Multimodality

It is important that we give young children the opportunities to learn in different ways. The traditional ways of reading through a textbook to learn has been developed immensely and the purpose of education has changed. Education is focusing more on the child’s holistic development and how they can develop their skills for when they leave education. We, as upcoming practitioners, need to give children the resources and skills they need to prosper in the future. Teaching all students using one method is not effective as every individual is different. The focus on exams and tests has declined, although assessments demonstrate the child’s understanding of the work they are being taught, society has now understood that there needs to be a shift from what the child is learning to how they are learning and developing skills through education. Multimodality is a theory which looks at how people communicate and interact with each other, not just through writing but also through speaking, gesture, gaze and visual forms (Kress, 2014). “The term is used to refer to any learning activity that combines two or more sensory strategies to take in or express information” (Obaid, 2012, p.75). For example, our communication is more than what is said and heard but by what we perceive through expressions, gazes, gestures and movements. Due to student’s diverse literacy needs, teachers need to differentiate the product, process and content of learning according to their student’s learning style, interest and readiness. Teachers can use multiple modes of learning in order to engage students in meaningful literacy activities. The more ways we teach, the more likely we reach our students and motivate their ability to learn (Wilder, 2019). Our aim for the future should be to distance ourselves from the traditional practices of teaching with one modality (typically linguistic) for all students in a lesson. Instead, if we recognise that our students learn in different ways, then we also need to recognise that our students need us to teach lessons with strategies that allow students to process information through multiple modalities (Wilder, 2019).

The exploration of these multimodalities has come from the growth of digital technology. “Digital technologies are of particular interest to multimodality because they make a wide range of modes available” (Jewett, 2013, p.251). “Changes to literacy pedagogy are gradually occurring in classrooms in response to contemporary communication and learning contexts. These changes are diverse as teachers and educational researches attempt to design new pedagogy to respond to the potential of digital technologies within existing curriculum and assessment policies” (Walsh, 2010, p.211). As children are growing up surrounded by technology, we need to be aware that children may not know how to use it in an effective way that contributes to their learning. “As educators, we need to develop the knowledge and pedagogy to teach multimodal literacy. We cannot assume that just because our young are growing up in a media-rich world, they will be able to view multimodal representations critically and not be naive consumers of media texts.” (Lim and Tan, 2018).

To understand the effects of multimodality, in university we used an application called ‘imovie’. We were put into groups to create a movie trailer of our choice using this application on a tablet. We had to learn how to use it and how to create a move trailer using it. By using this program, we were able to understand how to incorporate multimodality into lessons. On the trailer, we used text, gestures, expressions, audio and movements to tell a story. This form of multimodality can engage an audience, using the different senses an audience is focused on the story being told. Engaging different senses will keep a class interested and encourage learning. I have uploaded our trailer to my blog to demonstrate how we used this program effectively.

References

·        Jewett, C. (2013) Multimodal methods for researching digital technologies. The SAGE handbook of digital technology research.

·        Kress, G. (2014) Multimodality: a Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication, London: Routledge.

·        Lim, F.V. & Tan, K.Y.S. (2018). Developing Multimodal Literacy Through Teaching the Critical Viewing of Films in Singapore. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

·        Obaid, M. A. S. (2013) The Impact of Using Multi-Sensory Approach for Teaching Students With Learning Disabilities. Journal of International Education Research.

·        Walsh, M. (2010) Multimodal Literacy: What does it mean for classroom practice? Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 33(3), 211.

·        Wilder, P. (2019) Teaching with Multiple Modalities. Differentiating Instruction. Champaign, Illinois.