Read Text I and answer the question that
follow it:
Text I
Multimodality in the
English language classroom:
A systematic review of
literature
Literacy in the 21st century is now no longer regarded
simply as the ability to use a language competently in a mono-cultural setting. Literacy today involves
students knowing how to navigate across an increasingly complex communication landscape and to
negotiate a range of contexts and patterns of intercultural meanings as well as the prevalence of
multimodal texts.
Contemporary communication
environment is characterised by multimodal meaning-making, that is the “multiplicities of media and
modes”, as well as “increasing local diversity and global connectedness” (New London Group, 1996, p.
62) which necessitates a shift in the pedagogical approaches that are adopted by teachers. This is
especially so in the digital age where a sole focus on language in literacy is no longer sufficient for the
new workplace given that a revised sense of ‘competence’ is required. The recognition of social diversity
also demands pedagogical approaches that engage with the transcultural and multicultural classroom.
Issues of the day such as fake news and social justice concerns also need to be addressed in the
literacy classroom.
Multimodality focuses on
understanding how semiotic resources (visual, gestural, spatial, linguistic, and others) work and are
organised. Multimodality in education adopts an expanded view of literacy to include the range of
multimodal communicative practices which young people are involved in today's digital age. Multimodal
pedagogies refer to the ways in which the teacher can design learning experiences using a range of
multimodal resources. It involves teachers making design choices in the ways in which the curriculum
content is expressed, arranged, and sequenced multimodally. Multimodal pedagogies also involve
designing opportunities for students to explore and perform ideas and identities using a range of
meaning-making resources. The teaching and learning activities often involve drawing from the students’
funds of knowledge and their lifeworld. With multimodal pedagogies, teachers orchestrate the learning
process by weaving together a series of knowledge representations into a cohesive tapestry and in so
doing make apt selection of meaning-making resources to design the students’ learning
experience.
Adapted from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science
/article/abs/pii/S0898589822000365