Abstract
Student multimodal literacy practices within the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is an under-researched area since the teaching of ESP focuses more on the development of traditional skills like speaking, writing, reading, and listening to respond to the students’ language needs for their future employment. Even though multimodal texts are abundantly implemented in ESP courses, for example, YouTube videos, website articles, and content-related books, they are mostly aiming to enhance students’ skills, for example, writing and rote-learning of vocabulary lists, and to extend linguistic knowledge in the subject of their studies. This accentuates ESP students’ passive role in the classroom and deprives them of the opportunity to gain more control over their own learning. Given the multimodal affordances of digital productivity tools, it is deemed necessary for a pedagogical shift to take place in the ESP classroom to increase the students’ agency. This case study explores ESP students’ semiotic awareness through the creation of their multimodal artefacts, and to enable them to actively participate in designing aspects of their ESP course as a way of fostering more meaningful learning opportunities and supplementing traditional literacy models in the teaching and learning of ESP. The study implements the framework of Multiliteracies, focusing on multiform meaning, and the concept of Design to analyse the multimodal artefacts of 33 ESP students in a tertiary education institution. Sources of data include the students’ multimodal artefacts, open-ended questionnaires, and the instructor’s field notes of the students’ class presentations of artefacts.
Presenters
Maria ChristoforouSpecial Teaching Staff, Language Centre, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Considering Digital Pedagogies
KEYWORDS
Multiliteracies, Multimodality, Design, Multimodal Composition, Pedagogy, English for Specific Purposes
