recent work in discourse analysis, where colleagues have been looking at successful texts to learn how they work in order to create new projects. The aim of PDA is to design materials that will improve our communities. This approach is seen as a complementary approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), where analysts typically study how power operates in and through hegemonic texts. In subaltern education, we extend the idea of looking at positive examples; however, we move beyond focussing on texts or language and look at how a thing interacts with all our sensory systems (see Chapter 1). There are two different broad PDA tools, one for analysing successful projects and another for designing new ones. Below, we will first introduce the broad PDA form for analysing successful projects, and in the following chapter we will explain the PDA form for designing projects. In using the PDA forms to analyse and design projects, we ensure that our projects are CREDIBLE. PDA – analysing things Table 3.1 presents the PDA-analysing things form. “Things” refers to whatever successful project/material you are analysing. This could be a poster that is part of a larger campaign, it could be a video, a program etc. If you are analysing a campaign that has multiple materials, you will fill out one form per material. When presenting your PDA-analysing things form, you will insert your material for analysis in the [INSERT MATERIAL] section. If you are analysing a video, then embed the video or insert a link in the section instead, and include some still images of the video. Following this, the first set of questions relate to contextual information regarding the thing you are analysing e.g. its purpose, goal, and why you think it is successful. This is followed by the senses used/evoked in the material and the kinds of meanings they are projecting. To illustrate how to carry out a broad PDA analysis, we will deconstruct a successful campaign: Australia’s National Tobacco Campaign. [INSERT MATERIAL] Name the thing: Describe the thing: Is this part of a larger campaign: If yes, what other things are part of this campaign? Provide an overview of materials included in the campaign and highlight which/how many things you will analyse. Add a reason for your decision. What are the goals of the thing? Context and details about the thing: • Who created it? • Why was it created? • Where was it created? • When was it created? Other info as necessary: • External references, if any: Why do you think this is a successful thing? Description What meanings are being projected? Sight Sound Smell Touch Taste Table 3.1. Broad PDA-analysing things form Australia’s National Tobacco Campaign (NTC) Australia’s National Tobacco Campaign (NTC) is an example of a CREDIBLE project that can be analysed and used as an example to create other projects. Before explaining how the NTC is CREDIBLE, we provide some background information about the NTC including the reasons for its inception.  Australia’s National Tobacco Campaign is one of the most significant mass media campaigns ever undertaken in Australia (Hill & Carroll, 2003). The NTC was launched in 1997 to target smoking rates in Australia. In the early 1980s and 1990s smoking rates in Australia were decreasing steadily each year, however, during the mid-1990s, the smoking rates started to plateau, prompting the federal government to design a campaign to address this issue (Hill & Carroll, 2003). The NTC targets smokers aged between 18 and 50 years of age. Over the past two decades, smoking prevalence rates have continued to decrease in Australia, from 23.8% of adults smoking in 1995 to 13.8% of adults smoking in 2017-18 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2019). Young people have also delayed the age at which they start smoking, with 14-24 year-olds smoking their first full cigarette from 14.3 years in 2001 to 16.3 years in 2016 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2017). Various campaigns have been launched as part of the NTC over the past 23 years, both at the federal level, and state and territory levels with numerous materials being developed, including TV ads, radio ads, posters, websites etc. and more recently, apps to help with quitting. A list of all the federal campaigns, their duration and overall aim is provided in Table 3.21. The majority of the campaigns are targeted at smokers in general, while others are targeted at more at-risk groups such as Break the Chain aimed at Indigenous Australians and Quit for You, Quit for Two aimed at pregnant women and their partners. Year Campaign Aim 1997 – 2005 Every Cigarette is Doing You Damage Aimed at smokers aged 18-40 to make quitting on their personal agenda. 2006 – 2012 Health Warnings 2006 Aimed at smokers to increase knowledge of negative health effects of smoking and encourage quitting through graphic images. 2006 – 2008 National Tobacco Youth Campaign Aimed to have an impact on smoking rates among the youth (12-24) and their smoker parents. 2010 4000 Chemicals Aimed at young smokers to think of the thousands of chemicals in cigarette smoke. 2011 Cough Aimed at daily smokers aged 18-50 to educate them of the risk of developing lung cancer. 2011 Health Benefits Aimed at daily smokers aged 18-50 to promote the message that every cigarette not smoked repairs the body. 2011 – 2017 Break the Chain Aimed at Indigenous Australians to encourage the younger generation to break the chain of smoking. 1 For more information on the individual campaigns launched in the NTC, refer to the Australian Government Department of Health website: https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/national-tobacco-campaign 2012 – ongoing Health Warnings 2012 Revamped version of the 2006 campaign with new health warnings and graphic images. 2011 – ongoing Quit for You, Quit for Two Aimed at pregnant women and their partners to quit smoking to give their unborn babies a healthy start to life. 2014 – 2016 Stop before the Suffering Starts Aimed at smokers and their families to raise awareness of the harms of smoking and to provide motivation for quitting. 2015 – ongoing Don’t Make Smokes your Story Aimed at Indigenous Australians to encourage them to quit smoking for their families. Table 3.2. Federal campaigns of the NTC The NTC broadly speaking is a CREDIBLE campaign since it is addressing the issue of smoking in Australia, thus responding to a practical need. The materials developed e.g. TV ads, radio ads, posters etc. are relevant to the Australian context. The campaign has benefitted the general Australian population as smoking rates have been steadily falling since 1997. However, it must be noted that in certain groups in Australia, such as Indigenous communities, smoking rates are still high. This is why campaigns targeting these more vulnerable groups have been developed, such as the current campaign, Don’t Make Smokes your Story which encourages Indigenous smokers to quit smoking for their and their family’s health and wellbeing. In this way, the NTC is continuously being reworked and renewed to address more smoking-related issues to improve the health of all Australians. To demonstrate how to carry out a broad PDA analysis on the NTC, we will use two campaigns as examples, Health Warnings and Quit for You, Quit for Two. These two have been chosen as they approach smoking from two different perspectives. The Health Warnings campaign uses scare tactics to discourage smoking by depicting graphic images and messages on tobacco product packaging. While the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign uses more positive messages focusing on the benefits of quitting, and more specifically, the benefits of quitting smoking for unborn babies. Various materials were developed for each campaign. For our broad PDA analysis, we will use the Gums and Teeth cigarette pack from the Health Warnings campaign presented in Table 3.3, and a poster from the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign, presented in Table 3.4. Name the thing: Gums and Teeth cigarette pack Describe the thing: this is a cigarette pack that warns smokers of the damage that smoking causes to gums and teeth by depicting graphic images and health warnings. Is this part of a larger campaign: yes, this cigarette pack is part of the Health Warnings 2012 campaign which forms part of the broader National Tobacco Campaign. If yes, what other things are part of this campaign? Provide an overview of materials included in the campaign and highlight which/how many things you will analyse. Add a reason for your decision. This cigarette pack will be analysed in conjunction with a poster from the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign. What are the goals of the thing? This cigarette pack, and all materials from the Health Warnings campaign aim to discourage smoking by depicting graphic images and health warnings to illustrate the detrimental effects smoking has on the body. Context and details about the thing: • Who created it? Australian government • Why was it created? It was created in line with plain tobacco packaging legislation passed in 2006. • Where was it created? In Australia • When was it created? In 2012 Other info as necessary: • External references, if any: N/A Why do you think this is a successful thing? The graphic image and health warnings on the cigarette packs are successful as they take up a large proportion of the cigarette pack, meaning smokers are continually smokers to these gross images and health warnings.  Description What meanings are being projected? Sight Headings The black background on the front of the pack and the red background on the back of the pack create a contrast with the white heading. This immediately drawing the smokers’ gaze to the heading, warning smokers that smoking damages gums and teeth. Dark colours Other than the red heading, the colours used are dark and dull creating a negative and apprehensive feeling towards smoking. Image The images depict graphic imagery which can create a visceral reaction and urge smokers to quit. The images also make the health message more accessible to those with low English literacy. Language The health message at the back of the pack explains how smoking damages gums and teeth and the associated symptoms. Sound Quitline number The Quitline number is provided for those who need help with quitting smoking. This is important to ensure that those who need help to quit have access to services. Smell Smoking The word smoking can invoke the smell of cigarettes and it the context of the graphic images and health messages, they would conjure a bad smell. The letter Q The letter Q in Quitline is in the shape of a cigarette with a stop sign which could again conjure the bad smell associated with cigarettes. Touch N/A Taste Damage gums and The graphic images of the diseased gums and teeth can teeth evoke the horrible taste of cigarettes. Table 3.3. Broad PDA analysis of Gums and Teeth cigarette pack The cigarette pack is aligned with its goals to discourage smoking. The graphic images on the front and back of the pack and the health message act as scare tactics to scare smokers from smoking. This is done by drawing of various senses including sight through the ghastly images, the bad smell and taste of cigarette and sound by providing the Quitline number for those needing help with quitting. The NTC also uses more positive messaging to promote quitting, such as the Quit for You, Quit for Two poster in Table 3.4. Name the thing: Quit for You, Quit for Two poster Describe the thing: this is one of the posters from the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign aimed at pregnant women and explains the importance of quitting smoking during pregnancy Is this part of a larger campaign: yes, this poster is from the from the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign which forms part of the broader Australia’s National Tobacco Campaign. If yes, what other things are part of this campaign? Provide an overview of materials included in the campaign and highlight which/how many things you will analyse. Add a reason for your decision. The Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign features a TV ad, a radio ad, and various print ads, including the poster under analysis. This poster will be analysed in conjunction with a cigarette pack from the Health Warnings 2012 campaign What are the goals of the thing? The poster and the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign in general aim to encourage pregnant women and their partners to quit smoking to give their unborn babies a healthy start to life. Context and details about the thing: • Who created it? Australian government • Why was it created? It was created to complement the other materials of the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign to encourage pregnant women to quit smoking during pregnancy. • Where was it created? In Australia • When was it created? In 2011 Other info as necessary: • External references, if any: N/A Why do you think this is a successful thing? The poster works in conjunction with the other campaign materials to encourage pregnant women and their partners to think about the health and wellbeing of their unborn baby. These posters can be placed in areas that pregnant women often visit such as the GP or hospitals.  Description What meanings are being projected? Sight Image of pregnant woman The image of the pregnant woman takes up a large proportion of the poster meaning our attention is drawn to her. Once we look at her, we can see she is smiling and looking down at her belly, which suggests to the viewer that she is happy, which creates an overall positive feeling towards the poster. Language The language works in conjunction with the image by telling pregnant women how to be healthy during pregnancy. It provides tips for how to manage cravings and explains the benefits of not smoking during pregnancy. The language also tells pregnant women of the quitting resources available such as Quitline to further encourage them to quit smoking. Light and pale colours Looking at the poster as a whole, the light and pale colours used create a light, positive and calming effect needed during pregnancy. Sound Quitline number The Quitline number is provided for pregnant women who need support to quit smoking. This is important as it caters for women who do not have high literacy to read all the language on the poster or read information on the website. Smell The letter Q The letter Q in Quit and Quitline are in the shape of a cigarette with a stop sign which can project the bad smell of cigarettes. Touch Pregnant woman holding The pregnant woman on the poster is holding her belly belly which can give pregnant women a sense of how it will feel when they actually hold their own baby. This again encourages pregnant women to quit smoking, so they get the chance to hold their baby. Taste The letter Q The letter Q in Quit and Quitline are in the shape of a cigarette with a stop sign which can project the bad taste of cigarettes.  Table 3.4. Broad PDA analysis of Quit for You, Quit for Two poster From the broad PDA analysis, it becomes clear that the poster is aligned with its goal of encouraging women and their partners to quit smoking for the health and wellbeing of their unborn baby. This is achieved by drawing on all material senses. The Quitline number at the bottom of the poster is particularly important for pregnant women who may not have enough literacy to read all the text on the poster or visit the website. The Quitline number still allows them to talk to someone who can support them as they quit smoking. The image of the woman holding her belly can create a sense of excitement for pregnant women at holding their own babies. And the various mentions of smoking or cigarettes can project the bad taste and smell of cigarette which is in stark contrast to the other positive meanings being projected in the poster. Activity 3 Using the CREDIBLE project you worked on in Activity 2, use the broad PDA form to analyse the project. If you want to analyse one than one material, be sure to complete one form per material. You may find that some materials do not use/evoke all five senses, such as the cigarette pack analysed in Table 3.3. That’s perfectly fine; this can vary depending on the medium. As you are conducting your analysis, think about whether there is a stronger reliance on one sense over others and what effect this could have. N.B for teachers This can also be done as a joint construction activity between yourself and your students. If there are multiple materials from the project, you may want to analyse some materials together with the students while others can be set as independent construction in groups. References for Chapter 3 Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2019). National health survey: first results, 2017-18 Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Lookup/by%20Subject/4364.0.55.001~2017- 18~Main%20Features~Smoking~85 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2017). National drug strategy household survey (NDSHS) 2016—key findings. Retrieved from https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/illicit-use-of-drugs/ndshs-2016- key-findings/contents/tobacco-smoking Hill, D., & Carroll, T. (2003). Australia's National Tobacco Campaign. Tobacco Control, 12, ii9-ii14. Martin, J. R. (2002). Blessed are the Peacemakers: reconciliation and evaluation. In C. Candlin (Ed.), Research and Practice in Professional Discourse (pp. 187-227). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Martin, J. R. (2004). Positive discourse analysis: power, solidarity and change. Revista canaria de estudios Ingleses, 49, 179-202.  Chapter 4: Say no to sugar In the previous chapter, we deconstructed two campaign materials from Australia’s National Tobacco Campaign using the broad PDA-analysing things form. The deconstruction of successful materials/projects is the first step when designing your own projects. This allows you to understand why the material/project has been successful at achieving its goals so that you can draw on the analysis for your own design. The cigarette pack of the Health Warnings campaign and the poster of the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign take different approaches to discourage smoking and encourage quitting. The cigarette pack uses scare tactics through graphic images and messages to discourage smoking through fear of disease and death. While scare tactics have been shown to be effective, an overuse of scare tactics can make smokers feel hopeless and helpless and less likely to quit smoking. This is often the case in disadvantaged populations. This is certainly true for pregnant women of: lower SES, Indigenous background, under 20 years of age and women living in remote areas. This is why it is also important to have materials that are more positive and encouraging such as the poster of the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign. Positive messages focusing on the benefits of quitting can be a more appropriate strategy for more disadvantaged groups by providing them with messages that are more encouraging and hopeful. When designing our materials aimed at excessive sugar consumption, we adopt both scare tactics and positive messages to first evoke a fear of disease for eating excessive sugar and second to promote the benefits of whole foods. PDA – designing things The broad PDA-designing things form is the next step after analysing successful materials or projects. As illustrated in Table 4.1, the PDA-designing things form is of a similar format to the PDA-analysing things form; the questions, however, are now aimed at what you need to consider when designing your materials. This form is intended to help you with your material design and should be filled out before you design your material. This means, your material should be inserted in the [INSERT MATERIAL DESIGN] section after you have filled out the form. In a similar manner to the PDA-analysing things form, include still images if you have created a video. The questions are a guide for you to consider the importance of your design and how to create materials that align with the goals you have set. This is then followed by the material senses table to encourage you to think about how to utilise the material senses in your design. [INSERT MATERIAL DESIGN] - Name(s): - Project title: - Goal/outcomes of the project (what do you hope to achieve)? - Where will you be carrying out this project? Give details about the context (including people using your material) - Significance of the project (why is it important to do this)? - Material/activity development (what will be created)? - What things/readings/projects have you analyzed in developing your work? What were some of your key observations? - Alignment between design and goals (how do you expect to achieve your goals based on what you will do) - What are some of the challenges that you may face in developing and/or implementing your project? - What are some potential negative consequences of the project and how can you avoid/minimize these? - Which material senses will your thing/project utilize? How? (Complete the table below for each thing that you plan to create)  Description What meanings are being projected? Sight Sound Smell Touch Taste Table 4.1. Broad PDA-designing things form Say no to sugar In this section, we provide two potential material designs for a campaign aimed at the over consumption of added sugar in Australia. This campaign is also a CREDIBLE project as it is responding to a practical need in Australia: a diet high in sugar linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other health issues. This by default means the campaign is contextually relevant and will benefit Australians. To create two potential materials for the campaign, we draw from the two analyses of the NTC conducted in the previous chapter. The first potential design (Table 4.2) takes a scare tactic approach similar to the Health Warnings campaign to create fear of eating foods high in added sugars, especially for children. The second potential design (Table 4.3) draws directly on the positive poster of the Quit for You, Quit for Two campaign and promotes the benefits of a diet low in sugar. Tables 4.2 and 4.3 show how you can present your material designs. - Name(s): Aurelie - Project title: “Say no to sugar” - Goal/outcomes of the project (what do you hope to achieve)? This project aims to discourage consumers from eating foods high in added sugars, and encourage them to eat whole foods, and foods low in added sugars. This will be done by explaining the negative health impacts of a diet high in added sugars and of the positive outcomes of a healthy diet and lifestyle. - Where will you be carrying out this project? Give details about the context (including people using your material). The project will be carried out in Sydney Australia. This first poster will be aimed at parents and children to educate them of the negative effects of childhood tooth decay caused by a diet high in added sugars. - Significance of the project (why is it important to do this)? The project is significant due to the negative health outcomes of a diet high in added sugar. High intake of added sugars is a contributing factor to the global obesity epidemic and can lead to type 2 diabetes and tooth caries, with tooth caries being the most prevalent non-communicable disease in the world. The first poster is particularly important as it provides information about the negative impacts of tooth decay in children. It is often the case where parents are warned that a diet high in sugars can lead to tooth decay, without any explanations of the negative consequences resulting from tooth decay. - Material/activity development (what will be created)? So far, two posters will be created. The first explains the negative consequences of tooth decay in children and the second explains the positive outcomes of eating a wholesome diet low in added sugars. Other materials can be added to the project overtime covering all the negative effects of the overconsumption of added sugars, and also the positive outcomes of a healthy lifestyle. - What things/readings/projects have you analysed in developing your work? What were some of your key observations? Materials from Australia’s National Tobacco Campaign were analysed to develop the materials for the “say no to sugar” project. The materials showed the importance of using a combination of messages warning of the negative impacts of smoking, and also of the positive outcomes of quitting. We will use a similar approach in the materials for the “say no to sugar” project. Various readings were also considered for the development of the materials. This includes readings on the different types of sugars, the negative health impacts of excessive sugar consumption, positive health outcomes of a balanced diet, and various readings from the World Health Organisation and other health governing bodies. - Alignment between design and goals (how do you expect to achieve your goals based on what you will do)? The materials will explain the negative impacts of a diet high in added sugars and the positive outcomes of a healthy diet and lifestyle to encourage consumers to eat less high sugar foods and more wholefoods. - What are some of the challenges that you may face in developing and/or implementing your project? It might be a challenge to display the posters in appropriate areas where they will easily be seen e.g. supermarkets. - What are some potential negative consequences of the project and how can you avoid/minimize these? It is possible that the more negative materials might scare consumers which may lead them to feel helpless and hopeless and less likely to change their eating habits. It is important to also provide positive alternatives such as the positive outcomes of a healthy diet. - Which material senses will your thing/project utilize? How? (Complete the table below for each thing that you plan to create). Being a campaign aimed at high added sugar consumption, taste must play an important role in the material design.  Description What meanings are being projected? Sight Image The image of the sad looking decayed tooth shows that eating sugar is bad as it damages teeth. Statistics The statistics are an easy way of explaining to consumers how wide-spread tooth decay is. It makes the information accessible to a wide audience, including children. Colours The colours used work hand-in-hand with the statistics; they make the statistics stand-out. The cross (bullet point) is red, indicating that something is bad. In this case, the red cross indicates that eating a high sugar diet is bad. This is contrasted with the green tick which explains to consumers how they can prevent tooth decay. Language The language, especially on the right-hand side explains the negative health impacts of childhood tooth decay and what can be done to prevent it. Sound Hearing difficulties One of the negative health impacts of childhood tooth decay is hearing difficulties. This can help parents imagine what it would be like if their child can’t hear properly as a result of tooth decay. Smell Tooth decay The image of the decayed teeth could project bad smells associated with tooth decay. Touch N/A Taste Tooth decay The image of the decayed tooth could project bad tastes associated with tooth decay. Table 4.2. PDA-designing Foods things form; potential designsugar Low added 1 foods are associated with a lowered risk of tooth decay and could evoke positive feelings towards these foods. And the reverse is true for high- sugar foods. The taste of toothpaste is also being projected and is also linked with good measures to prevent tooth decay. - Name(s): Aurelie - Project title: “Say no to sugar” - Goal/outcomes of the project (what do you hope to achieve)? This project aims to discourage consumers from eating foods high in added sugars, and encourage them to eat whole foods, and foods low in added sugars. This will be done by explaining the negative health impacts of a diet high in added sugars and of the positive outcomes of a healthy diet and lifestyle. - Where will you be carrying out this project? Give details about the context (including people using your material). The project will be carried out in Sydney Australia. This second poster will be aimed at the general public to promote the positive health outcomes of a diet low in added sugars. - Significance of the project (why is it important to do this)? The project is significant due to the negative health outcomes of a diet high in added sugar. High intake of added sugars is a contributing factor to the global obesity epidemic and can lead to type 2 diabetes and tooth caries, with tooth caries being the most prevalent non-communicable disease in the world. The second poster is significant in encouraging consumers to eat whole foods by promoting the benefits of healthy eating. - Material/activity development (what will be created)? So far, two posters will be created. The first explains the negative consequences of tooth decay in children and the second explains the positive outcomes of eating a wholesome diet low in added sugars. Other materials can be added to the project overtime covering all the negative effects of the overconsumption of added sugars, and also the positive outcomes of a healthy lifestyle. - What things/readings/projects have you analysed in developing your work? What were some of your key observations? Materials from Australia’s National Tobacco Campaign were analysed to develop the materials for the “say no to sugar” project. The materials showed the importance of using a combination of messages warning of the negative impacts of smoking, and also of the benefits of quitting. We will use a similar approach in the materials for the “say no to sugar” project. Various readings were also considered for the development of the materials. This includes readings on the different types of sugars, the negative health impacts of excessive sugar consumption, positive health outcomes of a balanced diet, and various readings from the World Health Organisation and other health governing bodies. - Alignment between design and goals (how do you expect to achieve your goals based on what you will do)? The materials will explain the negative impacts of a diet high in added sugars and the positive outcomes of a healthy diet and lifestyle to encourage consumers to eat less high sugar foods and more wholefoods. - What are some of the challenges that you may face in developing and/or implementing your project? It might be a challenge to display the posters in appropriate areas where they will easily be seen e.g. supermarkets. - What are some potential negative consequences of the project and how can you avoid/minimize these? It is possible that the more negative materials might scare consumers which may lead them to feel helpless and hopeless and less likely to change the eating habits. It is important to also provide positive alternatives such as the positive outcomes of a healthy diet. - Which material senses will your thing/project utilize? How? (Complete the table below for each thing that you plan to create). Being a campaign aimed at high added sugar consumption, taste must play an important role in the material design.  Description What meanings are being projected? Sight Images The images make the information accessible to those with low English literacy and also children who might see the poster. Colours Lots of contrasting colours make each component of the poster stand out. The cross (bullet point) is red, indicating that something is bad. In this case, the red cross indicates that eating a high sugar diet is bad. This is contrasted with the green tick which tells consumers of the good foods they should be eating. Language The language explains the health benefits of a diet low in added sugars which can encourage consumers to eat a more wholesome diet. Sound N/A Smell Foods The images might convey the smells of the foods, and beverages, and depending on whether they are under the red cross or green tick, they can be associated with being bad or good for health, respectively. Touch N/A Taste Foods In a similar manner to smell, the taste of the foods and drinksdesign Table 4.3. PDA-designing things form; potential will either 2 be associated with being good or bad for health, and thus either discourage their These two posters are examples of potential material designs consumption for a campaign or encourage aimed at the their consumption. consumption of added sugars. The campaign can be on-going with more materials added overtime to address additional health issues or benefits, as well as targeting specific groups such as young children and teenagers. This ensures we are targeting as much of the population as possible to see a change not only in eating habits but overtime, a reduction in diseases linked with high added sugar diets. These examples illustrate how the PDA form can be used to both study material and develop it. In Section 2 of the book, we will include examples of student projects from LNGS 7002. Activity 3 Now that you have conducted a broad PDA analysis of your chosen project/materials, it is time to start designing materials to address an issue in your community. Before you start filling out the PDA-designing things form, make sure to think about an issue that you can address and think about the resources at your disposal to address this issue e.g. can you collaborate with others, what kinds of materials can you design etc.? Be sure to use the form to help with your material design and think about how you can utilise the material senses. N.B for teachers This activity can first be done as a joint construction activity between yourself and your students to brainstorm potential design ideas. Students can then work in groups to design various materials to address the chosen issue. Section 2  Chapter 5: Reducing Sugar Intake Project leaders: Kaihong Pan, Junyi Ye, Junzhe Li, Zhihui Ren Kiahong Pan, Junzhe Li, Junyi Ye and Zhihui Ren had a plan right from the very start. They wanted to tackle the issue of milk tea consumption among children. They were targeting the high sugar content and processed ingredients in the milk tea that make its frequent consumption unhealthy. However, as with many project topics, theirs had a slightly change in direction. “In the initial stage,” Junzhe recounts, “our group decided to choose milk tea as the investigative object. After posting our idea on the discussion board, the professor suggested that we could widen the range into sugar-sweetened beverages since it would be more convenient to search for relevant literatures and resources.” This project aims to raise an awareness of the added sugar content of drinks and to encourage Chinese children to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages to reduce the risk of associated health problems. The setting of this project is in XiaYang Primary School, located in Xiamen City, Fujian Province, China. The group designed two posters and one picture book, conducted a two-week pre-promotion and a one-week student design competition, and ultimately received amazing and creative designing works from the participants. The poster aims to give instructions and indicate the theme of the competition and the picture book serves as a reference, delivering basic knowledge concerning sugary drinks which can be used by the students during their design process for the main activity. Considering the average age of their target community is about 10 years, they designed the poster and picture book in a quite childlike style. The main activity of this project is a competition between two classes, where the students independently The picture book featured images that would be design a handwritten newspaper page on reducing suitable for and attractive to the students. sugar intake. “A target community for this project is two classes of a primary school in China. We cooperated with an English teacher, Miss Yan, who teaches Grade 4th students aged 11-12 years in XiaYang Primary School, Xiamen, Fujian. There are 117 students enrolled in the study. The analysis of our survey found that 68.38% of the children regularly drank soft drinks. In this community, the most popular sugar-sweetened beverages are energy drinks, carbonated drinks, coconut milk, yogurt drinks and sweet tea,” writes Jun Yi. As with all projects, the students needed to first figure out their topic and then conduct a literature review to inform their project development. “It was not a cinch to determine the name of the project,” writes Zhi Hui confidently. “We did a lot of literature search work and found the blind spots of our knowledge; for example, “quitting sugar” is impossible; there are also health risks in the so-called sugar substitute sweetener. So, we replaced the title “no sugar” with “reduce sugar” and deleted the recommendations for sweeteners in the materials. Many Chinese schools’ sugar reduction projects, such as Beijing Fangshan District’s balanced diet campus action, have taken the method of cutting off the source of sugary drinks, in other words, prohibiting the sale of sugary drinks in school cafeterias and supermarkets around the school.” Kaihong, who took on the task of creating the picture book too mentioned how the literature review helped with their material design, “Through my literature review, I found that giving plain text may easily bore the audience, especially people of this age prefer to read pictures with text. Therefore, it seems that the most effective way is to create a picture book specifically for them. Furthermore, a number of articles and blogs gave me several ideas in terms of how to organize our picture book.” Some examples from Kaihong’s picture book design “Our group’s material designs include an online questionnaire, a poster and a picture book, most of them utilize sight as primary sense,” explains Junzhe. “One of our group members designed a picture book with vivid colors, cartoon characters and illustrations to educate students the importance of reducing sugary drinks.” The group communicated regularly with their collaborator which also contributed to how they aligned their material design with the needs of their target community. Junyi writes, “We also engage stakeholder—Miss Yan, who offers her help during the whole project, making timely suggestions and distributing our materials to the students. Through the questionnaire we give out at the beginning and the support from Miss Yan, we get to know the students’ drinking preference, frequency, occasions, and more crucial information, which we use to design our materials. For example, we show the sugar amount contained in Cola, Sprite, sports drinks, lactobacilli milky beverage, etc. because it is indicated in the questionnaire result that these drinks are most loved by the target audience. That explains how we draw on an understanding of local knowledge.” The Some of the newspaper page designs by the students for the competition, showing their engagement with the topic. students also carried out a competition among their target community to increase their engagement with the topic. The competition was about creating a hand-written newspaper page about reducing sugar intake. Junzhe reflects on the experience of carrying the project and seeing the submissions for the competition, “Although there are difficulties in carrying out the project, it is worthwhile to gain knowledge and advice from the professor, communicate with the collaborator and design original materials. In addition, communicating with other groups through online meetings offered us opportunities of gathering peer suggestions. The idea of initiating a competition was motivated by the professor who strongly suggested that we could achieve our project goal through a competition to inspire students’ creativities. Fortunately, the works submitted by children are full of originalities and creativities, which means they have strengthened awareness of preventing sugary drinks and showed deep understandings towards our project. Implementing the credible project will be an invaluable lesson in my master life as it develops my abilities of designing originally, conducting teamwork and thinking critically.” For Kaihong, the main learning point came for her when she designed the picture book for the target community. “For the picture book, I use Chinese to write because most students have low English proficiency and cannot understand what we want to express in English,” she writes. “At first, I thought it was easy to write in Chinese. However, after talking with our collaborator, she said it was better to use Chinese characters as simple as possible because these students are still learning Chinese characters. Since most language in the journals and academic articles are mainly for adult readers, the words are dense and complicated. It was a challenge for me to change these academic vocabularies into the beginning level and meanwhile ensure the meanings are still aligned with the original. This project gives me an opportunity to prove that I can make a positive impact to a community. I found that even a small project like this is worthwhile, because it can bring benefits to the community and encourage children to develop healthy habits that can exert a long-term impact on their health.” Zhi Hui also reflected on how important it is to tailor the content of their materials to their target community, especially when children are involved. “Only by understanding the preferences of the target audience can we carry out the project implementation in a targeted manner. In the process of investigating the topics of sugary drinks, we encountered some issues which were worthy of consideration. We aimed to show that sugary drinks can cause obesity, but we were worried about how to use images to represent obesity. The figures on the digital scale have little effect on most fourth graders. Obese characters often imply body shaming. Wrong language choices can be detrimental. The design process is difficult, but what I learnt from the dispute among our group members is that we always need to stand in the shoes of the target audience. We hope that they will participate in the design and have the power to express themselves, and to even criticize what they see as improper elements in the materials, rather than merely receiving information,” shares Zhi Hui. “This project gave me a unique experience and taught me many practical skills beyond the textbook,” Junyi reflects on her experience in working as a team. “As a member of a team, I need to be team- oriented— communicate timely with other team members about the progress of the project, exchange our ideas, and responsibly accomplish the work. Although some disagreements will inevitably arise while working with them, but I will not force them to accept my viewpoints. Instead, I learned to think critically and find the best solution that we can all agree with. Moreover, the process of designing the questionnaire and poster online, as well as distributing the materials to the target audience through social media makes me realize the significance of the internet and technology. In the future, internet projects will likely become a trend.”  Chapter 6: Garbage Sorting Project leaders: Xinyi Zhang, Chu Yuan, Changyao Fang, Yuelin Feng Garbage sorting may seem to be an easy topic but not everyone is aware of how to do it properly, especially if it is not a habit cultivated from young. In recent years, China’s government has begun to take garbage sorting seriously in an effort to reduce waste. “Garbage sorting system may be mature in developed countries. The situation, however, is different in China. Although Shanghai first implements regulations of garbage sorting in 2019, other cities are left behind,” explains Chu Yuan. Xinyi Zhang writes, “Our target community does not have facilities and posters about garbage sorting. We also identify that the residents throw different classifications of garbage into the same bin.” Her group, comprising of Chu Yuan, Changyao Fang and Yuelin Feng would then go on to design their project to tackle this issue that they have observed. This project aims to improve and raise awareness of the garbage sorting system in the community. The students reached out to the strata manager of the community to collaborate with on the project. “In terms of engaging stakeholders, we chose the strata manager as our collaborator because he deals with comprehensive and Pictured here is the state of the bins at public affairs of the community,” Xinyi reports, on Li Hu Ming Xuan collaborating with the strata manager of a residential community in Li Hu Ming Xuan (丽湖名轩), where one of our group members lives. “We introduced the project to the strata manager and persuaded him to work on promoting garbage sorting in the community. The strata manager approved and expressed support for our project.” The materials in this project were made to target two specific groups in the community—posters for adults and colouring book for children. It was important that the materials created were tailored to the target community and utilised the local languages of the community. Chu Yuan elaborates on this, “The slogan of posters aligns with the residents first language, Cantonese. Meanwhile, it also uses Mandarin to illustrate the criteria for other residents who do not speak Cantonese. The colouring book, on the other hand, is specifically designed for children who account for a considerable number of the population. Designing materials for children may also contribute to the sustainability of the project. The overarching goal of this project is to protect the environment. By teaching the children about garbage sorting and its importance, we hope that the behaviour can be sustained and developed well into the future.” To start off the project, the group needed to identify what the issues were pertaining to the community. “There are no labels on the garbage bins or walls, so the residents don’t know where they should put recyclable garbage or kitchen waste. Secondly, the posters already put up in the community are not about garbage sorting but about restrictions of behaviors that endangers public health like, “do not throw anything out of your window”. Thirdly, the residents simply put the different kinds of garbage together. For example, the food waste and recyclables are put together. Finally, most families have only one garbage bin and they put everything in it,” Changyao reports on their observations. Next, in preparation for their material design, the students carried out a literature review. “Unlike other projects that drew on various theories,” Chu Yuan writes, “this project relies more on government documents and policies, as well as experiences of similar campaigns. Prior to designing our materials, we gathered information both from the government and social marketing theories to support the project.” When it came to the material design, the four students created their materials with their target community in mind. “We design the coloring book to educate knowledge of garbage sorting and used it as a task-based activity for the children. We wanted to increase the children’s interest in garbage sorting through handwork, such as coloring, cutting, and pasting. The languages used in the book are specifically designed for Pages from the colouring book designed by the students children. Each picture has a simple instruction on how to finish the task. We added Chinese Pinyin to help children learn and understand the character. There are some blank images, such as waste and garbage bins for them to color, to enhance their knowledge about garbage sorting,” writes Yuelin. She continues with the explanation of the design of the poster, “There is an eye-catching headline with a slogan below which is designed for the community - 垃圾分⼀分，环境靓⼗分 (Sorting garbage makes the environment more beautiful). The character 靓 is Cantonese, which means “beauty”. The images are used to attract the audience’s attention about how to sort garbage. Every poster represents one classification with a picture of a garbage bin. Colors are used to distinguish different kinds of waste. In Foshan, red stands for hazardous garbage, green stands for kitchen waste, grey stands for other waste, and blue stands for recyclable garbage. The poster will be hung in elevators and notice boards and targets at the adult residents who have basic literacy skills.” Poster designs to educate the community on garbage sorting The final part of the project is delivering the materials to the target community. With the help of their collaborator, the students were able to join a WeChat group for the residents in the community, and through that medium they were able to publish their materials. Drawing on her own experience and skills, Yuelin writes about the inspiration for the colouring book, “When we discuss the design for the project, my personal experience inspires me. Every weekend I work as a part-time Chinese teacher for K3 students in a community language school. I find that written text like posters is hard to attract children’s attention and they always love handwork that can bring them a sense of achievement. We want to design somethings targeting children who are also our important audience. Then the idea of designing a coloring book is come up. It helps children learn about garbage sorting, train their ability to handwork and learn Chinese at the same time.” The process of carrying out the project itself can be daunting, but Chu Yuan reflects on how that experience benefits both the students and the community, “This project is completely different from what I have done before. It does not require academic readings or skills. It requires, however, group work and the ability to solve an actual problem. In choosing the project and designing the materials, we went through rounds of revision. In the beginning, we merely have a draft about the plan but no direction of it. Then, after meetings with our lecturer, we realize that identifying the real issue and helpful resources are important. Garbage sorting may be an old topic for this course or other campaigns. As long as the problem exists, however, it is never an out-of-date project. Most of us may end up in different areas, but the experience of making a CREDIBLE project can benefit us even in other fields.”  Changyao too shares a similar reflection, “The project has potential to bring some change to the local community and can help us to create a sustainable and liveable community. At the same time, it really affects everyone in our group. At first, everyone just knew that the garbage sorting policy was being promoted, but each of us did not pay too much attention. But what really started to change is that after we started in this project, we began to consciously understand everything around the garbage classification. In daily life, even unconsciously, I took a lot of photos related to garbage sorting and shared them with the group members. In these pictures we learned to seriously think about what measures will helps our communities in promoting the garbage sorting. Also, through this project, we learned that the power to protect the environment does not rest on the shoulders of one person, but Collaboration with the strata on the strength of everyone, and it can change the entire manager was vital for the project community or even the whole country.” Xin Yi too reflects on her experience carrying out the project, “During the process of carrying out the project, my horizons are broadened by literature. I have a better understanding of the current situation of garbage sorting in China and garbage sorting and disposal system. This project also raised my awareness of environmental protection and I pay more attention on how to sort garbage in daily life. I am very proud to participate in a community-based project because we have an opportunity to contribute to the community and we are able use socio-semiotic forms such as language, image and colors to influence the public’s behaviour.”  Chapter 7: Bins for the future Project leaders: Chihiro Ohta, Mariana Saez, One of the most relatable topics that students can connect with is the environment. As you may have or will read in the chapter before this, and subsequent chapters, many students have chosen to base their project on behaviours that preserve and protect the environment. In this chapter, we have two students who, from the very start, knew that they wanted to address the issue of improper management of recyclable materials in their home countries. So, they teamed up together but had to decide on which country to focus on. Chihiro Ohta writes on how she and her teammate Mariana Saez came to a decision, “We were both interested in addressing this issue from the beginning and therefore had to choose between Japan or Chile, where we come from, respectively. Compared to Japan, Chile has been setting up more places to recycle in the last few years. Nowadays, Chilean people have gradually realised the significance of recycling as local companies purchase recyclable materials collected by individuals. That being said, the majority of the population still do not recycle materials properly, do not know the proper way to recycle or think that it will cost them money. Taking these factors into consideration, we have chosen Chile as our broad target community.” The poster promoting the contest among The two students chose to carry out their project in a the students school with the purpose of raising awareness among the younger generation on the importance of recycling and how to recycle in daily life. Their goal was to not only encourage participation in the activity they prepared, but to create a consciousness in the community towards the protection of the environment. Chihiro and Mariana chose to collaborate with Ms Acantrio, school principal of Manantial school of Santiago. Their target community are the high school students in that school. To engage the students in their topic, they decided to hold a contest within the school to supplement the materials they were creating. The contest is about designing a recycling bin. The best design will be used at school to start the recycling process. “For the project, three primary materials were designed, a poster, a video and a package of resources for teachers to apply with the students” writes Mariana as she explains the purpose of the materials they created for the project, “Firstly, the poster aims to promote the contest, in order to attract students’ attention. The use of pictures, colours and phrases are used to explain what the project is about and how to participate in the contest. Additionally, a video on practical tips to protect the environment is designed, to provide tips on recycling daily. Finally, a resource package for teachers to be implemented with the students is designed to provide information on the importance and process of recycling.” Snapshots of the video that Chihiro and Mariana creating to share tips on reducing waste. Once they had figured out their target community and the goal of their project, the next part was to conduct a literature review. Literature reviews are not simply about collecting information from academic journals which are in some ways removed from the practical context of the project. “The literature review conducted supported the design of the materials, for starters as a reference of projects that have been successful in other countries,” explains Mariana. “Also, to consider the Chilean reality in terms of the opportunities and facilities available to recycle. Through the literature review conducted, practical advice and knowledge were considered for carrying out the recycling project in the school. The example of how Australia tackled recycling was beneficial to the design of materials in terms of elemental information on recycling, how it happens and how regular people can do it. The most beneficial part is that this is not only applicable to a school community, but to an office, house or even in daily life. Another thing that the literature review also provided was practical advice on starting a recycling club in a school, in terms of waste management and what aspects to consider to make the project successful in the school.” When it came to designing the materials themselves, the two students applied their knowledge of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA). Chihiro shares more about how they incorporated PDA into their designs, “In order to encourage the students to participate in the contest, it is necessary to grab their attention towards it. Therefore, we incorporated texts, icons, and pictures to let them engage with the poster. In the context of school, icons of teachers with speech bubbles are effective in the way that students can see them as if they are actually talking about the contest to them. Apart from this, as recycling influences positively on the earth, contrasting the mixed wastes bin which gives out an unpleasant smell with the bin made from plastic bottles can remind them of the favourable effect of recycling. The teacher’s guide which is part of the resource package. For the teachers’ resource package, the videos and guiding questions can be of great profit for teachers, students, and their parents, considering that they are involved in addressing the issue mutually. Furthermore, the music playing in the background changes accordingly to the information being presented; what is good and wrong, for instance. More significantly, these resources could be used among different graders per purpose and their levels. Finally, the video demonstrating tips on how to protect the environment is more action-based than text-based, and therefore it would be easier to digest. As the presented tips were actually presented inside and outside, the students will be convinced that they can demonstrate them in their context as well. Additionally, the joyful sound and detailed information in Spanish spoken by Mariana are being presented, which evokes positive and familiar feelings.” Mariana reflects on how this experience has shown her that original plans may change over time to accommodate the needs of the community. “My personal experience in carrying out this project was rewarding but also challenging. Due to lack of experience, I realized that there are plenty of different factors to consider in order to create a CREDIBLE project. Originally our project consisted on raising awareness on recycling through presenting facts and videos on the matter. However, this changed when we were advice on doing this through a contest. This idea seemed much better because it would engage the audience through a competition and would allow them to use the time in confinement to work on this project along with learning more about the importance of recycling.” Her teammate too reflected on something similar. “Since I had never worked on this scale of a project before, it is significant to me. I would not say it was easy since the direction of the project went back and forth, and we had to carefully think about its feasibility or appropriateness for the intended community,” writes Chihiro. “Addressing particular issues required us to correctly choose the target audience in a particular community. For me, choosing the target audience would be one of the hurdles I have encountered along the way. I initially thought it is more effective to hold the contest for elementary school students, considering that individuals can acquire a habit from the earlier. However, the contest itself is too challenging for them. From this, I have learnt to consider what people can do and the purpose of the action needed to correspond.”  Chapter 8: Handwashing Project leaders: Audrey Ma, Qiujie Sheng, It would be probably safe say that handwashing practices have never been taken more seriously than in the midst of a pandemic. Many areas carried out a widespread lockdown and as a result, many could not go to out during that period. However, once the lockdown is over, many institutions are required to educate those returning to their premises on the protocols around social distancing and handwashing. Often, handwashing campaigns are targeted at adults and not always suitable for young children, especially kindergarten aged ones. So, Audrey Ma and Qiujie Sheng decided to take it upon themselves to teach little kids the proper ways of handwashing. This project focuses on teaching children the important steps of handwashing and in what situations they should practice it. This group chose children between ages 5 to 7 who attend a kindergarten in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. They connected with Audrey’s aunt who is principal of the kindergarten, Mrs. Zheng, and brought her on as their collaborator. Inner Mongolia Ethnic Kindergarten where the project was carried out. children between 5-7 years old Engaging children, specifically young ones, meant that Audrey and Quijie had to design their material differently than if it was for adults. Their materials consist of two posters and two in-class activities. Audrey writes about the what is contained in the two posters, “In order to let children understand the process and occasions for which handwashing is necessary, we put up the two posters in the restroom and classroom respectfully. The first poster in the restroom aims to teach them the proper techniques. Given the target audience of our project is the little kids, we simplify the process and add the extra steps. We describe the process in simple language such as rub the palms together, rub the back of the hands together and rub in between your fingers. We also add instructions such as roll up your sleeves, close the Image of first poster faucet and wipe your hands with your towel.  The second poster in the classroom aims to teach children the occasions that require handwashing. We summarised the occasions that children usually encounter in the kindergarten. Posters may have limited effectiveness on little kids, hence the need for in-class activities that will get them to participate in the handwashing process, leaving a deep impression and facilitating their memory retention of the tips provided.” The two in-class activities that Audrey and Qiujie prepared were singing the hand-washing song; a short little jingle accompanied with actions, and games that the teachers can play with the children about handwashing. Image of second poster illustrating when one should wash their hands. Qiujie writes about how they prepared for their materials, “Our group use some literature review to carry out our project. We search for background information of Covid-19 on World Health Organisation official website. We wanted to understand current situation and seek professional advice. We also searched for quarantine control policies on Inner Mongolia government’s official website. The government also provides professional suggestions to guide people how to take protective measures. In order to find the correct hand washing process, we search for it on the Global Hand-washing Day website. Additionally, the United Nations gives professional suggestions on how to wash hands correctly and lists necessities of hand washing. UNICEF shows six steps of hand washing on "Global Hand-washing Day” official website. It explains to the public in a concise and illustrated way so that everyone can learn from it. We then reviewed two hand washing campaigns on People’s Daily official Weibo account. We learned from it and created our own materials.” “By analysing successful handwashing and completing an analysis of PDA, we learn from others’ successful experiences,” adds Audrey. “It helps us know how to design suitable materials and the material senses that should include in the designs. We made an effort to design cartoon characters in our materials so that children can better associate with the information.” The children practicing handwashing. As Audrey reflects on her experience, she writes that one of the biggest lessons learnt was how to adapt the content for young children. “From the start, I knew that I wanted to design some thing to address some kind of problem, and a quick idea I came up with is to do something to help a specific community to cope with the COVID-19. A challenge we faced as we tried to design our materials is that we did not know what kind of language is suitable for little kids. By analysing others’ projects, we found that maybe nursery rhymes are a good way to help children understand. After several times revisions and design changes in Photoshop, we finally made two posters that are suitable for kindergarten kids to learn and read.” Qiujie is thankful that despite the difficulties they faced in designing their materials, they had help from different collaborators, “Audrey and I are actually weak in painting and using Photoshop (PS). We revised the painting draft several times. This was the first time that we used this program and it was really difficult to operate. So, I asked for my friend’s help. He helped us put the painting draft into PS. In addition, I think we are lucky to have cooperative stakeholders. The principle appreciated our ideas and helped us contact the teacher. Lee Hong, the teacher, put up our posters in the classroom and organised students to wash their hands and sing six steps hand washing songs.”  Chapter 9: Choose to Reuse Project leaders: Li Yang, Alexis O’Connor, Ying Yue Chen Topics surrounding the environment was a popular choice for many of the groups. Often with environmental topics, the focus is on behavioural change, especially targeted at consumers. In the case of this project, the consumers were highly relatable to the group, university students and staff, and the targeted behaviour change is the consumption of sing-use coffee cups. “What impact does a single use coffee cup have on the environment? Some people think it is unnecessary to pay attention to such a small thing. But what about 1 billion disposable cups? Do you still think it doesn’t matter? It is estimated that 1 billion disposable coffee cups are used for take-away coffee per year in Australia. The plastic lining of these cups is reported to be unable to break down, and tons of disposable coffee cups end up in landfill every year, which has definitely caused huge damage to the environment. Coffee cups have become the second-largest contributor to the litter waste. It is true that most people already have the awareness of the negative effect of single use coffee cups, but it is impossible to forbid people using it. Given the serious consequence of single use coffee cups, Alexis, Anna and I decide to make efforts to tackle this issue,” Li Yang writes. Left to right: Alexis O’Connor, Li Yang, & Ying Yue Chen Project ideas need not necessarily be original or something that has not been done before. In the case of this project, Li Yang, Alexis O’Connor and Ying Yue Chen chose to do their project on something that was previously attempted by a group of students in the university. A group of students at the University of Sydney (USyd) had organised a campaign promoting the use of reusable coffee cups. They had only begun its initial stages but were unable to move forward. Alexis shares that although her group planned to do a similar campaign, the outcome will be different. “Through a friend I was made aware of a previous campaign that a group of USyd students had created called the ‘University of Sydney Keep Cup Campaign’. My friend informed me that because of internal conflicts in the group, the campaign never took off from the first stages. This made me believe that there were people passionate about this issue, particularly people on campus. This issue itself was very important to me, as a very frequent consumer of coffee. Although the over-use of plastics is already a huge issue in the environment, we narrowed down the issue we want to tackle to single-use coffee cups. We did this because unlike other plastic related problems, we had an easy solution to the problem – reusable cups. Furthermore, the awareness around the issue meant that instead of teaching and informing people, our campaign serves more as a reminder.” The final drafts of posters that are meant to be displayed at the cashiers This project is aims to encourage the use of reusable coffee cups as a strategy to reducing the consumption of single-use coffee cups. To achieve this aim, the students created a campaign using posters, slogans and logos to stamp onto coffee cups and an Instagram account. Collaborating with two cafés on USyd campus, Ralph’s café and Courtyard café, as well as USU, they carried out their campaign over the course of three days, in conjunction with USU x Sustainability week. As with all the projects, the first step was to do a literature review on issues surrounding their topic. Anna shares some of the information that they gathered during their literature review on single-use coffee cups. “According to a report by the Sustainable Packaging Alliance of the United States, there are only a limited number of non-paper recycling plants in the United States that can recycle paper cups, and only serve 20% of the population of the United States. Stand.Earth, another environment- protecting organization also found that only 18 of the 100 coffee companies have environmental protection departments that can recycle paper cups. Jason Pelz, a vice President at another industry group, points out that less than 1 percent of 450 single-used cups can be recycled. What’s more, research show that the environmental damage to disposable coffee cups does not start after consumption. It is a serious source of greenhouse gases even before consumption. According to the United Nations Environment Programme and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by making these single-use coffee cups is equivalent to the emissions of 30,000 cars driven in a year. After disposable use, almost all paper cups are discarded and degraded. This process, however, produces large amounts of methane, another common greenhouse gas. As a result, every cup of coffee we drink is a small greenhouse effect generator. Every disposable cup we throw away is killing the earth.” The stamped coffee cups that the students spent the afternoon stamping at the Courtyard Cafe “Personally speaking, I drink a lot of coffee in my daily life, but I never have a reusable cup before we do this project. In my opinion, many people like me are aware of the terrible consequence of disposable cups whereas they do not think about changing their behaviour. Even though we know how difficult it is to influence and change people’s mind and behaviour, we still want to have a try. It is too ambitious to influent all the people in Australia, so we decide to start from the familiar community of us, which is the university of Sydney campus,” adds Li. The three students then began to design their logos and slogans. Wanting to make sure that their materials directly engaged with their target audience, the three students planned for their logos and slogans to be placed on single-use coffee cups to remind consumers to use reusable cups the next time they buy coffee. More important than the artistic quality of the design however was the vehicle in which their designs would be placed onto the coffee cups. Li explains how they came to choosing stamps as a way of delivering their slogans and logos. “Talking about the stamps, our design is actually a sticker and we stick it to the disposable cup or the sleeves. Thanks to the suggestion of my classmate Ryo Lu, we realized that the sticker is not environmentally-friendly and we cannot cause another kind of pollution to do an ‘environment protection project’, which is ironic. Ryo suggested us to use a stamp instead of the sticker because it can be reused thousands of times.”  A draft of Li Yang’s poster design idea “We thought that this was a brilliant idea and something we all agreed could work,” adds Alexis. “It took some time to get the stamp idea to work – many websites were selling niche, personalised stamps for a large amount of money. Finally, we found a seller and a simple online design tool for our stamps. We wanted to use very simple imagery for all our designs to easily communicate our message. We also wanted the words we used across our stamps to be similar but not identical. We ended up choosing the following phrases: ‘Next time choose to reuse’, (B.Y.O. stands for Bring Your Own) ‘B.Y.O Cup’, ‘Next time B.Y.O Cup’ and ‘Help the Earth B.Y.O Cup’.” The next step for the group was to find a café that would be willing to collaborate with them. Willingness to put up their materials was not the only factor that the students needed to consider, the extent of them being able to exercise creative freedom and their collaborator’s passion for addressing the issue of single-use coffee cups also played a part in deciding which café to work with. “We initially wanted to focus our campaign on a café in Five Dock; the café ‘Rocco’s had agreed to our project. However, discussions with them made clear that our materials would have to be created under their instruction and strict guidance. Moreover, their reaction to the campaign was less enthusiastic than we would have liked,” writes Alexis. Collaboration with a third party, plays a vital role in all the projects that were carried out, even more so for this group. Li writes about how she felt empowered by the support received from the two cafés that agreed to work with her group. “We negotiated with the manager of the Courtyard Café and Ralph’s café afterwards. Fortunately, their attitude towards the cooperation with us was passionate and positive, which increased our confidence of achieving our project’s goal. When Alexis and I went to the Ralph’s café to talk with the manager, he agreed to help us with our project gladly and readily. I felt like we were the luckiest people in the world at that time. Moreover, I was so excited when the manager of Courtyard Café, Ben, sent an email to invite us to attend the Sustainability Week held by USU, and to present the poster and materials of our project in the café. On that day, we went to the Courtyard Café to stamp our slogans on the single use coffee cups provided by the manager, and the total amount of the cups is around 1000. Ben told us that he was so happy to know that we are doing the ‘choose to re-use’ project, which is exactly something that USU is very passionate about and which perfectly matched their goal of the Sustainability Week. The aim of their campaign is to increase the usage of reusable cup from 11% to over 25% this year on campus. The feeling of finding someone who would make every effort to achieve the same goal as we have is amazing and exciting, especially they are so passionate and powerful.” Finally, the last piece of their campaign, the Instagram account, while, not part of the original plan, came together out of an unfortunate turn of events with the posters that they had designed. Alexis describes the events that took place which led to the creation of their Instagram account. “Although the Operations Manager of the USU and the Venue manager at Courtyard liked our poster, they were hesitant to put them up because, in our poster design there is half of a reusable cup. This image appears to be of a ‘KeepCup’ an Australian brand that has become synonymous with the reusable cup movement. The Operations Manager informed me that last year, the USU (who had done a similar campaign) posted promotional material with an illustration of the branded KeepCup. KeepCup then reached out to them and threatened legal action unless they pulled the materials. This was slightly disheartening but it inspired us to create our own Instagram account, @choosetoreuseusyd, where we could put it up. We realised also that putting our poster up on Instagram was more in keeping with the sustainability of our project rather than printing it out. It was also a place where we could display the sketches and poster ideas that were not going to be a part of our final materials. Personally, what I loved about the Instagram was sharing it with my friends and family (and basically forcing them to follow it). It was the perfect platform to share the progress of our project and other things we came across that were relevant to our message.” As Anna reflects on her experience carrying out the project, she writes, “In our project, not only were consumers' perceptions of environmental protection affected, but the coffee shop staff were also affected. They told us that they feel that our environmental project was meaningful and they are willing to pay more attention to the use of disposable coffee cups in their future work. Through language, text, and images, we tried to incorporate ‘taste’, ‘smell’, ‘sound’ and ‘sight’ to enhance people's understanding of reusable cups and promote their possibility of using them. This is a way in which language can change people's behavioural habits and thus change society.” Li echoes the belief that language plays an important role in behaviour modification. “The most meaningful thing the project brings to me is that I realize that only when you really think of yourself as a part of the community and truly want to make a contribution to make it better, your ideas will be translated into action. This change can give people the inner motivation to change their behaviour. I believe that language has the power to influence the attitude or even behaviour of other people.” For Alexis, it was the confidence she gained in stepping up to initiate communication with the different parties that was important to her. “The project was a significant learning experience and helped me a lot with my communication skills. Approaching and contacting people to collaborate with our project was something I was not entirely comfortable with at the beginning of the project. The highlight for me was the communication and collaboration we had with Courtyard and the USU. The way they spoke and acted towards our project made me believe that they weren’t just doing us a favour but truly loved what we were doing.”  Chapter 10: Supporting Online Learning Project leader: Regan Gauci When COVID-19 hit the shores of New South Wales, Regan Gauci found herself and her co-workers faced with a difficult challenge: migration from face-to-face teaching to online teaching in two days. Teaching English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) at an English learning centre is Regan’s job. “Various factors impacted teachers’ abilities to adapt to this method of lesson delivery,” Regan observed. “This primarily included: unfamiliarity with pedagogical approaches to online learning, a lack of – or the inability to access – professional learning opportunities related to technology in educational contexts, and teachers who were not EAL/D trained, and thus unfamiliar with the relevant pedagogical approaches.” Regan designed her project to achieve two key goals: (1) To assist teachers in designing effective online learning materials for EAL/D learners; (2) To provide EAL/D students with quality online learning in lieu of face to face classroom learning. Based on those goals, her target community are the teachers at Cabramatta Intensive English Centre (IEC) and by default the students who receive the lessons. “To ensure that the goals were achieved, I carefully considered the exact nature of support that the teachers of Cabramatta Intensive English Centre (IEC) would best benefit from. As this had a direct impact on the quality of online learning EAL/D students would have access to, it was crucial that the designed materials were suitable for both teachers and students.” The materials for this project would include a model lesson plan that focuses on the join-construction phase of the Regan with her grandmother teaching and learning cycle, lesson materials related to the lesson plan, and a sample of student work. Regan had to also align her materials with the content and outcomes from the Intensive English Program Curriculum Framework, as it is the main syllabus document that both teachers and students within the target community of this project are familiar with. Just like all her peers in the unit of study, Regan started with collecting data. She researched on the specific issues that teachers are having in regard to online learning, and the pedagogical approaches to online teaching and learning within the context of EAL/D students. Using what she found in her literature review, she began to design her materials for the project. Regan explains her thought process throughout her preparation of the materials, “To successfully achieve the two goals of this project, I needed to design several interrelated materials, with careful consideration as to how they would contribute to making this a CREBIBLE project. I found that utilising the PDA (Positive Discourse Analysis) framework was extremely effective in setting out how the project materials were to be designed, particularly as it ensured there was a focus on goal setting and achievement, the significance of the project, material/activity development, a strong link to assessing relevant literature and consideration for the challenges and potential negative consequences faced when designing and conducting the project.” Ħobż biż-żejt is a popular Maltese snack. The recipe was one of Regan’s topics of focus. It was apparent in her final products that she constantly kept in mind that while the materials needed to be easily accessible and highly applicable, it should not come across as patronising to experienced, EAL/D trained teachers, instead, engaging stakeholders and drawing on an understanding of local knowledge and practices. Additionally, a feature that Regan was able to craft within her materials was the inclusion of the 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning pedagogy to ensure that her project was informed by diverse approaches and expressions. A sample lesson plan created by Regan  Towards the end of the project, Regan reflected on how her project had turned out and what possible learning points she took away from the experience. “Though the design and implementation of the unit was ultimately successful, there were some challenges that had to be met and accounted for. The most significant challenge was that the context of student online learning shifted by the time that the materials were finalised. The New South Wales government mandated that students would return to school once a week through Week 3 and 4, and then return full-time from Week 5 onwards. The initial lesson was planned to be delivered during Week 5 and had to be adapted so that students could complete the lessons when they were home after school hours. This also resulted in the sequence of lessons happening much closer than initially intended: students were meant to complete each phase of the lesson once a week, but did so over three lessons in one week. Regan’s materials include the ingredient list for the recipe of Ħobż biż-żejt. Furthermore, it was intended to record the lessons delivered through Zoom to serve as an additional support material for teachers. However, most students did not consent to the lesson being recorded, and the project was additionally bound by the conditions outlined by the State Education Research Applications Process (SERAP); a condition that Cabramatta IEC enforced for this project to move ahead. Despite these challenges, it is evident that the success of this project was a result of the close collaboration between teachers and students at Cabramatta IEC and the project leader. The feedback from both teaching staff and students in the LNGS7002 course, across tutorials, meetings and consultations, played a vital part in the evolution of the project and materials, and was appreciated beyond words.”  Chapter 11: Promoting the Learning of Taicang Dialect Project Leaders: Yinong Qiu, Yao Shi Yinong Qiu and Shi Yao are both passionate about protecting one thing, that is, the Taicang dialect. Both students came from different backgrounds, and both students have different motivations for wanting to protect the dialect. While Yinong is from the town of Taicang, part of Suzhou, Yao is not and had moved to Suzhou with her family when she was young. What motivates Yao to work on this topic is the sense of belonging and identity. Her experience growing up taught her that language was very much a part of one’s identity. Having moved to Suzhou at five, she was not familiar with the dialect spoken there. Often, she felt isolated because she was unable to speak the dialect even though she could understand it. On top of that, whenever she went back to her hometown, she found herself forgetting her native dialect in place of using Mandarin so often. “Many of my close friends from high school are native Suzhounese, and they sometimes speak Suzhou dialect when we hang out. Yinong, on the left, and Yao, have both Sometimes I feel weird speaking mandarin to them. It is a feeling that I am alienated. What’s worse, I forget my native lived in Suzhou when they were younger dialect as well because I am used to speaking Mandarin. That is why I also feel alienated when I go back to my hometown and talk with my grandparents. Sometimes I don’t have a sense of belong to any place. Two years ago, when I did my internship as an English teacher at a primary school in Suzhou. I realize that almost every single one of my students did not know how to speak the Suzhou dialect. They are losing something that tells them who they are and that connects them to their origin,” writes Yao If Yao’s motivation was identity and belonging, Yinong’s is preservation. Yinong was taught the dialect by her grandmother. Being one of the few among her peers who could speak the dialect, she often participated in competitions. “Speaking the Taicang dialect is one thing I always feel proud of. Every time I speak the Taicang dialect to my family, it reminds me of home. It also reminds me of my dearest grandma who has passed away six years ago,” she writes. “Taicang dialect is a small branch of Wu Chinese. Wu Chinese is one of the most beautiful and unique Chinese dialects, spoken by people in the Yangtze River Delta. The pronunciation of Wu Chinese is regarded as soft, light and flowing, and there is an idiom in Mandarin referring to Wu Chinese as ‘the tender speech of Wu’. Also, it is almost unintelligible to speakers of other dialects in China. However, a dialect well known for its long history and uniqueness is becoming less and less popular among the young generation. Taicang dialect carries Taicang’s cultural geography, customs, and traditions from ancient times till now, and retains almost all historical and cultural heritage of this city. However, 63 years after the country’s campaign in popularizing Mandarin, the language environment of Taicang dialect is extremely constricted. Currently, no more than 50% of Taicangnese under 30 years old speak Taicang dialect. For those under 20, fewer than 30% can. For those under the age of 10, the situation is even worse. Therefore, if timely measures are not taken, Taicang dialect will face extinction in a few decades. This really breaks my heart.” This project aims to promote a Taicang dialect class in Zhudiwen Primary School. To do so, the two students created a short video clip to accompany an article, which will be posted on the school’s WeChat account. They also worked on teaching materials with the teacher of the dialect class. At first the two students had an ambitious goal of wanting to promote the dialect to the whole of Taicang. Through discussions in tutorials and with their lecturer, they decided to narrow it down to a primary school, Zhudiwen Primary School. Yinong shares how they came to work together with the school, “Fortunately, my mum is a teacher of this primary school and after she mentioned her concern about the unpopularity of this class, I decided to collaborate with her and to help the school advertise this class. We first interviewed the current teacher of this class, Yinong’s mother, who works in Zhudiwen Primary and then negotiated with the school. Both the teacher and the school administrative staff are School, was the group’s collaborator. quite cooperative. The teacher gave us some information about this class and the students, and the administrative staff authorized us to post an article about Taicang dialect in the school’s official WeChat account, which is followed by all the parents.” With that narrowed down, the two students now need to identify their target community. Yinong and Yao originally wanted to reach out to the students of the primary school. “Everything seemed promising at that point, but we realized that we needed to change the target audience from the students to the parents because it is the parents that have access to our WeChat article, also, it is the parents that decide which class the students are to join,” comments Yinong. Working on creating their materials, Yao shares about the ideas they used and the learning curve of producing something that they did not have experience in, “When we were designing the video, we tried to make it relatable to our audience. We needed to think about all the elements that we can use so that our audience are able to feel the connection between the Taicang dialect and the value of family. We chose a Taicang children’s rhyme. We did not need to dig into the The students featured a Taicang nursery rhyme which was linguistic features of the rhyme as it just centred on food, in their video. works to make the audience feel connected. At the same time, I really learnt a lot from the process of making the video. Yinong and I did not have much experience making videos. We thought it was easy at first. However, nothing turned out to be easy – from coming up with ideas to shooting the footage to editing the video to choosing the background music. Luckily, we got help from our classmates and primary school staff.” “Currently, videos are the most powerful and influential medium in China as Douyin (Tik Tok) is now the dominant social media,” Yinong adds, on why they decided to produce a video clip. “The video is 2 minutes long, focusing on kinship, a Taicang dialect nursery rhyme, local food and childhood memory. At the end of the video, a slogan appears: Some people and some words, no matter how far away or how long it takes, will never be forgotten. The words we wrote in the WeChat article highlight the critical situation of Taicang dialect among its young users. We encourage students to join the school’s Taicang dialect class and to be the practitioners of Taicang dialect.” The overall experience for the two students have been positive. Upon reflection, Yinong reveals that she learnt three important lessons from her experience. “Firstly, language has power, and it can be beneficial to society. Linguistics as a social science is sometimes unfairly criticized as less useful compared with some natural science subjects. However, what we have done and what our classmates have done show that linguistics can also be useful in terms of changing the way people think and do things. Secondly, in my previous career as a student, I used to accept knowledge passively, but while in this unit, I tried to do my bit to bring positive changes to my community. This makes me rethink about the role of being a student. I start to realize that after acquiring knowledge, the next step is to utilize the knowledge and to make positive things happen. Thirdly, I came to realize that if you have a clear aim and start from little things, you can indeed have an impact on your community. After the WeChat article was posted, around 1000 people have viewed it, and some had left positive feedback in the comments section. Some of my former classmates even reposted it for me voluntarily, telling me that they were deeply touched by the video I made. Over the days, I felt a great sense of achievement.” Yao, too, echoes a similar discourse in her reflection of the experience. “We need to think big yet start with small things. That is the most important lesson I learnt. the first step is to identify a problem. I used to think: Oh, that is a real problem but it’s not me who can solve. Now I know I can do something. Looking back on our project, it still feels unreal that we actually made a real move. I have been studying at school for 20 years and all I know I can do is to read and write. I learned the knowledge through lectures and books, I consolidate them by doing homework, having tests and writing essays. Now I know there are real things I can do with what I learned. I also realize that language can do much more than what I used to believe. I majored in English teaching back in college. I thought teaching a foreign language is the only practical way to make language work. Having done this project, I know that language is more than the language itself, it is a system that can influence human society in every sense. I have always been an introvert person and thought it is the reason why i do not care much about others. I thought to get to know others is tiring and does not make me any happier. However, when I see how the audience feel connected by what we designed in the final product, I also feel connected to them, and that makes me happier.”  Chapter 12: Know Your OHSC Project Leaders: Shuo Yang Wang, Xin Er Yuan, William Li Imagine being in a new country and needing to see a doctor because you’ve suddenly fallen sick. It can be quite confusing for new international students to figure out Australia’s healthcare system, especially when they are needing to adapt to other aspects of life in Sydney while also feeling under the weather. Wang Shuo Yang noticed this issue when he first came to Australia in 2018. He was well aware of the compulsory OSHC (Overseas Student Health Cover) that every student needed to obtain when they accept their offer. “However, no one told me exactly how I From left to right: William Li, Xin Er Yuan am going to use it except for a few wordy e-mails, which are & Shuo Yang Wang automatically diverted to the junk box. I had already heard many ‘horror stories’ about healthcare services in Australia,” he comments. One of the most prominent ‘horror stories’ include an ambulance call that costs thousands, money which not all international students can afford. Plus, there was the rumour of long waiting periods when going to see a doctor. “Many new words, such as ‘GP’ or ‘ER’, baffled me. As a result, I personally became afraid to seek medical help to avoid the hassle of figuring out what’s what,” Shuo Yang writes. This project is about providing a guide to the New South Wales healthcare services to new international students in the University of Sydney (USyd). Shuo Yang Wang, Xin Er Yuan and William Li launched a Public Health Educational Campaign targeting the postgraduate international students at USyd. The aim of their campaign is to raise awareness of the available health services and support in the University of Sydney and in the wider community. Their campaign consisted of three parts that function as a whole: posters, a brochure, and a website. The posters were designed to catch the attention of their target audience and lead them to the website; the brochure similarly points the readers to the website but offers more information than the posters; and the website, which contains even more materials prepared by Shuo Yang, Xin Er and William for the project, aimed to fill the knowledge gap of their viewers and provide solutions to the issues that were identified by the three campaign organisers.  The final draft of the students’ posters design Prior to designing their materials, the three students gathered information through a forum conducted by SUPRA (Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association). Xin Er Yuan, who served as a SUPRA councillor herself, drew on her experience in helping students with their enquiries. She writes, “My personal experience serving as a SUPRA councillor has exposed me to students’ enquiries of seeking for medical help. It is not just one special case, it is a common issue that needs to be addressed for the benefit of the international student community. Providing international students with the handy guide of the available services through all the possible channels not only brings the recognition of the services to them, but also encourages them to seek for help when they encounter health problems regardless of the language barriers. According to the Health Services Forum that SUPRA conducted in March 2019, half of the nine international postgraduate students who participated in the forum have shared their unpleasant experience of having absolutely no idea of where to seek for medical help, both physically and mentally the first time they felt unwell. Most of them reported that they were unsure of how to access the health services and were not familiar with how to use OSHC that they are required to purchase before commencing their studies in Australia. Additionally, some of them were struggling with the language barrier between them and the medical resources (online information, reception, doctors, therapists, etc.), especially when they were in a bad health condition. Moreover, as international students ourselves, we know deeply in mind the vulnerability of overseas students in a brand-new environment, more importantly, we know that it is certainly not a good experience of feeling sick and not knowing where to go for help.” With the gathered information, the three students decided to create a campaign to address the main issues that were identified. In their campaign, they would use posters, brochures and a website. For the posters and brochure, the students drew on their knowledge of media discourse and visual design which they gleaned from other units of study and their own self-directed readings. Adopting a Myth and Truth pattern, the concept of their posters was to bust the myths surrounding the medical services among international postgraduate students. The figure below shows the evolution of their designs for the posters from its first to final draft. The front page of the final design of the brochure The designs changed from being text-heavy to having shorter phrases with a neater design and eye- catching colours. They were designed to be posted on bulletins and events boards to catch students’ attention. The content of the brochure was created to give a clear guide to some of the issues that were brought up in the SUPRA Health Forum such as what is covered under the OSHC, and how to put in an insurance claim. The brochures serve as convenient handouts for concise and effective communication. The printing and distribution of the brochures are handled by SUPRA.  The back page of the final design of the brochure The website was an added feature to the campaign that was decided upon after Shou Yang Wang saw an advertisement on Youtube, and brought the idea to his groupmates. “Halfway through the project, the fourth medium is added to this project: a website. It was not in the original plan as we thought a website would be difficult to build and maintain. It wasn’t until I saw a Youtube advert did I realized it would be pretty easy to build a website using existing online services. These services allow the users to structure a website easily with blogs, chat boxes, event organizers and more. They also provide portals for outer services such as Instagram pages to link in. With so much potential to uncover, it serves as a great platform to publish contents and interact with the target community, making the project sustainable. Better still, it is completely free of charge. I shared the idea with my partners and they both liked it. Thus, knowyourOHSC.wixsite.com/home is born. Currently, the website features blogs about mental health consulting service and OHSC, in Chinese and English. More contents and language supports are expected as the project develops. The QR codes are added to both the posters and brochures to direct traffic to the website.” One key aspect of this project is collaboration with a third party. By collaborating with SUPRA, the students were able to narrow down their focus toward a particular group of the university population. Though the choice of target audience was more focused, the group’s reach was made more effective through the channels readily provided by SUPRA. William recounts the benefits of working with SUPRA, “The target audience of this project was initially all the international students on campus, yet since we later chose to work closely with SUPRA, we gave SUPRA the right to choose the target audience, which might be only focusing on the postgraduate international students. We also gave consent for SUPRA to distribute our materials at any occasion. Since SUPRA has way more resources than our team, we consider it is a beautiful choice to share our final products with them, so that we can reach out to more international students. Having SUPRA running our website can keep our multi-model products survive and flourish in the long term, which is something we cannot achieve on our own.” When asked about their thoughts regarding their experience carrying out this project, here are what the three students have to say. “I have gained a new perspective as a master student of Applied Linguistics. Being a linguist is certainly not just about analysing texts. We are learning new practical tools as designing posters, brochures, creating and developing a website. Besides, we are putting what we learned into practice. We first understand the power of social semiotics in five senses of affecting people, then we are learning how to use this power properly in a positive way to help people or direct people’ behaviour in a better way. I used to stutter when people get curious and ask me about what I would do for a job after finishing studying applied linguistics. I might not have one perfect answer, but I could say that I have carried out a Public Health Campaign for international students from now on!” writes Xin Er Yuan. Shuo Yang Wang reflects, “Coming to the end of this semester, I’m feeling proud about the project we have carried out. In collaboration with SUPRA, we are tackling the issues every international student will meet when they first arrive at USyd: navigating through the different procedures to acquire healthcare services. I’m super stoked that me and my talented partners, William and Xin Er, are able to develop a full set of publicity materials and a website for this project. I would like to say it is extremely important to be imaginative in creating such projects and not to be fearful of difficulties. Many seemingly difficult problems (such as creating and moderating a website) can be easily solved once you dig deep into them. It wasn’t until I saw a Youtube advert did I realized it would be pretty easy to build a website using existing online services. Once the problems are solved, they return huge benefits.” William Li too finds the experience enriching, “The experience we gained from conducting this project is priceless. It was one great opportunity for us to utilize the linguistics knowledge we learned to create something that benefits the community. Rather than learning from assigned readings, we search for the readings on our own. We put effort into studying the materials that helped us the most, and we receive the chance to apply what we have learned into real practice right away. We also learned from our mistakes and refined our work step by step throughout the semester. I personally felt fascinating to see that our products, our ‘babies’, to be put into use and potentially help my fellow students in many ways. As I am a person who visits doctors frequently due to my allergy, I understand how much our project can help the students who suffer from different medical issues. I will be very proud and satisfied to see how the project further develops under the supervise of SUPRA and helps the people in need.”  Chapter 13: Creating Awareness for Sex Education Project leaders: Yen Liang Lu, Ann Li, Nik Lai Sex education is a topic that can be extremely sensitive for different communities. Yen Liang Lu, who goes by Ryo, and his fellow groupmates, Ann Li and Nik Lai, were motivated to pick a topic like this when an incident close to home hit the news. At the start of the semester, the news of Taiwan legalising same- sex marriage spread quickly among the students. From left to right: Nik Lai, Ann Li and Yen Liang Lu With that piece of news spreading like wildfire, stories of parents reacting to same sex education soon came up in the news. Reading the opinions of some of the parents that were against same sex education shocked the three students. At that point, they realised that there were many misconceptions surrounding same sex education as well as fake news promoted by conservative groups. Wanting to address this issue, they decided to take on this topic as their project. Ryo writes about their decision, “We started seeing protesting parents on the news claiming that they were against same-sex education because they didn’t want their children to learn about homosexual intercourse at school. That was when I realized that parents were receiving misleading information about what is being taught in same-sex education. Sadly, there was little fact-checking done on the information they received, and they, in turn, shared misleading information with their relatives and acquaintances. As a result, many people became against same-sex education because they were trapped in the myth created by misinformation. To me, I agree that parents have the right to choose the kind of education they want for their children, especially when it comes to a social taboo as such. However, to me it seems inadequate and irresponsible to base their decision on rumors and disreputable source of information. Therefore, I wanted to help justify same-sex education in Taiwan. I want parents to actually take a look at the content of the material currently used in class before they decide whether it is age appropriate.” This project aims to encourage parents of student in Taiwan to look at sex education materials that are being used in classrooms. Choosing Zili Elementary School in Taoyuan, Taiwan as their target community, the three students produced a video for the parents to watch, followed by a questionnaire to collect feedback from the parents. Ryo summarises the scope of the project adequately in his writing. “In our project, we created a short video to show what a 12-year- old girl might be exposed to on the internet and how impressionable children at this age can be. We wanted to show parents that it is impossible to block their children away from inappropriate content and misleading information. The only way to protect their children is through education and being present for any questions or Ann plays the 12-year-old girl in the video. problem their children may encounter. The video is uploaded to the Cloud for parents to view. A notice letter providing the link/QR code for easy access to the video and current material for same-sex education was sent to the parents by our collaborators. Parents are asked to finish a questionnaire (non-compulsory) to help us understand how they interpret the video that we made.” The three students wasted no time in creating their video. In fact, they were one of the first few groups to present their material to the rest of the class. Ann, who is petite in stature, played the main character in the video. The concept of their video was to show the possible scenario that might take place if misinformation occurs without proper education. Nik explains this in his writing, “Our idea for the video is to use a scare tactic to show the potential consequence of blocking your children from these type of information. Therefore, we invented a plot showing a middle school age girl gets exposed to some misleading information from the internet that leads her to believe that homosexual is wrong. After being exposed to the wrong message, she decided to do something to “correct” one of her male classmates because he possesses feminine characteristics. This has led her to try to take away the boy’s doll because she thinks that it is wrong for boys to play with dolls. Finally, during the fight over Ryo and Nik during the filming process. Nik the doll, the girl accidentally pushes the boy and it played the young boy in video. results in the boy falling off the stairs and is severely injured.” “A song called ‘Rose Boy’ was played during the process, which could help to impact audiences’ emotion. Through watching this video, we hope parents will understand that they cannot block every inappropriate information because their children have access to other channels of information, right or wrong, and the best way to tackle the issue is to provide appropriate sex education. At the end of the video, a link of sex education materials is provided to audiences,” adds Ann, regarding their video. As smooth sailing as their progress in the project was, the group did not have target community to approach. Their initial thoughts were to impact the parents in Taiwan. However, this was not possible without an appropriate channel. The challenge put forward to them was to find a community to work with, and for that, they needed a third party to collaborate with in order to distribute the video and feedback questionnaire. “Luckily, because Ryo’s mother is a teacher at an elementary school which is located in Taoyuan, The three students during their final presentation. Taiwan, we have set our target community to those parents who have children in this school. Through Ryo’s mother, we were able to collaborate with the school teachers to carry out our project. The way we do it is to have the teachers handing out a piece of letter to the students which they will show to their parents after school. The letter is written in Mandarin, and it explains the purpose of our project and contains the link to our video. We have also included a questionnaire which can help us to collect feedback from the parents,” Nik writes. A topic like this definitely had some of the students relating to it personally. Especially so for Nik, who has a family member that has experienced discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. He writes about it, “We believe that children at middle school age is very impressionable to misleading information. It is necessary that they can learn to identify what is right and what is wrong. Additionally, we have watched a documentary about the story of a 15-year-old boy. Due to constant bullying from his classmates because of his alleged effeminate behaviour, he could only go to the bathroom before class ended. On morning, he asked his teacher if he could go to the bathroom like he had always done before the class ended. A few minutes later, he was found dead on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood. It saddens us that a 15-year-old boy is dead simply because he is ‘different’ than other kids. This is where we realized how much damage can school bullying do. It has prompted us to create a project like this because we believe that a project like this can potentially save lives. Finally, a more personal reason for me to do this project is because of my sister. My sister is identified as a lesbian and she has been with her partner for 8 years. It upsets me that they cannot have the same support as heterosexual couples do. Being so close to her, I have witnessed a lot of misunderstanding she received over the years. Therefore, as much as I can, I want to do something to contribute to the LGBT community.” Contributing to change that could benefit the world is a dream that Ryo once had. His experience in this project opened his eyes to how small changes can create ripples that can eventually make big waves. “Another perspective I “regained” is how minor changes are just as important as large-scale changes. I used to be a person who wants to make a difference by changing little things to make the world around me better. However, obstacles and disengagement from peers set me back hard when I was in high school and college. I lost my faith in how little changes can ripple. However, after seeing so many examples in the class, I realize that the key element to real changes is not the scale, but the time and perseverance of one’s effort. Even the smallest changes can ripple out something incredible throughout a long period of time. Therefore, starting with a goal that is specific, measurable, achievable and realistic to gain enough momentum to snowball into bigger influences is the best strategy to make changes. After working on this project, as a TESOL major student, I believe I’m more ready than ever to retry my prior attempts to change the way students learn English in Taiwan by working with collaborators as a start and basing strategies on literature reviews.” For Ann, having achievable goals was also a learning point for her in this project. “I learnt a better way to solve a real-life problem from Dr Ahmar Mahboob and our tutors. It is better to focus on a specific target community and take actions step by step instead of trying to achieve a big goal that benefits the whole world, because narrowing the target community down could help us to take more specific and suitable actions. At first, our target audiences were all the parents in Taiwan, which looked good, but was actually too general and difficult to collect their feedbacks. We narrowed them down and only focused on parents who have children in Zili Elementary School, which made it easier to produce the video and collect the feedbacks. Now I realized that a big goal does not mean a better project. An achievable goal could lead to a more realistic outcome.”  Chapter 14: A Guide for Dealing with Menstruation Project Leader: Wei Yi Lu When Wei Yi Lu first presented her topic to the class, it was received with some giggles and chuckles. While a seemingly strange topic to deal with at first glance, Wei Yi shared more about her personal motivation for choosing a topic as such. “I chose this project also for personal reasons. When I was 11, I had my menarche and I was totally in panic. I thought I had some incurable disease and would die soon. I did not want my families to worry about me, so I lied to them that I spilled some red paint on my trousers. The lie was nailed of course and that was the first time when I heard the word “old ghost”, a Shanghainese word that used to allude menstruation, or other tabooed things such as death, incurable disease, genitals and unlucky things. Wei Yi Lu led the project in collaboration with the School of Foreign Language (SFL) in East China Normal University, I was never taught anything about menstruation before, at Shanghai, China. home or school, and no one explained it to me ever since after. All I knew was how to use sanitary pads. Six years later when I was in high school, I found myself bleeding twice a month. I did not care much about it until I was diagnosed with pathological intermenstrual bleeding caused by endocrine dyscrasia, which might lead to dysgenesis. I did not realise that I was ill because I was never taught what a healthy period should be like. Personally, I do not want such things to happen to my future daughters or any other women, so I find it necessary to include hygiene education in schooling system and family education. This is the greatest motivation and passion that drives me to create such a sensitive project.” “Menstruation is one sensitive or even stigmatised topic in China, similar to the situation in India (as shown in the Oscar winning documentary Period. End of Sentence.) and other Asian countries. In addition to the resistance to talk about the women hygiene, people, including both females and males, lack knowledges to care for themselves and their loved ones. The more ignorant and innocent they are, the more resistant they tend to be. A vicious circle has thus been created. Efforts need to be made to cut off such loop.” This project aims to promote information regarding menstruation health to both female and male students attending the School of Foreign Language (SFL) in East China Normal University, Shanghai, China. The goal of this project is for female students to be aware and informed on menstrual health, and for male students to be equipped with the necessary information to support, care and respect the women around them. Wei Yi designed a welcome pack for freshman students which contains a handbook, a band to wear on the wrist and a mirror. The handbook consists of five sections: knowledge on menstrual health, a ‘healthy-or-not’ self-test, choosing the correct menstrual health products, stereotypes surrounding menstruation and frequently asked questions. The band works to help students who are find themselves embarrassed and unable to approach male teaching staff to be identified as not being able to do strenuous activities during physical exercise classes due to menstruation. The mirror simply acts as a gift to the freshman students. The image on the left is the design for the back of the mirror; image on the right shows the design of the handbook cover. For students who are not freshmen, Wei Yi created a competition that will allow them to be familiar with the content of the handbook. As the school deals with foreign languages, the students will be given the handbook to compete in a translation competition where the best translated version (in English, Japanese, Germany, French and Russian) will win. Aside from these materials, Wei Yi also leveraged on the school’s WeChat account to display posters and articles on menstrual health. Wei Yi first began by looking at the literature surrounding menstrual health in China. “Women's concern about their physical health is related to the level of economic development in their region. Women in Beijing and Shanghai pay more attention to their physical health. At the same time, younger age has become a key word. In terms of female physiological cycle, the age of women's menarche is becoming younger. In 2017, the age of menarche is 12.7 years old; 19.6% of women have irregular menstrual cycle; 60% of women have symptoms of dysmenorrhea. In terms of gender health, the average age of first sexual activity of those who were born after 1995 is younger than before, reaching 17.71 years in 2017; sexually active Chinese women recorded an average of 1.2 sexual activity per week; more than half of those women did not take safety measures in contraception. I find that a majority group of women are suffering from menstrual health problems and more focus need to be drawn to the issue.”  Wei Yi designed 4 posters to be displayed in SFL “Although it is necessary to conduct female hygiene education as early as possible, primary and high schools in Shanghai are mainly made up of Shanghainese students only. Considering the regional imbalance problem as shown above, the universities are one best places to start because the students are from different areas of China. Secondly, average age of women’s first sexual activity at 17.71 occurs mostly in the freshman year in the university, and whether or not to have sex during one’s period is one of the most solid stereotype and confusion in China. Last but not least, the average marriage age of the Chinese is 26 in 2018 (Shi & Li, 2018), soon after graduating from the university. Hence, the menstruation education is not only for the university students. I also hope that the knowledge will be passed to the next generation when they become parents.” The project took off as Wei Yi began designing her posters and handbook. In her presentation of the materials, they were further refined through feedback from her coursemates, lecturer and tutor. Eventually, she built the entire campaign from scratch including procuring the bands that would be included in the welcome pack. Her collaboration with the school she previously attended was central to the success of her project. “I feel grateful for the support I received from SFL, Ahmar, Lee Cheng and Aurelie, who help me to start from zero to the infinite. It never occurs to me that teachers of SFL still remember me and would give me such chance to do something for the school after I graduated.” Wei Yi hopes that the stigmatisation of menstruation will come to an end eventually, even if her project is a single step toward that goal. “Menstruation is one of the most important experience in women’s life. However, it has carried its undeserved stigma for too long. It is the time to correct its name and lift its vail to the public. I hope that more people can bring the issue on the table and this is the first step to solve the long existing problem.” A screenshot of the Wechat articles that Wei Yi created  Chapter 15: Rental Issues Project Leaders: Jiahe Han, Jiaxing Wang, Ningyi Xu As an international student, living in Sydney, or even a new country, can be challenging. On top of adapting to the culture of another country and navigating its healthcare insurance system (see Chapter 5 for the Overseas Student Health Cover project), one would also need to sort out one’s living arrangements. Living on campus may be ideal but it tends to fill up quickly. Renting or house sharing is another option but finding the right area with easy access to transportation is not necessarily easy to those unfamiliar with the location. As such, international students in Sydney are in a vulnerable position, especially when there are dubious rental agencies that are looking to profit by taking advantage of the fact that some students do not speak English fluently and their unfamiliarity with rental practices. Jiahe Han, Jiaxing Wang and Ningyi Xu, international students from China, wanted to do something to address this issue. “We carried out a project aiming to tackle the renting issue in Sydney by helping to educate Chinese international students to seek a safe and satisfying accommodation in Sydney. The reason why we chose this topic is because we are eager to help Chinese international students to identify and avoid illegal rental agencies and landlords. Before coming to Sydney, many Chinese students will start to seek and rent an accommodation. However, Jiahe, herself has had a many Chinese students may be easily scammed by illegal rental agencies due rough experience renting to the lack of renting experience and legal knowledge.” writes Jiahe. in Sydney Drawing on her own experience, Jiaxing shares how they came to picking this topic for their project. “A few days before we decided to do this project, we found some students in a WeChat group asking for help because their landlord did not refund the rental deposit. Many students participated in the discussion, but no one could provide a specific systematic solution. Jiahe and myself have also experienced some problems with renting. It was not very smooth at first, because, at home (in China), we could only view the house via a video which was provided by the agency. After we paid the deposit and arrived in Sydney, we found that one of the rooms did not have windows. After signing the contract with the agent, we found a lot of problems in the room, such as the wardrobe door was broken, the windows were leaking and so on. We contacted the agency, but no one came to repair these things. Jiaxing, on the left, with These problems make makes us think that it is very practical for Ningyi Chinese students to have a guide to rent a house, informing them of the matters needing attention and the solutions to the problems. Although many people have done a rental guide, most of the information they provide is about areas where Chinese students like to live. There is hardly any details on deposits or contracts. Therefore, we think it is important to do a project on rental practices in Sydney for Chinese students who study at the University of Sydney.” This project focuses on providing information to Chinese international students at the University of Sydney, regarding rental practices in Sydney, specifically targeting the information gap surrounding rental deposits, contracts and legal terms. The group created a WeChat account to disseminate articles which they wrote. They also designed a poster that was to be displayed at one of the notice boards in the university. Within the poster is a QR code, which, when scanned, The students designed a simple poster with takes the viewer to the group’s WeChat account. an embedded QR code that will lead to the group’s official account The students, once decided on their topic, looked to collaborate with Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA). Jiahe describes how their meeting went. “In order to get more people to know about our program and objective, we decided to cooperate with SUPRA, an organisation supporting postgraduate students in the university. In addition, we also communicated with one of SUPRA’s caseworker, Francine, who gave us plenty of practical and inspiring suggestions. She was very serious about the meeting with us, and we talked about the current renting conditions in Sydney as well as some cases she had dealt with. With Francine’s help and our literature review, we started creating our materials immediately.” The main content for their material was the two articles that the students would write. Ningyi elaborates on what the first article contains. “The first article is ‘Get ready to rent accommodation in Sydney’, and the second article is ‘After renting a house, the notice of contracts, bonds, and rental fees’. The first one is focused on popular rental areas such as Ultimo, Camperdown, and Newtown. Also, we introduced the types of room available for rent, like single room, share room, and master room. Then, we provide links to appropriate channels for those seeking accommodation, for instance A screenshot of the first article that the group published Chinese or English websites and mobile apps.” “In our second article,” Jiahe chips in on the content, “we focused on some more specific issues. For example, we addressed the head-tenant and sub-tenant issue. Due to the cheap price and simple renting process, a lot of Chinese students choose to rent an accommodation from a head- tenant. However, some of them may be cheated by the illegal organisation or individual due to the lack of valid contract. Normally head-tenant will not provide legal contract to sub-tenant, thus the right of sub-tenant cannot be effectively The second article focused on legal terms and conditions protected by law. In order to educate more Chinese students to be cautious of this problem, we introduced what a head-tenant is and how to rent an accommodation safely from a head-tenant. Apart from addressing head-tenant problem, we also mentioned the payment of bond and rental fee. Originally, many Chinese international students believed that the bond should be paid to rental agency or landlord. However, professional and legal agency will require tenants to deposit the bond in Fair Trading, a New South Wales government department. In addition, tenants have right to pay rental fee by card and keep the transfer recording as an evidence. Moreover, we also mentioned some legal organisation for potential tenants with the link of website. We introduced these practical advices in detail to let more students know how to protect their legal rights effectively.” To finish it off, the group designed their poster as a way to attract more students to their WeChat group. Jiaxing shares the steps they took to create their poster. “In order to get more Chinese students to read our articles, we decided to make a poster. Because our theme was about renting, we used simple lines to depict the shape of a house. Our target community is Chinese students studying abroad in the University of Sydney, so we wrote in Chinese: 'Renting in Sydney, these are the most practical strategies'. We also added the logo of the University of Sydney and the QR code of our WeChat official account. Then, next to the QR code, we wrote it in Chinese: ‘Scan the code and follow us’. This poster has a propaganda Jiaxing and Jiahe presenting their poster and articles function, which can make more students read to the rest of the class our articles. In the process of making the poster, we met with some difficulties. For instance, we do not know how to use Photoshop and other design software, and we don't have any experience in designing posters. It was a big challenge for us. In the end, we chose a more straightforward method and made this poster with PowerPoint.” When looking back on their experience with the project, Jiahe comments that the support they received from SUPRA turned out to be the thing that surprised her the most. “It was also my first time sending out emails in English to organisations in order to seek collaborators. I had sent several emails to some organisations but did not receive any reply. Fortunately, SUPRA replied to my email and invited me and my groupmates to meet with the caseworker, Francine. Communicating with Francine was a big surprise for me. It was an extremely valuable experience as she was very enthusiastic about our project. She also recommended many helpful websites and other resources about renting. After talking with her, I had a deeper understanding about renting and I was more confident about our project. Before doing this project, I hardly believed that a stranger could be so kind and warm-hearted to other people without asking for anything in return. However, she sincerely wanted to help Chinese international students and I was moved by her seriousness and kindness. This project provided me with a chance to make a breakthrough and get to know more kind people.” Jiaxing echoes a similar narrative as she writes about what impacted her most. “Personally, it was a meaningful project, and I learned a lot of things. This project gave me a chance to interact with strangers. I did not know how to communicate due to my lack of courage at the beginning, but when I took the courage to meet and talk with others, I found that some things were not as difficult as I imagined. We also received some feedback, and readers thought our articles were very useful. The project we have done has really helped others. This is the happiest thing for me.” For Ningyi, carrying out the project has helped her learn more about things that she was not so sure about before. “By doing this project, I am gradually exploring and learning some knowledge about renting a house, such as paying attention to a contract, or paying bonds or rental fees. Also, although we are not permanent residents of Australia, we are protected by some local laws when renting a house. For example, when something goes wrong, we can use the law to protect our rights and benefits. It was challenging to do this project at the beginning because it was hard for us to figure out the law, but SUPRA gave us useful advice through their cooperation. Overall, I am proud and excited about this project because through this project, I can, not only help myself to know more information about renting, but also help other Chinese international students solve some problems of renting a house.” Section 3  Chapter 16: Moving forward with education Leaving the promises behind I choose to retreat into the woods To listen, to learn, to unlearn Ahmar wrote this short response to Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening’, which was part of my high school English curriculum in Pakistan, in the Bom Bom Forest in Northern New South Wales, Australia. Having only lived in desert climates at the time when he first read Frost’s poem, the idea of stopping by the woods on a snowy evening was very attractive and romantic. And, it painted a picture of a dream for not just him but for most of his friends and classmates. Frost’s poem, like most other texts in his curriculum, had little relationship with his environment or his life – but, they were beautiful visions of paradise, which was in England, of course. In Frost’s poem, the protagonist is attracted by the beauty of nature. The woods in Frost’s poem are not wild or free: they are owned by a person, who does not live on the land, and may be harvested for private profit. Regardless of this, the woods are beautiful, and one empathizes with the protagonist as they leave in order to fulfil their responsibilities and commitments. And, as with all things included in Ahmar’s curriculum, there was a moral lesson to be learnt from Frost’s poem: it is essential to fulfils one’s promises - no matter what the distractions. Frost’s poem continues to be taught across schools in Pakistan today – as are many of the other texts that were taught in the 1980s. Children today are still made to memorise texts that are designed to make them fall in love with the natural beauty and wonders of England and the ‘West’ – while most students and teachers in Pakistan and other exploited communities live in polluted environment themselves. It is this contrast in the texts taught and the real-life environment that many people across exploited contexts find themselves in that led Ahmar to asking these questions: if our education was supposed to help us develop and improve, why is it that our lands, our environment, and our people keep getting poorer and weaker? Is it really true that leaving the harmony of nature in order to support a ‘global’ economy and fulfil other peoples’ needs, as Frost and schools teach us, is the best way forward? Should one abandon one’s local language and ecologies and ways of being and doing in order to learn and be like the English? Is it really true that all solutions to our problems lie in the ‘English’ language, science, and ways of doing? Have we not observed the environmental destruction and social injustices that are committed in the name of modernisation, globalisation, development, science, and security? Is it not perhaps time for us to retreat: to listen, to learn, and to unlearn? The promotion of English language and knowledge, specially through English medium instruction, at the expense of local socio-semiotics has been harmful to the local populations across the non-English speaking world, which includes much of the exploited world today. In addition, one of the primary goals of education in exploited contexts, e.g. Pakistan, the country where we will draw most examples from in this chapter, is literacy, which is seen as a doorway to getting jobs. Such goals require the educational curriculum, pedagogy, and material to be framed in particular ways, which often ignore minorities, Indigenous, and local forms of knowing, doing, and being. Furthermore, current educational practices do not help students, teachers, or others to develop skills or knowledge that can be used to improve their local living conditions – since the educational system is geared towards generating graduates who can go overseas and support a remittance economy or work for others in-country. Current education in exploited contexts, it appears, sells students, parents, and others dreams of a future abroad or of working for others, while they continue to live in the harsh realities of today. In the current chapter, we will offer a critique of literacy-based education and then share examples of how some teachers and academics in Pakistan are drawing on the CREDIBLE approach to support their community needs. While the examples and discussion in this chapter will focus on Pakistan, they are relevant to other contexts as well. The trap of modern education A key trap of modern education – and the only one that I will focus on in this chapter – is its dependency on literacy. Literacy, in a traditional view, is seen as the ability to read and write. The goal of education in Pakistan, as in most other exploited communities, is to teach students to read and write and then assess them on their ability to remember bits of information provided through texts in a dominant language (often not the mother tongue/dialect of many/most students). Current assessment practices evaluate an individual’s grasp of literacy practices and opens or closes life opportunities for each person based on their performance on specified tests and assessments. Those who succeed in demonstrating skills and ability in an ‘other’ defined set of literacy practices may be given options to progress and get employed by local or multinational corporations. In doing so, dominant forms of education – with literacy development as their goal – enable the conditions that allow the elites to retain their power and authority. The problem with literacy, it needs to be stressed, is NOT with its use of one form of visual symbols to develop, share, or preserve meanings. The problem with literacy is in its use as a key measurement of education and ability – people with low or no literacy, one will observe, are discriminated against in most contexts. Literacy, it needs to be noted, is not primary to human learning and development. If it were, all human communities would have evolved literacy for this purpose. Again, observation tells us that most Indigenous communities did not use literacy for education. This does not mean that communities around the world did not have literacy before modern education: literacy evolved and was used by different groups of people for different purposes at various times in history. However, literacy was not used as the dominant medium of education and assessment across the world. In contrast, all humans – like other biological species – primarily use non-literacy-based forms of communication and engagement. For humans, regardless of their location, oral language, or ‘boli’, as it is lexicalised in Ahmar’s tongue, is a shared resource for meaning making and communicating. ‘Boli’, as technicalised in his work, is dynamic: it represents, informs, responds to, and evolves in relation to the needs and geographical contexts of her users. ‘Boli’ shifts and changes continuously. ‘Boli’ is a socio- semiotic inheritance we receive from our ancestors (this can be contrasted with DNA, which is our biological inheritance). ‘Boli’ is not restricted to humans: non-humans also have ‘boli’, e.g. ‘bakri ki boli’ (a goat’s oral language), ‘chirya ki boli’ (a bird’s oral language). While there is little evidence to claim that other species and life forms use the range of sounds humans do to interact; it is possible that other biological species use other frequencies of sound, different sensory systems, or a combination of these to do what we do through a limited range of sounds waves. ‘Boli’ was the primary medium of education in pre-colonial South Asia, as in most parts of the world before European colonisation. Literacy existed in many places and at different periods in time. However, it was primarily used by the trading classes, who needed it for record keeping and other trading needs. Other communities – many of whom were nomadic and lived across regions of South Asia, did not have a need for literacy, and hence did not develop it. Pre-colonial South Asia used ‘boli’ as the primary modality for education. Education was based on an apprenticeship model, not literacy. Students learnt by observing, listening, and participating. While most traditional forms of education have been dismantled across South Asia in favour of literacy-based models marketed by exploitative powers, we still find some remnants of this practice in certain professions. For example, even today, if one wants to learn music in South Asia, one can becomes an apprentice and learns from an ‘Ustad’ (an expert performer & teacher). The same practice of apprenticeship also operates in most unregulated local industries, such as auto-mechanic work, plumbing, carpentry across the region. Education in the pre-colonial period was designed to serve the needs of the people. Through education, one developed ability (not literacy) in areas needed for the well-being of the community. This required education to be based on understandings of the local context and needs, not necessarily texts written in (or translated from) foreign languages, which are often reflective of different socio- economic and geographical settings. In addition, skills were distributed in a community, where people apprenticed – either formally or informally – and developed skills in areas where they excelled. As we now know from recent work, intelligences are multiple and different people have different things that they are better at. For example, Ahmar claims he would be terrible at most sports, partly because he lacks the kind of intelligence needed to be good at sports. Literacy, if it did exist in a community, for example, the trading communities, would be passed on to those who took interest in it. For others, there were plenty of other things that they could do and contribute. Literacy was not needed for such a distribution of skills and forms of education. A required use of literacy in education leads to a number of problems. For example, the content and language of educational material is a major problem in Pakistan. The material is often biased and/or false (fake news) and is written by and in the interest of the dominant powers (locally, regionally, and/or internationally). One implication of this observation, which can be verified by reading through textbooks used in Pakistani schools, is that we have to learn and teach to question almost everything that is normalised through colonial models of education, literacy, and knowledge production. Taking ‘boli’ as a starting point, instead of ‘language’, leads us to understandings that are quite different from those promoted in English-based linguistics. For example, the concept of ‘boli’, which is only oral, does not conflate two different sensory systems: sound and sight. ‘Boli’ operates through sound only; writing systems are not required for a ‘boli’. This contrasts with the English notion of a language, which has two primary modalities: speech and writing. In English, writing is given the same importance as oral language; and, in exploitative education, reading-writing is given more importance than listening-speaking, e.g., formal and summative assessments tend to be literacy-based. This leads to marginalisation of people from non-privileged backgrounds. Current educational and other policies do not recognise ‘boli’ that do not have a writing system – so, for a large number of people in Pakistan and around the world, their ‘boli’ is invisible from education, governance, economy and other domains of life. This leads to people dropping their ‘boli’ for a more powerful ‘language’. And, with that shift, ‘boli’ –the socio-semiotic inheritance and a repository of local knowledge and science – starts to wane and potentially die out. While linguists and others regret the loss of ‘boli’, nothing substantial is done to support the well-being of the people who speak/spoke this ‘boli’. It is ironic that these linguists tend to forget that it is not the language that suffers, it is people who speak the language who are suffering. Instead of just documenting languages, our work needs to support the people. If the people are well and strong, they will have a strong ‘boli’ or language; if the people are weak and defeated, their ‘boli’ will deteriorate too. On a different but related note, we need to note that most new writing systems promoted by colonial or colonial-trained linguists are phonetic (i.e., characters represent individual sounds, as in English). Phonetic writing systems, as will be discussed next, are amongst the worst forms of writing systems. To understand this, we need to understand what writing systems are and how they operate. Writing systems use visual symbols to create and represent meanings (in contrast to sounds symbols, which is how ‘boli’ operates). As such, visual symbols can be more or less independent of sounds. A purely visual writing system would carry linguistic meaning without any correlation with sound. Observe that the only extant writing system that does so to a degree is Chinese. All other writing systems use symbols that denote particular sounds or combination of sounds. Amongst these, some writing systems use symbols for a syllable (e.g. Cherokee, Katakana, and several pre-colonial Indigenous languages across the Philippines), while others use symbols to mark phonemic contrast (e.g. English, Urdu, and almost all scripts created by linguists). Syllable-based writings systems, because they focus on syllables and not phonemes, can accommodate for a larger variation of phonemic realisations of a symbol. In contrast, a phonemic writing system is highly sensitive to variations in peoples’ dialects, sociolects, and idiolects. This is one reason that people spell the same words in different ways based on the dialect they speak. One job of literacy-based education is to suppress these deviations and variations; literacy-based education promotes and evaluates people based on pre-defined (and often non-dialectally appropriate) sets of spellings, words, and grammars. Deviations to expected norms are often marked as mistakes and errors and looked down upon. Evidence for this can be found by looking at students’ notebooks from almost any school across Pakistan. Another issue with literacy is that it attempts to restrain and ‘standardise’ a system that is inherently dynamic. Trying to restrain the dynamicity of ‘boli’ or oral language through the adoption of one (or selected) forms of ‘language’, ‘grammar’, and ‘literacy’ disempowers people who do not come from certain backgrounds as well as restricts what people are allowed to do with language. The restrictions imposed on language and literacy in exploitative education impact what and how people learn. In the context of Pakistan at the moment, most students – regardless of their grade level – learn stuff that is not directly relevant to their local needs and context and is not designed to enable people to meet their needs. ‘Boli’, as we have mentioned before, is a socio-semiotic inheritance. ‘Boli’ is learnt from one’s caretakers and encapsulates the essence of what ones’ ancestors learnt about and from their environment; along with information about what to do, how, when, where, why, and with whom. This local and contextual learning, which is encapsulated in ‘boli’, evolves over generations in large geographical regions and is passed on from one generation to the next. In many ways, ‘boli’ is the only socio-semiotic inheritance that we receive from our ancestors – and can be compared to DNA, which is our biological inheritance. Notice how, when we deny other people’s ‘boli’, we deny them the right to use and benefit from their socio-semiotic inheritance. By replacing local and Indigenous ‘boli’ with non- local languages, education in Pakistan – as in most other exploited locations – has and continues to destroy Indigenous and local knowledges, sciences, and peoples. How is a replacement of ‘boli’ a destruction of local science? To understand this, we need to first understand what science is. At the most fundamental level, without methodologies and applications, science is a way of sorting things, i.e., of categorising or classifying things. All languages sort the world around them, i.e., they create taxonomies. And, in doing so, they show us how ‘boli’ is the fundamental of all sciences. Furthermore, each ‘boli’ carves up the world in a slightly different way: this is observed in the variations in meanings and things that different types of ‘boli’ represent and do. Each ‘boli’, in a nutshell, is its own science: it presents a unique and geographically embedded way of seeing and understanding the world; and, in extension, relating to that world. One reason why the variety of ‘boli’ or ‘languages’ are different from each other – and some have wider currency then other – is because of the way they are spread across different geographical settings/range and across varying human populations. The reason why English is the language of global dominance is because the English empire controlled very large parts of the world, forced their language and practices on the local populations, and integrated terms and concepts from those places into the English language. At the same time, they encouraged the borrowing of English terms and concepts into local ‘boli’. The English (not unlike other European colonisers) rewarded locals who learnt their language and ways by giving them jobs, resources, and prestige – not unlike what English offers to individuals from poor countries today. By doing so, English language and English ways of knowing and doing are given preference over other languages and way – and, slowly, the local populations, their ways of knowing, of being, and of supporting local communities, economies, and ecologies wane. And this loss of our socio-semiotic inheritance, coupled with economic, social, and political suppression, contribute to ecological, social, and political disasters. Mapping a way forward In order to address the deep problems with current forms of education, which were established and are marketed by exploiting powers, we need a decolonised and decolonising education. Decolonisation of education requires a study and reformation of all social, educational, economic, legal, defence, political, religious, cultural, environmental, and linguistic policies of an exploited region and then realign them to support the well-being and prosperity of all residents – humans and non- humans – and neighbours. And, this process can begin with education and academia. There are two main reasons for this:  • all members of legislature, judiciary, military, media and other professions are required to be educated. So, if education is strong and independent, graduates will be strong and independent; and, in time, institutions will become stronger and independent. • educators are responsible for caring for the socio-semiotic well-being of students. If they are unaware of the damage that the current practices are causing, then they can contribute to the perpetuation of fractals that will continue to undermine our well-being. Fractals are patterns that repeat themselves at different scales in natural systems. Fractals can be observed in both material and socio-semiotic systems. At present, in the exploited world, the socio- semiotic fractals are patterns of corruption, dishonesty, and exploitation - these patterns repeat themselves at various scales across most aspects of our society including, but not limited to, agriculture, education, employment, governance, healthcare, housing, industry, law, media, military, politics, science, religion, and travel. Decolonisation requires one to identify these suppressive fractals and alter them, which can allow for new patterns to emerge. The goal of decolonisation is to replace the fractals of dishonesty and exploitation with those of harmony and well-being. Decolonisation is a complex process – and, in many ways, it is an individual and personal one; at the same time, decolonisation can also be turned into an educational outcome and goal. There are multiple ways of achieving these goals. Here are six possible features of education which does not centre on ‘literacy’: • It is not consumed by the goal of spreading universal literacy • It is not designed to only prepare people to work for others for (petty) wages • It considers the needs of the community and then trains citizens to learn to address those needs • It values all form of knowledge and skills, not just ones included in colonial textbooks/languages • It is designed to make people independent and able to manage their own needs and resources • It involves all stakeholders in its development and management Ways out of colonisation require both integrity and an understanding of how symbolic (or socio- semiotic) systems work; and, the ability to apply these understandings to improve the material and non-material conditions that people find themselves and others in. There is no single way in which these reforms and transitions can be made; nor is there a predictable way of knowing what the outcomes of such reforms will be. These will depend on context. However, one thing is for sure, if these reforms are led with integrity (and not ego, or greed, or personal gains), then humans and non- humans in the region will be much better off than they are under regimes of exploitation and colonisation. In Part 1 of the book, we shared the CREDIBLE approach as one example of how we can develop pedagogical goals and approaches that are relevant to our needs. In Part 2 of the book, we shared examples of how our students adopted the approach to create their own projects. In this final chapter of the book, we will share examples of how three teachers and researchers in Pakistan have drawn on this approach and used it in their own contexts. Examples from the classroom Over the last couple of years, Ahmar has collaborated with a number of educators and researchers in different parts of the world in developing alternative practices that meet and supersede institutional requirements. By meeting or superseding institutional requirements, we satisfy administrative requirements and avoid conflict. In addition, by engaging other community members, we bring community and educational interests into alignment and harmony. Below, we will introduce three colleagues from Pakistan, their work and some of their students. These examples – from schools, university, and higher education research contexts – inform us of ways in which teachers or researchers can draw upon and adapt the ideas shared in this book into their own settings. Amna Anwar teaches in the Department of English at Government Women University, in the city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan. Amna and her community has been concerned about how the Punjabi language is in decline because it is not used in education and sometimes carries a negative social attitude. In addition, she also observed how some of the schools in her community currently teach science and maths in very abstract and theoretical ways, without engaging students or making them understand how science relates to their lives. In order to address this, Amna along with her students collaborated with local schools and set up a series of workshops. During these workshops, students and teachers worked together to design and create puppets and then acted out a script that was about the water cycle. They did this in their mother tongue, Punjabi. By doing so, they brought science, maths, language, and play together. In Amna’s own words: “The series of workshops is highly significant with regard to preservation of the indigenous language i.e. Punjabi. It not only involves teachers but students as well. Reinforcement of concepts from different subjects can be conveniently done by using local language (Punjabi). This makes teaching & learning an enjoyable activity. It will also initiate the positive dialogue on preserving the local identities. It is a step forward to introducing other cultures to Punjabi culture.” Amna’s activity with her students is an example of a CREDIBLE project: it addressed a local and real issue by taking action, drawing on our understandings of language, science, and development from various sources and in different languages. Details of Amna’s projects, in her own words, is included as Appendices A (project design) and B (sample script in Punjabi). In addition, a short video description of the puppet project is available on Facebook :https://www.facebook.com/577324124/videos/10157097984504125/ The video transcript appears below: It is proved that education in mother tongue enhances the creative capacity of a child. Moreover, it is his right as well. Global Monitoring Report Education (2009) also confirms that education in mother-tongue yields more positive results. English is important but not at the cost of mother-tongue. This presentation is also in line with it. For which a lecturer along with a  group of students from Rawalpindi Women’s University has prepared a project to promote a project Mother-tongue and mother-tongue as a medium of instruction in schools. For this purpose, this group targeted the suburban public and private schools of Satellite Town, Rawalpindi. Under this project school kids and their teachers were taught different science projects in Punjabi by using puppetry as an aid. Students produced few scripts in Punjabi with the help of their teachers and presented them with puppets. It aims at inculcating creative abilities, promoting mother tongue and bringing theoretical concepts and experiential concepts closer to mother tongue. It is the need of hour to ensure the promotion of education in mother tongue. In looking through this material, observe how Amna provided models of all things that needed to be made or done and demonstrated how these were made before working with others to make more things. This approach, which is similar to the idea of scaffolding or the teaching-learning cycle, can actually be observed across species. Parents and caretakers across numerous species follow the same approach in helping their young ones develop new abilities and skills: modelling, elaborating, jointly doing, and then, over time, the young gain confidence in their new abilities and become independent. And, later, once they are experts, they repeat the same pattern with their young ones. Hafiz Nauman Ahmed, like many teachers/academics in Pakistan and around the world, works at three institutions in order to make a living: Riphah International University, University of the Punjab, and University of Management and Technology (UMT), in Lahore. Nauman has been experimenting with numerous projects drawing on the CREDIBLE approach. Here I will highlight one recent project carried out at Riphah International University, where he and his students made a number of short videos and other material highlighting the dangers of fake news and ways of identifying it in multiple languages. They posted this material on social media, which has been widely watched and shared. Nauman carried out this project with the undergraduate students of BS English (Literature & Linguistics) in courses such as Modern Drama, English Prose, Sematic & Pragmatics, and Morphology & Syntax. Since these courses traditionally focus on the explanation and understanding of literary texts, in case of literature, and definitions, explanations, word and sentence analyses, in case linguistic courses, Nauman had to explain how his activities are related to the courses. Here are some of the things that he pointed out: In response to the question, I tried to create a link between the two, mentioning the following points: • different disciplines of education are interlinked with each other. There is no subject/study discipline which is completely independent from others. For example, Pragmatics is the study of language in use; to study language in use, we need to study the context e.g. verbal, non-verbal, formal, informal, social media, news chapter etc. Hence, the one who is more skillful at analyzing different contexts, can do a better pragmatic analysis. • one of the key objectives of studying the courses of English literature/linguistics is to develop critical thinking (for example, we are often asked questions with a word ‘critical’ in them, and, especially this is common in our literature exams). This critical thinking should be used in developing any practical project like identifying fake news.  • the purpose of any course (education) is to solve the problems of the society we live in. If we are not using our knowledge to solve the societal issues, our knowledge may be useful (if any extent) only for us not for the others. • fake news is a language related issue which has grown to a great extent in Pakistani society, especially with the emergence of COVID-19. Therefore, to get understanding about such issues through developing some projects and spread these learnt ideas further are very important for the society. Nauman’s interdisciplinary approach and use of local languages in English literature courses, while not typical, was appreciated by his students and colleagues. This can be observed in the videos that they produced as part of their activity, and also from the 56 responses of a questionnaire administered by Nauman to his students who participated in the activity (See Appendix C). In looking through the information provided in Appendix C, one will note how students draw on multiple languages and locally relevant examples and sources. It is also worth noting that while the students’ videos and sources might have been in any language, they were guided to write project reports for their work in English. By doing so, the many languages found in Nauman and his students’ context, which are usually left out of education, were included in and used for education and project work. By engaging in translingual practices, Nauman is able to help boost the prestige and use of local languages, something ignored by the current educational policies and curriculum. In addition, in using the CREDIBLE approach, Nauman observed an increase in the motivation, participation, and performance of students who participated in the project. Through this experience, Nauman realised that if a teacher is willing to give the CREDIBLE approach a try, they will find that their students and colleagues will join them in working to make their communities stronger. While, as in his experience, there may be some people who resist or create problems; the majority appreciate and support such work. Mujahid Shah teaches at Abdul Wali Khan University in the city of Mardan in Peshawar. Of the three colleagues that we have introduced, Mujahid is the only one who has a PhD degree and trains research students in higher education. Mujahid has been drawing on the CREDIBLE approach in training research students at his institution to carry out projects that will bring direct benefits to their communities. In order to do so, Mujahid incorporates the CREDIBLE approach as part of his coursework teaching and encourages students to work on a range of social and health issues, including, for example, diet (Appendix D) and drug addiction (Appendix E). This work gives Mujahid’s students some experience in how the CREDIBLE approach works and how they can adapt it for their own purposes, including in their MPhil and PhD projects. We will briefly share below the projects of two of Mujahid’s students’ (the full reports are available in Appendices D and E). Once the students in Mujahid’s course identified a real-world issue in their localities, they carried out a broad review of that topic – drawing on academic and non-academic sources in multiple languages. They then carried out a brief informal survey on the topic to get a better understanding of the issues in a local context and used this information and their review to set the direction of their project. Project 1: You are what you eat. The pre-survey shows that adults in Mardan have little awareness regarding healthy eating habits and maintaining a balanced/portioned diet. The project can be significant in changing their attitude towards their eating habits, helping them to maintain a healthy weight, enhancing their energy and making them feel better which in turn can affect their studies positively. The project is aimed at making a model of ‘My nutritious plate’ (‫ )زمہ صحت بخش خورال‬using the local language i.e. Pashto and is based on the ‘Healthy eating plate’ devised by nutrition experts at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and editors at Harvard Health Publications. This was designed originally to address deficiencies in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s MyPlate and can be used by anyone for further study or awareness campaign. Project 2: Reducing drug use, specially ICE, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The pre-survey shows that adults in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan have little awareness or bout ICE (a highly addictive drug), and the extent to which it can endanger them. Through this project, we will create awareness of the harmful impact of ICE and be able to influence participant’ attitudes towards good health. Mujahid’s students developed resources in Pashto and other local languages and share these on social media. Examples of this material are included in Appendices D and E. Students documented the completed projects in English (since the course is part of the English Language Department) and submitted these as part of their course requirements. Mujahid’s students are continuing to build on their projects even after the study and are self-motivated in doing their work. In addition, he observed that he did not have many cases of plagiarism, which is a major problem in many educational institutions across Pakistan. Following this study, Mujahid’s students are now working on CREDIBLE projects, and looking into ways of finding funding and other resources to make their work stronger. Chapter and book ending We started this chapter with these lines: Leaving the promises behind I choose to retreat into the woods To listen, to learn, to unlearn Metaphorically speaking, in this book and chapter, we left the promises marketed by exploitative education behind to retreat and evaluate our circumstances, and to consider ways forward. To do this, we listened and observed things, instead of using copious references; learned about how colonial models of education contrast with our Indigenous ones; and, unlearned that ‘literacy’ should be the key goal of education. In specific, this chapter critiqued the use of literacy as a key goal of education identifying underlying problems in using literacy as a major tool and goal of education. One reason for this is that writing systems are visual representations of linguistic meanings; they are not the same as oral language, which I technicalised as ‘boli’ in this chapter. Writing systems are (and were) not used frequently or widely across most of the Indigenous and pre-European colonial world. By using a visual semiotic system that is not Indigenous to people, literacy can influence local language and other socio-semiotic systems. This, especially when education and literacy are engineered for malicious purposes (such as taking over other people’s lands and rights; or, maintaining their own status and power), can lead to a degradation of local socio-semiotics and, hence the people. And, when the people are weak, other creatures and the environment suffers as well. In concluding this chapter, as in starting it, we will share a poem. This poem, ‘Splendid! Simply splendid!’ tells the story of some of our ancestors and us. If we want to stop and reverse the actions and goals described in this poem, then, we suggest, that we stop arguing over literacy- and reference- based thinking, and instead create projects that address our local concerns and needs. Image 1: Splendid! Simply splendid! The image in the background is the flag of East India Company. Chapter references There are no references in this chapter. There are multiple reasons for not using any references, here I will list five (in no particular order): - references have to be trusted, as not everyone has or can do the same readings (and with the same interpretations) - references relate to other written texts (often in English), which exclude other forms of knowledge (specially in languages that don’t have a writing system or don’t use it in academia) - selecting references can be a political act through which certain people and work are promoted and others dismissed. - references, when used instead of observations/evidence to make/support a point, have to be taken at face-value as there is little that readers can do to verify them - references can make reading difficult, especially for those uninitiated in the field; others can search to find relevant references quite easily in today’s ‘tech’ world. Given these and other issues with references, we chose not to include any references in this chapter. Instead, we have shared our observations and/or pointed to things that you can locate and observe yourselves. By doing so, in many ways, we am delegating the authority and expertise typically reserved for ‘the author’ to you, the reader: We have shared examples and observations and you have the agency to verify them – our arguments are not protected by a ‘reference-wall’. Similarly, instead of providing a specific set of guidelines or procedures to follow, we have shared some broad principles and examples of ways in which teachers and students have and can adapt and use them in their own contexts. By reading through the chapter and the examples (including the appendices), you will note that there is no one way in which we can or should move forward with education. Instead, in moving forward with education, what we need to do is to set up goals and projects that are • achievable • respectful of all living and non-living things, not just groups of humans • contribute to your community building and welfare. Appendix A Reinforcing/Localizing concepts with Indigenous languages: Workshop on using puppetry as a learning & teaching technique (Amna Anwar and team, Government Women University, Rawalpindi) Objectives/outcomes of the workshop: • Preservation of the Punjabi language and culture by making it a medium of instruction • Making teaching & learning a more enjoyable and convenient activity by using the mother tongue (Punjabi) • Use of puppetry & other creative ideas for teaching & learning in the Punjabi language • Reinforcement of concepts in different subjects i.e. Physics, Chemistry etc. by using the local language Significance of the workshop: The series of workshops is highly significant with regard to preservation of the Indigenous language i.e. Punjabi. It not only involves teachers but students as well. Reinforcement of concepts from different subjects can be conveniently done by using the local language (Punjabi). This makes teaching and learning an enjoyable activity. It will also initiate a positive dialogue on preserving the local identities. It is a step towards introducing other cultures to the Punjabi culture. Audience selection criteria: Participants were selected based on immediate availability and on the basis of being Punjabi speaking students and teachers. The city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan being multi- ethnic and multilingual area, there are certain areas which have a majority of Punjabi speaking population. These are the areas in focus. Teachers who participated in the project were first convinced to use Punjabi and made to practice puppet shows as part of their teaching design with both children and adults as target audience in mind. Participating schools: • Government Girls High School, Shimla Islamia, B-Block • Government. M.C High School (Girls) B-Block • Government. M.C High School (Boys) B-Block • Government. Elementary School (Girls) Dhoke Paracha • Government. Elementary School (Boys) Dhoke Paracha Group 1. Faculty Group 2. Students of grade 5 & above Resource Persons: Two groups from Rawalpindi Women University, Rawalpindi Pakistan will initially target the 5 elementary & secondary schools of the suburban area of Rawalpindi Women University. These groups will conduct a series of workshops in the target schools, interacting with both faculty and students. Group In-charge: Ms. Amna Anwar Co-In charge: Roma Altaf Group 1: Ms.Amna Anwar, UmmeAmmarah, Shanzeh Farooq Group 2: Rooma Iltaf, Farah Yasmine, Raima Arooj Materials required: Foam, scissors, polystyrene sphere, cardboard pattern, foam craft, cutter, marker, spray paint, contact cement, colored knee high socks & wool Sample Design: Puppet show based on topic “Water cycle” Script of sample: (Appendix B) Selected subject: Science subject Assignment: The groups of teachers and students will be asked to produce their own scripts based on a sample provided. Participants are expected to come up with varied and exciting new scripts incorporating creative ideas. Reinforcement tools: Puppets, placards, foaming sheets, chart papers, hard board etc. Medium of instruction: Punjabi Limitations: Certain limitations are likely to be experienced in planning the series of workshops. These include: • reluctance of teachers to use Punjabi in their classes • lack of awareness of the Punjabi script among students and teachers • problems with writing Punjabi • unwillingness of parents to let their children use Punjabi in the school environment • lack of resources to help with large classes • a strong inclination towards using English language • discouraging students to localize their ideas • reluctance of students to translate exciting ideas into their Indigenous languages due to social pressure ‫‪Appendix B‬‬ ‫‪Script of the water cycle Project– by Amna Anwar and team at Government Women University,‬‬ ‫‪Rawalpindi.‬‬ ‫سکرپٹ آف واٹر سائیکل‪:‬‬ ‫بچیو میں آں زمین تے میرے اتے ڈھیر سارا پانی وی ہندا اے‪ .‬آج میں تہانوں سناواں گی ایس پانی دی کہانی کہ کیسناں میرے‬ ‫اوتوں اے پانی اڈ کے تے واپس فیر میرے اتے آ جاوندا اے‪ .‬اونج تے تسی بڑی وار اپنیاں کتاباں وچ اے واٹر سائیکل دا سبق‬ ‫پڑھیا ہووے گا پر آج تہاڈے سامن ے اے واٹر سائیکل اک انوکھے تے مزےدار جیے انداز وچ پیش کراں گے تے چلو فیر اج دا‬ ‫اے سبق شروع کریے‪.‬‬ ‫)‪(Water and Sun both enter from right‬‬ ‫سورج‪( :‬سخت گرمی)‬ ‫پانی ‪ :‬آج تے بہت تیز دھوپ پین ڈئ اے‪ ..‬ہائے آج میرا کی بنے گا‪ ...‬میں تے آج ہوا بن کے ای اوڈ جانا اے‪..‬‬ ‫(تھوڑی دیر بعد پانی بھاپ بن کے ہوا نال رل جائے گا(‬ ‫ہائے میرے تے نکے نکے ٹوٹے ہون ڈے نیں‪ ...‬او میں تے اتے نوں جان ڈیا ایں ہون کی کراں او کوئی تے بچا لو‪ ...‬او کوئی‬ ‫تے سورج بھائی نوں روکو مینوں اوڈان توں‪ ...‬ہائے‪......‬‬ ‫سورج ‪ :‬لو جی اک نواں سیاپا‪ .‬بھال میں کیویں روک سکنا ایں پانی نوں اڈن توں‪ ..‬اے دے تے ڈرامے ای نئی مکدے‪..‬‬ ‫(بادل بنن گے)‬ ‫سردار قطرہ ‪ :‬ویکھو بھائی میں تے آکھنا ایں کہ آؤ سارے جنے مل کے بادل بن جائیے‪ ..‬او سارے جنے رل کے سورج نوں‬ ‫دسیے کہ او سانو زمین توں الگ نئی کر سکدا‪ ..‬چلو آؤ سارے‪..‬‬ ‫)قطرے آپس وچ رلنا شروع ہو جان گے(‬ ‫ویکھو ہون اسی ساریاں نے مل کہ کنا وڈا بادل بنا لیا اے‪ .‬ہون ساڈی سہیلی ہوا سانوں ٹھنڈا کر کے واپس زمین تے بھیج دے‬ ‫گی‪.‬‬ ‫نکا قطرہ‪ :‬ابا جی! ہوا ساڈی دوست کیویں اے بھال؟ او ہی تے سانوں زمین توں چک کے اتے لیائی اے‪.‬‬ ‫سردار قطرہ ‪ :‬آہو پتر لیائی تے ہے سانوں اتے پر او ایس واسطے کہ اسیں سارے فیر واپس زمین وچ جا ملیے‪ .‬ہون اے ہوا‬ ‫سانوں ٹھنڈا کر کے فیر پانی بنا دے گی تے اسی بارش یا برفباری بن کے زمین تے چلے جاواں گے تے فیر ندی نالیاں وچوں‬ ‫ہندے ہوئے دریا تے سمندر وچ جا مالں گے‪.‬‬ ‫نکا قطرہ‪ :‬ابا جی اسیں ساریاں نے سمندر وچ چلے جانا اے ؟‬ ‫سردار قطرہ ‪ :‬نہیں پتر اسیں ساریاں نے سمندر وچ نہیں ملنا جا کے‪ .‬سارا پانی سمندراں وچ نہیں جاندا بلکہ تھوڑا جنا زمین دے‬ ‫اندر جذب ہو جاندا اے تے فیر او پانی اندرونی زمین دے پانی دے طور تے استعمال ہندا اے‪.‬‬ ‫) بارش شروع)‬ ‫نکا قطرہ‪ :‬موجاں‪ ...‬ہون اسی فیر زمین تے واپس چلے آں‪ ...‬ہون میں سورج نوں سڑاواں گا کہ ویکھ اسیں فیر واپس آ گئے‪ ..‬بڑا‬ ‫مزہ آئے گا‪.‬‬ ‫سردار قطرہ‪ :‬ہسنا شروع کر دہندا اے‪...‬‬ Appendix C A. Project details: Identifying Fake News: Hafiz Muhammad Nauman (University of the Punjab, Riphah International University, and University of Management and Technology, Lahore) I started teaching CREDIBLE Projects on ‘Identifying Fake News’ to my students, taking help from the sources you shared. I have taken a few classes on the fake news projects and can share the following ideas that were discussed in my classes: The question of relevance of a project like ‘identifying fake news’ with the courses like ‘Modern Drama’, or ‘English Prose’ was asked by the students. In response to the question, I tried to create a link between the two, mentioning the following points: • different disciplines of education are interlinked with each other. There is no subject/study discipline which is completely independent from others. • one of the key objectives of studying the courses of English literature is to develop critical thinking (for example, we are often asked questions with a word ‘critical’ in them). This critical thinking should be used in developing any practical project like identifying fake news. • the purpose of any course (education) is to solve the problems of the society we live in. If we are not using our knowledge to solve societal issues, our knowledge may be useful (if any extent) only for us not for others. • fake news is a language related issue which has grown to a great extent in Pakistani society, especially with the emergence of COVID-19. Therefore, to get understating about such issues, it is essential to learn these ideas through projects and spread them further. Teaching of ‘identifying fake news’ through TLC Modeling: In this phase, news s taken from WhatsApp groups, Facebook, and other media was analyzed. I first generated a ‘fake text’ and shared it with students (Figure 1). FIGURE 1: FAKE NEWS CREATED BY THE FIGURE 2: FAKE NEWS SHARED BY A FRIEND TEACHER Then similar ‘Fake News’ in form of a text (Figure 2) was shared with students. The pragmatic meaning of both texts was almost the same, and the only difference between the two was that of language (language type and language style). Later, I discuss a tweet made by a famous Pakistani journalist (Figure 3). It had some figures which upon verification revealed a slight exaggeration in them. FIGURE 3: TWEET BY A FAMOUS PAKISTANI ANCHORMAN The analysis of another excerpt, from a local newspaper in Faisalabad, Pakistan, reveals that the assumption made in the news “ ‫)”وائرس کی طاقت بھی جواب دینے لگی‬the virus strength is also weakening) was actually based on a single day COVID19 statistics, and that it could not be used to predict further situations. FIGURE 4: A NEWS FROM A LOCAL NEWSPAPER FROM FAISALABAD Joint Construction In this phase, students researched some fake news and discussed it in class. FIGURE 5A: A WEB NEWS FROM PAKISTANI FIGURE 5B : A WEB NEWS FROM PAKISTANI NEWS WEBSITE NEWS WEBSITE FIGURE 6: A FLOATED NEWS ON SOCIAL MEDIA WHICH IS THE TRANSLATION OF FIGURE 5A AND 5B Independent construction: Lastly, I have assigned students some projects on ‘identifying fake news’ which they have to submit by June 10 (following this study). These projects will be used in their final evaluation at the end of the semester. B. Hafiz Nauman Ahmad’s questionnaire Language Learning through the Identification of Fake News This questionnaire has been designed to know the effectiveness of fake news identification in learning many skills especially a language. Your response may help the researcher/teacher to improve or develop such more projects for the students or do research. Thanks in advance. Language Learning 1. Do you think that you had to read the news carefully to identify it fake or real? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 2. You critically thought about the idea presented in the news. Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 3. You read the news more than once Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 4. Did you translate the news either from Urdu to English or English to Urdu? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 5. Did you search for how to identify the fake news? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 6. Do you think it was a good activity for any language learning? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 7. Do you think recording audio is a good way to improve oral communication skills if you have recorded your own audio with the video or will record your voice in future? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree Critical mind development 8. Before this project, you do not have a good idea of identifying fake news Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree  9. You needed to remain very critical while declaring any news fake. Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 10. You searched many resources for knowing whether the news is fake. Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 11. Now, you can easily identify a fake news Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 12. You are able to use your fake news identification skills in recognizing any text, post, picture etc. fake or real. Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 13. You are able to use your fake news identification skills in recognizing any text, post, picture etc. fake or real. Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree Learning Technology 14. Is this your first video? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 15. Do you think that you have learnt some IT skills in developing the project? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree 16. You have tried many software to develop the project? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree C. Online links to some of the work created by Nauman & his students: Hafiz Nauman Ahmed (model prepared by the teacher): https://youtu.be/0EGlRr6huIw Shaim Chaudry: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1421218578066327&id=100005345948785 Samina Iqbal (Mano Bili): https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=995299474253723&id=100013210381942 Javeria Maryam: https://youtu.be/OzWqNHQTYFc Huzaifa: Fake News: https://youtu.be/8vdqIArmES8 Hafsa Zahid: https://youtu.be/6eDzoLQ8C8Q Arzoo Waris: https://youtu.be/p_0PE2kH7KY Kashaf ul Eman: https://youtu.be/t3KSMvgFklw Mehar un Nisa: https://youtu.be/mkp1rq0AGc8 Appendix D Positive Discourse Analysis: My Nutritious Plate: A group project by Ayesha Bashir, Marwa Munir and Nayab Huma (M.Phil. Scholars, English Department, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan. Supervised by Dr. Mujahid) Project title: You are what you eat Goal/outcomes of the project: The project is intended to develop a model of ’My nutritious plate’ based on ‘Healthy Eating Plate’ by nutrition experts at Harvard School of Public Health and editors at Harvard Health Publications, which in turn was designed to address deficiencies in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s MyPlate. The purpose of using this model along with other resources such as posters, realia and PowerPoint presentations is to bring awareness regarding proportionate diet and healthy eating habits among adults of Mardan. Project implementation and context detail: Since the purpose of the project is to develop awareness among adults in Mardan it is expected that the project will be eventually implemented in colleges and universities of Mardan. Mardan is a growing industrial city of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It has three universities, two post graduate colleges and many schools that are providing education to adults. As far as the cuisine of Mardan is concerned, people of the city have regional traditional food of ethnic and cultural diversity with a blend of foreign fast foods. They have a regular pattern of three meals a day, i.e. breakfast, lunch and dinner. Roti/chapatti is common in all the three meals. Often with one or two dishes of Salan (curry) with vegetable, lentils, meat or the combination of them. Salad is often taken during lunch. Tea, an evening beverage of almost all locals, is often accompanied with french fries, samosas, or pakoras (local snacks that are fried foods). Based on the pre-survey we have come to know that adults going to schools, colleges or universities have the following eating habits besides their regular three meals. • Students often have pakora, samosa (both are local versions of fried fritters) or fried rolls as snacks at their institutes • The consumption of soft drinks and chips is very common. • Often students avoid eating anything from breakfast to lunch which makes it nearly 7-8 hours of fasting Significance of the project: The pre-survey shows that adults in Mardan have little awareness about healthy eating habits or a balanced diet. This project can be significant in changing their attitude towards eating habits, helping them to maintain a healthy weight, enhancing their energy and making them feel better which in turn can positively affect their studies. The project aims at having participants make a model of ‘My nutritious plate’ (‫ )زمہ صحت بخش خورال‬using the local language i.e. Pashto and it is based on ‘Healthy Eating Plate’ as devised by nutrition experts at the Harvard School of Public Health and editors at Harvard Health Publications. Material/activity development: In this project a model related to a proportionate diet will be developed based on ‘Healthy Eating Plate’ where participants will be shown the model containing real fruit, vegetables and lentils. Through this model they will be able to recognize the nutritious value of different food items in their plate. This plate will consist of four portions (consisting of fruits, vegetables, proteins and grains), all written in Pashto. The major purpose of this activity is to use language which participants will be more familiar with, irrespective of their education. This will help them to bring a positive improvement in their eating habits. Most participants may not be aware of the names used for local food items in English. Therefore, using Pashto language will be more helpful to make them understand. Analyses of ’Healthy Eating Plate’: We analysed the ‘Healthy Eating Plate’ model and came to realise that this model only provides a portioned diagram which is difficult for lay persons to understand. In order to bring some improvement in that model we decided to develop our own model of ‘the nutritious plate’ with real food items as it would be more helpful for people to understand the dietary portions. The use of local food items is expected to help improve eating habits. Discussion: Several oral discussions will be organized with participants on the issue of maintaining a healthy diet and the problems associated with unhealthy food and/or imbalanced diets. Multimedia presentations will be prepared to show the effects of malnutrition with the help of visual graphics, charts and pictures so as to make it more effective. Questionnaires based on both open and close ended questions will be designed to analyze the background knowledge of the participants regarding issues associated with improper and imbalanced diets as well as the impact of the project. Realia: The most important part of the project is the practical manifestation of balanced diet through the model, ‘My nutritious plate’, using proper portions of different nutrients required for good health. This model will help participants to understand the concept very easily and in very effective manner. Total cost of the project including printing the questionnaires and making copies of the model is around 4 lacs. Alignment between design and goals: The main goal of this project is to spread awareness of a healthy diet and understand how to achieve this balanced diet through a properly proportioned Healthy Plate. Participants will be engaged in different kinds of activities so as to expose them to the knowledge of a healthy and balanced diet. Challenges: Unhealthy eating habits have entered our life to such an extent that it has really become very difficult to get rid of them. There are several factors that makes this project challenging to implement this project. For example, • Advertisement and marketing. Junk food such as burgers and soft drinks are advertised in such an attractive manner that our teens find it inevitable to avoid making these foods part of their lifestyle. They find it trendy and in vogue. It is really a challenge to convince them about the hazards of these unhealthy foods. • Fast food and fast life. Modern life is fast and busy. The number of working women in Pakistan is increasing day by day. Students and working people find less time and stamina for cooking healthy food themselves. It is very easy to eat fast food which is readily available in the market. In addition, the culture of dining out is also getting popular among people especially the youth. It makes the task of the project more challenging. Negative consequences. The only negative consequence of this project seems to be the fact that including participants who are under-privileged and can hardly afford taking any food may experience an inferiority complex by participating in a project that emphasizes taking fruits and milk and other such items which are hard to afford. It is expected that the organizers will try to discuss the easily available items and will try to include several alternatives that are healthy but cheap and can be part of a proportioned plate of healthy diet. References. Healthy Eating Plate, The Nutrition Source, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, www.thenutritionsource.org, and Harvard Health Publications, www.health.harvard.edu.; 2011 Appendix E Positive Discourse Analysis: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cracks up the warmth on ICE drugs: A group project by Sayed Sikandar Shah and Zabrdast Khan (M.Phil. Scholars, under the supervision of Dr. Mujahid Shah, English Department, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan) Project title: ‫د اعتیاد مخالف خه حالی نه دہ د اعتیاد مخالف ربط ورکونکي دې‬ The opposite of addiction is not sobriety; The opposite of addiction is connection! Goal/outcomes of the project: • To discourage people from ICE • To raise awareness This project intends to raise awareness about ICE, with help of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA). Project Implementation and context detail: The purpose of this project is to bring the awareness among adult resident in the province of (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan Meth was introduced in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in t 2010It is usually in the form of crystals. The 'Drug use in Pakistan-2013' report was to set up by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crimes (UNODC) and Ministry of Interior and Narcotics Control. The report states that roughly 6.7 million individuals utilized controlled substances including physician recommended drugs. Sharing the key discoveries of the report, Mohammad Shahid said that age of most of the drug clients was somewhere in the range of 25 and 39 years. He said that 860,000 individuals in the nation utilized heroin normally and 320,000 were opium clients while 1.06 million individuals between 15 to 64 years, were utilizing sedatives. "Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is on the course of the drug pushers, so natural accessibility is one noteworthy reason for the high commonness of the drug(ice) use," Mr Shahid said. Ladies were additionally utilizing hashish, he stated, including that 45,000 ladies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were utilizing medications and painkillers. He said that understudy inns everywhere throughout the nation were getting to be center points of medication misuse. As indicated by the report, 22 percent ladies in the nation are medicate clients. It said that 32 percent ladies, who utilized medications and painkillers were uneducated. Significance of the project: The pre-survey shows that adults in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) have little awareness regarding ICE or its associated dangers. Our project intends to create awareness and highlight the dangers associated with ICE. It is expected that this will develop positive attitudes towards health Material/activity development: In this project a model is related to ICE (drug) that will be developed on the Basie of one slogan and few points. Through this model they will be able to see how ice patients will recover. ‫د اعتیاد مخالف خه حالی نه دہ د اعتیاد مخالف ربط ورکونکي دې‬ ‫‪Figure 1: Model for ICE drug addicts‬‬ The major purpose of this activity is to use the language which participants will be more familiar with, irrespective of their education. This will help them bring a positive improvement towards ICE drug addicted patients, Therefore, using Pashto language will be more helpful to make them understand. Analyses of ‫د اعتیاد مخالف ربط ورکونکي دې“د اعتیاد مخالف خه حالی نه دہ‬ This sentence in Pashto means: The opposite of addiction is not sobriety; The opposite of addiction is connection! We analyzed this sentence in the views of some experts, like Johann Hari, Swiss-British writer and journalist. He has written for publications including The Independent and The Huffington Post and has written books on the topics of depression, the war on drugs, and the monarchy. But what we realized is that these arguments need be in a model, so that it can give a perspective to people and help them understand the dangers of drugs. Alignment between design and goals: The main goal of this project is to spread awareness regarding ICE addicts, and how people deal with them. There will be different kind of activities to help people deal with sick individuals. Discussion: Several oral discussions will be organized with participants on the issue of drug addicts and the problems of ICE ADDICTS will be highlighted. Multimedia Presentations: Different multimedia presentations will be prepared to show the effects of malnutrition with the help of visual graphics, charts and pictures so as to make it more effective. Challenges: Drug addiction and specifically our main focus is on ICE addiction are the biggest problem here in KP. But there are several factors that makes this project challenging: • Advertisement and marketing. According to the researchers in KP most ICE addicts are young adults, and this ratio is getting higher day by day. And like in universities its easily available through drug dealers who have a vast connection in Pakistan. It is really a challenge to convince them about the hazards of these drugs