Introduction: The nexus of multimodality, multimodal literacy, and English language teaching in research and practice in higher education settings

Abstract

interacting with multimedia and digital texts " (p. 213). This definition is clearly inspired by the notion of multiliteracies, which was originally formulated by New London Group in 1996. This was a group of scholars (including Norman Fairclough, James Paul Gee, and Gunther Kress) who met to propose ways to change teaching and learning paradigms in response to changing forms of communication. They stressed the need to go beyond the traditional interpretation of literacy in terms of the capacity to read and write (Gee, 1996), and urged educators to utilize new technologies to enhance multimodal literacy (New London Group, 1996). Thus, multiliteracies can be seen as drawing from (1) New Literacies Studies that interpret literacy as a sociocultural (vs. cognitive) phenomenon, driven by changing social practices involving digital communications and new media (Gee, 1996; Street, Pahl, & Rowsell, 2014) and (2) Multimodal Studies that apply new theoretical and methodological frameworks for analysing communication which integrates modes beyond verbal language (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996;O'Halloran & Smith, 2011). The concept of multiliteracies is now widely applied in general education and the need for educators to develop multiliteracies among learners is beyond dispute (Royce, 2002; Jewitt & Kress, 2003).Multimodal literacy has also become highly relevant for language teaching thanks to an increasing awareness that the multimodal approach can help students learn to exploit semiotic modes beyond verbal language (e.g., visual, gestural, spatial) to both understand and produce texts in the target language more effectively (O'Halloran, Tan, & Smith 2016). It may also heighten their awareness of the target culture, particularly in relation to different styles of non-verbal communication across cultures (Busà 2010(Busà , 2015. Of particular interest in the context of language learning is how non-verbal elements reinforce and/or add meaning to verbal expressions and thus facilitate comprehension, but also how multimodal approaches can serve to motivate learners (Shih, 2014). Over the years, there have been some studies pointing to the advantages of using techniques and resources that highlight non-verbal modes, such as images, gestures, and facial expressions,

Multimodality in Education 4.0: A Case in an Engineering Context

“…Although the multimodal theory was developed in the 1990s, instruction based on multimodality has been proven to provide dynamic learning experiences to students. As stated by [9] in [10], multimodality in instruction helps students to exploit semiotic modes beyond verbal language such as visual, gestural and spatial. Classroom instruction in this study is based on multimodality which includes the utilization of concepts, methods and framework that has combined the linguistic, visual, audio, gestural and spatial modes.…”

The Development of an Evaluation Model to Assess the Effect of Online English Teaching Based on Fuzzy Mathematics

“…Needless to say, English education is of undoubted necessity [1][2][3][4]. As contemporary educational technologies are transforming and upgrading constantly, the teaching mode of English education is undergoing great changes and online English teaching has gradually become a popular teaching mode [5][6][7], now, it is acting a crucial role in modern education and serving as a catalyst in the cultivation of English professionals [8][9][10].…”

Integrating Facebook as a Web 2.0 Tool in a Responsive Pedagogy for Multimodal Oral Presentation Skills

“…Having a pedagogical approach that views speech as multimodal, whereby multiple modes are orchestrated to express meaning, requires further development (Barrett & Liu, 2016;Camiciottoli & Campoy-Cubillo, 2018). Although the updated Common European Framework of Reference for languages: Language, Teaching, Assessment (Council of Europe, 2018) has acknowledged the existence of various modes beyond the linguistic mode in meaning-making, exploring and developing pedagogical approaches that address multimodality requires investment from educators (Camiciottoli & Campoy-Cubillo, 2018;Lim et al, 2021;Mills, 2016).…”

“…Having a pedagogical approach that views speech as multimodal, whereby multiple modes are orchestrated to express meaning, requires further development (Barrett & Liu, 2016;Camiciottoli & Campoy-Cubillo, 2018). Although the updated Common European Framework of Reference for languages: Language, Teaching, Assessment (Council of Europe, 2018) has acknowledged the existence of various modes beyond the linguistic mode in meaning-making, exploring and developing pedagogical approaches that address multimodality requires investment from educators (Camiciottoli & Campoy-Cubillo, 2018;Lim et al, 2021;Mills, 2016). In fact, even the development of pedagogical approaches for oral presentation competence in general requires more research attention (Tsang, 2020;Van Ginkel et al, 2015), whereby oral presentation competence could be understood as: "the combination of knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to speak in public in order to inform, self-express, to relate and to persuade" (De Grez, 2009, p. 5).…”