The MLRC School Network Glocal Scholar series is part of our commitment to integrate local and global contexts and to explore a range of issues related to the education of multilingual learners. As defined in our recent publication, “Glocal Network Shifts: Exploring Language Policies and Practices in International Schools”, the term glocal reflects our goal to problematize the boundaries that often exist between conceptions of “global” and “local”, including the separation sometimes observed between international schools and their local context.
Styliani Karatza holds a B.A. in English Language and Literature, an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the Faculty of English Language and Literature of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Greece. Her research interests include multimodality, social semiotics, SFL, multimodal discourse analysis, language teaching, testing and assessment. Styliani is an experienced academic researcher, author and teacher at various sectors of education and has published her research in international journals and volumes.
In terms of academic teaching, Styliani works as an ESP/EAP Instructor at the University of Piraeus, Greece. She teaches Business English at the Department of Business Administration, School of Economics, Business and International Studies. She has designed and taught courses on multimodality and multimodal discourse analysis, and has offered the workshop “Developing Multimodal Literacy through Digital Texts in the EFL Classroom” at the Pre-Service Education Program of the Faculty of English Language and Literature of NKUA since 2019 (Karatza 2022). Styliani has worked as a teacher trainer and has been invited to offer workshops on multimodal literacy teaching and the use of pedagogic metalanguage (Karatza and Lim 2024) to graduate students at University College London (UCL), UK, and pre-service teachers at the University of Udine, Italy.
As a researcher, she has worked as a collaborator in the Erasmus+ Key Action 2 project EU-MADE4LL, European Multimodal and Digital Education for language learning, appointed by the University of Leeds, UK, and has co-authored the Common Framework of Reference for Intercultural Digital Literacies (CFRIDiL) (Sindoni et al. 2019, 2022a, 2022b). She has applied CFRIDiL in teacher training contexts and has adapted it into self- and peer-assessment grids and checklists, which she has used with primary school students in action research projects (Karatza 2024). She has recently extended the implementation of CFRIDiL at the Business English context at the University of Piraeus, Greece. In the field of language testing and assessment, she has also conducted research at the Research Centre for Language Teaching, Testing and Assessment (RCeL), NKUA, for the “State Certificate in Language Proficiency”, known as the KPG (an acronym for the Greek title Kratiko Pistopiitiko Glossomathias).
In parallel with her academic studies and work, she has worked as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher with students of different ages, all proficiency levels and different educational levels in both the private and public sectors. She has founded and coordinated award-winning European Erasmus+ eTwinning virtual exchange projects on sustainability with primary schools from Italy, Portugal and Greece, and has participated in the global project on Planetary Health, Out of Eden Learn (University of Harvard). Through the virtual exchange programs, the students had the chance to view and compose a variety of digital texts, apply AI tools, develop their intercultural communication and transversal skills and learn about environmental and social issues by getting engaged in multimodal communication with technology. Having a special interest in Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL), Karatza and Adami (2024) have recently suggested an expansion of the term, embracing a multimodal-holistic, digital literacy approach to communication and language learning, namely, Technology-Enhanced Communication Learning (TECL), in the Bloomsbury Handbook of Language Learning with Technology.
Styliani presented her work at the MLRC Research Symposium on January 18-19 in Rome, Italy at Marymount International School.
Eisenlauer, V., & Karatza, S. (2020). Multimodal literacies: Media affordances, semiotic resources and discourse communities. Journal of Visual Literacy, 39(3–4), 125–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2020.1826224
Karatza, S. (forthcoming). Composing AI-Generated Images through an SF-Based Multimodal Critical Thinking Routine (MCTR). Manuscript in preparation. Pedagogies.
Karatza, S. (in press). Sharing the Road: a Shared Vision of Improving our Living Area.In the Collective Volume of the Workshop on GenAI in Education: From Theory toPractice, University of Crete (https://edivea.net/)
Karatza, S. (2017). Analysing multimodal texts and test tasks for reading comprehension in the KPG exams in English. (Doctoral Dissertation). National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Karatza, S. (2019). Visual matters in language testing: Exploring intermodal meaning-making in reading comprehension source texts. In E. Karavas & B. Mitsikopoulou (Eds.), Developments in glocal language testing: The case of the Greek national foreign language exam system (pp. 127–154). Peter Lang
Karatza, S. (2020): Multimodal literacy and language testing: visual andintersemiotic literacy indicators of reading comprehension texts. Journal of Visual Literacy, DOI: 10.1080/1051144X.2020.1826222
Karatza, S. (2020). Developing primary school students’ multimodal literacy in digital environments. In N. Vasta, & A. Baldry (Eds.),Multiliteracy Advances and Multimodal Challenges in ELT environments (pp. 111-130). Udine: Forum.
Karatza, S. (2022), ‘The “Multimodal Literacy in the EFL Classroom” Workshop as a Design for Learning’, Designs for Learning, 14 (1): 112–28. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16993/dfl.188
Karatza, S. (2024). Applying CFRIDiL guidelines to create a digital poster in a primary school context, in Nick Komninos & Sonja Starc (Eds.) Multimodal Literacy in Education: Perspectives from Global Practices, Peter Lang.
Karatza, S. & Adami, E. (2024). Multimodal communication with technology in the classroom: From TELL to TECL (Technology Enhanced Communication Learning). In (Eds.) R. Hampel & U. Stickler, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Language Teaching and Technology, Bloomsbury. ISBN: 9781350340329
Karatza, S. & Lim. V.F. (2024). Developing a Pedagogic Metalanguage for Students’ Learning and Engagement with Hypermedia, in Fei Victor Lim & Mercedes Querol-Julián (Eds.) Designing Learning with Digital Technologies: Perspectives from Multimodality in Education, Routledge Research in Digital Education and Educational Technology series, Routledge DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003359272
Sindoni, M. G., E. Adami, S. Karatza, I. Marenzi, I. Moschini, S. Petroni and M. Rocca (2019), CFRIDiL: Common Framework of Reference for Intercultural Digital Literacies. A Comprehensive Set of Guidelines of Proficiency and Intercultural Awareness in Multimodal Digital Literacies. Available online https://www.eumade4ll.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/cfridil-framework- MG3_IM_4-compresso.pdf. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.20064.43520
Sindoni, M. G., E. Adami, S. Karatza, I. Moschini and S. Petroni (2022a), ‘Theory and Practice of the Common Framework of Reference for Intercultural Digital Literacies’, in M. G. Sindoni and I. Moschini (eds), Multimodal Literacies across Digital Learning Contexts, 166–84, New York: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003134244-13
Sindoni, M. G., I. Moschini, E. Adami and S. Karatza (2022b), ‘The Common Framework of Reference for Intercultural Digital Literacies (CFRIDiL): Learning as Meaning Making and Assessment as Recognition in English as an Additional Language Contexts’, in S. Diamantopoulou and S. Overic (eds), Multimodality in English Language Learning, 221–37, New York: Routledge.