Learning Multimodal Discourse Strategies in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

English as a L2 teaching in secondary education in Spain has long been tackled as a linguistic subject focused on speech and writing without introducing multimodal strategies to complement the use of the language itself. Linguists have shown that discourse is not only used and expressed in and/or by language (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001). Multimodality is a wide and diverse concept that points to different modes of making meaning. However, Multimodality has been approached as a discipline rather than a theory that can apply to different fields. For instance, Gunther Kress (2004) presents Multimodality as a part of communication in Social Semiotics, a subfield of linguistics in which multimodal discourse is cross-cultural. O’Halloran (2016), nonetheless, aims to describe Multimodality within the frame of Systemic Functional Linguistics as the ways in which language is organized and used to fulfil a range of social patterns. Many studies centre on the scope of Multimodal Discourse on media, but there is little research about the use of gesture and gaze in speech (Kendon, 2004). Thus, this paper aims to describe an instructional approach to multimodal discourse in the EFL classroom and define the outcomes of using Multimodal strategies so as to enhance the communication of secondary school students in English discourse. Therefore, it is very difficult and potentially problematic to talk about Multimodality without making explicit one’s theoretical and methodological stance. Empirical materials have been collected to analyse the outcomes of these strategies’ use through presentations, role-plays, transcription and videos. The main results of the present paper point to a greater understanding and performance of the speech when using multimodal resources such as gesture, gaze and intonation. Consequently, in this paper, a wide range of activities are shown to implement in the EFL classroom in order to enable teachers to develop activities to foster their students’ ‘multimodal communicative competence’.