Edited by Jaclyn, Joyce, Ada and Bay
If you are asked to write an essay in your L2, what comes to your mind first? Is it a piece of writing with lengthy sentences, elusive grammar, or large paragraphs? Or is it strictly structured like the five-paragraph essay sample below which is frequently used in our TOFEL and IELTS tests? Sometimes, it seems that it takes forever to read or write a passage like this!
However, there is a new form of L2 writing which is much easier, clearer, and more straightforward. Thanks to the advent of CMC, compositions can now be multimodal, as we can integrate many other modes into our L2 writing!
What is multimodal composing?
Multimodal texts are works that use more than just words and letters to communicate a thought–they may include audio, video, photographs, drawings–basically, any visual element used to supplement the text in some purposeful way. (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009); (The New London Group, 2000).
Check the YouTube video here to learn more about the definition of multimodal writing!
An Example of Multimodal Composing
There are some screen shots of a Microsoft Sway by a student entitled “Community Gardens and the Local UIS Community”. You can view the Sway online here to get a better sense of the background, motion, and organization.
The current status of multimodality in L2 writing
From the perspective of Belcher (2017), the multimodality in L2 writing is still an under-researched area because unlike L1 writing, specialists are apt to view L2 writing as a solely linguistic skill. And it echos with the predominance of a five-paragraph essay in many formal L2 writing tests (see TOFEL sample benchmark essays). Nonetheless, multimodality in L2 writing is still in parallel with up-to-date “writing” concepts and is especially suitable for writers who are still learning the target language.
The affordances for different people
According to Belcher (2017), there are basically three kinds of people who can benefit from multimodal design:
- Literacy learners
What they learn about multimodal writing in class also applies to their out-of-class practices, such as posting their opinions on social media. Besides, multimodal writing is also needed in their future workplaces.
- Language learners
First, multimodal design can make language learning and teaching methods more innovative. For example, for TBLT (integrated-skills-oriented task-based learning and teachin), the multimodal design can integrate the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing to enhance students’ language learning. In addition, digital technology gives students the opportunity to communicate with people in real-world settings in the language they are learning, which also enhances students’ independent learning.
- L2 writers
Digital technology such as pictures, sound, video, etc., enables L2 writers to express themselves better. At the same time, it also provides them with a platform to express their opinions.
Challenges and available resources for digital pedagogy newcomers
- Challenges
Lacking expertise in digital projects, many digital pedagogy newcomers may find that applying traditional pedagogical knowledge in the digital context is quite challenging, which requires writing skills and the ability to utilize multimodal resources on digital platforms.
To adapt to the digital environment, teachers need to figure out how to use digital resources in various contexts that differ from traditional writings, which focus on language competency solely (Alexander, De Palma, and Ringer, 2016).
Due to the abundant online resources, works made on the shoulder of others are prevalent, and resources like sound and images are hugely used in multimodal composition. Thus, teachers should notify students of the importance of authorship and copyright and value them when using multimodal resources online (Alexander, De Palma, and Ringer, 2016).
- Resources
Teachers who are not familiar with digital composition may be intimidated by these challenges. However, there are available resources for them to learn digital pedagogy. For example, there are some elaborated tutorials about how to guide students to design digital projects and platform recommendations shared by digital pedagogy pioneers. You can watch the video for reference by clicking here.
The assessment system of digital writing projects is growing. Available sample rubrics and assessment models can be found online.
Also, it is essential for teachers to keep up with the pace of the latest digital technologies and learn the implications of these resources.
Discussion
- Do you have any experience in multimodal writing, what did you like about it and what challenges did you find?
- What are your perspectives about the affordances of multimodal writing concerning educational use based on your teaching and learning experience?
1.I have some experience in multimodal writing in undergraduate years in L2 by making videos about travelling abroad. By doing so, we are motivated to learn the language knowledge we need to learn to make the video and the operation of some multimodal devices. Learners can learn some social skills and language knowledge together. Teachers can give various assessments in multimodal writing and give them spaces of their autonomous learning.
While some of the beliefs need to be changed to apply multimodal writing.
Some of the teachings are still more focused on the product and function of writing. The certain models of different genres are emphasized in writing practices. Thus, probably the challenges include both the integration of education and digital devices and the focus of teaching writing. Besides, learners’ language proficiency should be taken into consideration, some of the multimodal composing project require better language knowledge.
2.Multimodal writing is more learner-centered. Learners can create their own works based on their interest, knowledge, and digital technology learning. Besides, learners can foster their critical thinking and social awareness since the method provides students a platform to communicate with others in an authentic setting.
Thank you for sharing your multimodal writing experience with us, Alex. I think your experience in multimodal writing is quite interesting and I would like to learn more about it! And I’m sure you have learned a lot from it. At the same time, I totally understand the challenges that you mentioned. As for learner’s language proficiency, I guess the beginners can start with some simple ones that don’t require too much language knowledge. In this case, they can also try multimodal writing and get used to it gradually. And I agree with you that multimodal writing can stimulate learners’ interest. Thank you very much!
1. Yes, I experienced multimodal writing and I think doing presentation can be a type of it. The most memorable is the one that I had as an undergraduate. At that time, I, together with my group mates, were assigned to do a video version of presentation. That is, we recorded our presentation in a video. To make our presentation more understandable, we wrote what we wanted to say before recording and then made them as subtitles in our presentation video. To make it more attractive, some of my group mates even drew some pictures to illustrate what they wanted to say. Moreover, we needed to make some slides to do the presentation. We had short sentences and pictures on the slides. For me, the challenges were: how to find suitable pictures to match the sentences and demonstrate my ideas, how to edit the videos and how to match our voices with the subtitles.
2.From my perspective, using multimodal writing can help to arouse students’ interests. Students can not only express themselves in words, but also in other forms, like videos, pictures and so on. It is also quite motivating to do so since students can use various tools to express themselves better.
Hi Rose! Thank you for your comment! I think the presentation you mentioned is a good example of multimodal writing because most students have done it for different courses. And I’m sure you and your teammates have done a great job because you made great effort to it, such as making subtitles and drawing pictures. Also, I have the same feeling that when I make powerpoint, I also find difficulties in finding the suitable pictures. Besides, lacking the technical knowledge to do multimodal writing is also a challenge. Therefore, I think there is still a lot to learn.
Personally I’ve barely had any multimodal writing experience, except in doing a creative writing project with my groupmates from a literature course, which I didn’t find particularly engaging because of my lack of multimedia literacy. As for the application of multimodal writing for educational purpose, I reckon this kind of activity could be quite useful for college EFL/ESL students because studies at that level would be more focused on promoting students’ creative and critical language skills and require a higher level of collaboration. In this way students can learn to make use of the abundant digital media resources in the real world, so they could develop an essential literacy in this increasingly digitalized world that could be helpful for their future work and life. In that case, it is perhaps one of the teacher’s responsibilities to make clear to the students the link between what they are learning to do and what they are going to do in the future, a “writing to learn” process.
Hi Felix, thank you for your comment! I totally agree that when we lack multimedia literacy, we would find multimodal writing very hard or, like you said, not engaging. I think that is one of the biggest challenge for multimodal writing. However, your idea about multimodal writing for educational use impressed me. Since this world is becoming more and more digital, students also need to learn multimodal writing to follow this trend. But I think you are right by saying the “writing to learn” process. Students need to be aware of what they are learning and what it’s for .
1. Yes, I think the blog writing for this course is a good example of multimodal writing. I enjoy the process of creating text along with image and video, and design the text colour and format, to make it more attractive and reader-friendly. As is mentioned in the blog, the copyright issue can be challenging. We find that the pictures available online for free are often in low quality, and it’s hard to gain the permission from the authors if we choose those with authorship.
2. From my perspective, multimodal writing allows students to make more personalized and creative compositions with images, videos, music, drawings, graphic charts and so on. It is beneficial to their development of digital literacies, and will be helpful for students to write articles posted on official WeChat account or other social media in the future, if they engage in the field of online publicity.
Hi! Ellen, thanks for your reply. I agree with you that multimodal writing is more reader-friendly as the main points are easy to catch with lots of illustrations. I also understand that copyright issues can sometimes pose a barrier for digital users to obtain valuable resources directly. However, it is copyright that gives writers motivation to be creative. And although we can’t get some pictures for free sometimes, it doesn’t mean that we can’t draw on the ideas behind these products either, we can still use these informative ideas to aid our own digital design. Do you agree with me?
Writing blogs in this course can be thought of as my experience in multimodal writing. I think this kind of writing is more free becasue it permits the use of different sources in the form of visual, audio, and so forth. And the use of various forms of sources can make the writing more exciting and attractive. But the challenge is how to appropriately use these kinds of sources in writing because the inappropriate use may cause misunderstanding of the content and make the content look confusing. I think multimodal writing can promote language teaching, and it can also help students develop digital literacies. It is also beneficial for their future development, especially in this digital era.
Hi, Shirley! Thanks for your reply. I totally agree that one of the challenges is to identify suitable resources among countless information online. And it may require our reading abilities and resources integration ability to understand the useful content and integrate them into our digital design. However, I think one of the affordances of digital design is that it allows us to do our tasks collaboratively with other members. In this way, maybe we can turn to others when we feel overwhelmed and not confident about the right resources we are looking for! Do you agree?
At university, I wrote essays for students associations on Wechat Official Account several times. That was an amazing experience for me when I found that the articles I wrote got hundreds of views. The first time I finished the article on Wechat Official Account, I felt proud of myself because it looked so great. All the texts, images and videos I put within it were so perfect and I felt myself like an artist. I think the challenge would be that sometimes it’s difficult to find a suitable picture free online to support your idea.
In my opinion, multimodal writing is a good way to trigger students’ imagination. It’s also useful when students step into work in the future since DMC is common and required in the digital age.
Hi, Vickie! Thanks for your reply! You did give us a great example of digital composing. And I agree with you that digital composing is not only beneficial for educational purposes but also for professional purposes as many people in the workplace are required to give presentations to demonstrate their ideas, in that case, they may also need the ability of digital composing.
The closest multimodal writing experience I have was blog writing, when blogs were still new to people many years ago. I like the function of inserting music and videos from other websites. That way, whenever someone reads my blog, they can click on the music, and this makes the whole reading experience better.
Some students are visual learners or aural learners. Multimodal writing might be able to cater to their needs. Another affordance I can think of is it makes expressing an idea more fun, creative, and easier to understand.
Thanks for your replying! Blogging is one of the most typical multimodal composing in our daily life now and I’m also a big fan of posting blogs too. It’s really convenient to insert music and videos, better sharing our feelings and emotions with readers. And I agree with you that multimodal writing meet the needs for different learners. It can be a complementary teaching method for lessons provided in school.
1. Yes, I have got experience. It was a presentation for one of my group designing in my transfer semester in France, we were asked to present in a video to explain what we designed. We filmed the video and finished the dubbing ourselves, some further explanation was in the subtitles. During the presentation, we didn’t speak a lot, just played the video.
2. From my perspective, multimodel writing brings more interest into the language classes as the traditional class is super boring and depressing. It also provides the students with one more choice to express themselves, in a more abundant way.
Hi Xiaohan, it’s really nice to see your reply! Your experience in transfer semester is interesting! But I’m thinking that maybe this kind of composing prevent students from practicing their oral ability, as they basically express their thoughts and ideas through the products of multimodal writing and speaking less. I agree with you that multimodal writing offers our learners a much more fun lessons than we have now. Especially for those who are shy, they may feel free to express themselves.
When I was a sophomore in university, my teacher assigned us a project to produce a video about the differences between Chinese and western etiquette. As I participated as a character who performed in the video, I needed to practice the manners many times, which allowed me to learn the cultural knowledge naturally and impressively. Meanwhile, I noticed that it was challenging for us to write the script and edit videos without any guidance or information resources. Therefore, I should say that the affordances of DMC could be better achieved in formal educational contexts when teachers play a role in leading students to teaching resources and digital tools. In doing so, teachers, on the one hand, serve as a model of collecting, evaluating and managing online information. On the other hand, the DMC project does not deviate from the purpose of cultivating learning independence.
Hi Connie, thanks for your reply! Your experience of playing a role in your video is so exciting! I guess you must have learned a lot from this experience. I think you’re right about the contexts of implementing DMC. Just like the two sides of one coin. Multimodal composing can play a role in language learning. Since DMC should be completed under the network environment, students may get distracted by various online resources and information easily. Also they need teachers’ guidance concerning how to use digital tools and obtain materials from the proper channels.
I once wrote book reviews and shared my experience via WeChat public account. I need to think about many detailed things about my article. For example, I need to choose pictures, background music, decide font and dividing lines. It is a complex but exciting experience. The most challenging thing for me is that I cannot get many responses except from my friends in real life.
Firstly, students will be motivated. They can choose a field they are really interested in and a platform they connect to every day. Besides, through interaction with their readers (or followers), they will learn to express more precisely (to avoid ambiguity or conflict).
Hi, Shireen, thank you for your reply! I agree with you that writing on WeChat public account requires lots of work on designing the layout and choosing matching pictures and sounds. A well-designed passage could be more reader-friendly than plain words, and the whole process of making it will give us a sense of achievement.
Hi Shireen! Thanks for your sharing! From your experience, I can see that writing book reviews online has many differences from writing with paper. I believe your review must be wonderful. And it’s understandable that when you upload something, you’ll always expect that someone can notice it and give responds to it. Receiving comments from different groups of people can be a motivation for us to create more DMC products. Also communicating with others can help us to come up with some new ideas.
I found that I have tried multimodal writing a lot during my teaching and learning in daily life. I always make a lot of presentations and videos for teaching. I love this kind of writing since I can have more interactions with students and peers. They would also give instant and fruitful response. The only challenge I can think of is to be familiar with different digital tools so as to enhance the fluency in teaching and learning.
General speaking, I think multimodal writing brings a lot of collaborations among students. The teacher-student relationship is closer and the lessons become much more fun, interactive and interesting. Students pay more attention in class and their learning outcomes are quite good as well.
1. Writing the blog in this class is the only experience for me. I think it is more interesting than traditional writing because I can add pictures and hyperlinks to enrich my content. The challenge is how to arrange different elements.
2. There are many affordances of multimodal writing. Firstly, it is interesting and innovative, so learners are motivated to write. Secondly, it also practices learners’ digital skills.
Posting articles on WeChat official account would be regarded as one of my multimodal writing experiences. I would integrate images, audio and videos with my writing process to make it more visually attractive for my readers. However, the multimodal process is ineffective as it takes time to search or produce relevant visual materials. Also, too much multimodal design would distract readers from comprehending the writing content. Most readers would focus too much on visual materials instead of composition, which is not conducive for their writing and reading skills. When it comes to my pedagogical experience, I will apply multimodal design into the brainstorming part which is one of the steps of writing, as I think it would motivate learners to develop more ideas.
Hi, Silver, thank you for the reply. I think you are right that teachers should teach students how to use multimodal design wisely to convey their thinking clearly and attract readers to read, instead of paying more attention to the visual effects. However, multimodal design requires lots of preparation. Assigning this project as homework for the weekend may give students more time to finish. That’s just my suggestion. Have a good day!
1. I used to post announcements and notifications about sports meetings, class meetings, healthcare, fire prevention, and disaster prevention on my school account on Meipian (美篇) to update students’ school life. Parents will comment and communicate with me there. I found it is helpful to let more people know about our school， and this method is quite popular among parents.
2.Based on my experience, multimodal writing can be applied in after-class activities or assigned as a homework of the summer/winter holiday to help students explore their interests in learning a language and express themselves.
Hi, Willa! Thank you for letting us know your experience of posting on Meipian. It reminds me of my teacher in middle school who did the same thing as you did. She wrote things about our school life and posted pictures accordingly. Ten years past, I can still find the website, and it’s really touching when I read these posts. I think one of the biggest strengths of multimodal design is that it attracts readers to review it and helps us recall the vivid memory of making it.
Writing articles on Wechat social platform is probably one of the experience of multimodal writing. Putting photos and using the tools to make the writing more attractive. The pictures and audios can make it presented in diverse way.
But it does takes more time than the conventional writing. Sometimes, finding pictures and other modes cost more time than composing the text, which I believe is quite challenging and makes me think whether it can help improve the writing skill.
For the first question, I do have some multimodal writing experience. Both in the role of student and teacher, multimodal writing skills really matter. And the typical representative form must be PowerPoints, which need not only words and sentences, but images, audio material and hypertext of other relevant information (like you demonstrated above). Especially, when you are playing the role of teacher, you cannot just text everything on the slides because young students easily get distracted if there is no visual or audio stimulus.
For the second question, from my perspective, the most significant advantage of multimodal writing on educational use is that it allows students to get access to knowledge from multi-angles. The presentation of knowledge is not plain and two-dimensional texts anymore, and multimodal writing enables much audio and visual stimulus simultaneously. Plus, the advent of hypertext can link expanding understandings of relevant topics, which can definitely promote students’ all-round development and echo the promotion of ‘quality education’ policy.
Recently, I have been working on an online story book for primary 4 students. It involves the inclusion of audio, picture and other interactive functions. The main challenge is that the illustration and audio have to be tailor-made which involve a lot of human resources. High quality softwares are usually paid, meaning that it may not be accessible to most colleagues unless the school purchase an account collectively.
A typical benefit of multimodality is that it can cater for the learners’ diversity of students. Different types of learners (Audio, kinaesthetic and visual) can access the ebook with different means. Also, weaker students can make use of the extra scaffolding to acquire a more comprehensive understanding of the text while stronger learners can use the addition information provided by the ebook to challenge themselves.
1. Yes, I had some quite memorable experiences in multimodal writing when the pandemic surfaced in 2020. At the time, all face-to-face classes at school were suspended, and parents were not allowed to enter the school premises to conduct parent activities or workshops. So the parent teacher association (PTA) had to come up with a way to deliver cooking and arts & crafts workshops using an online mode. So we decided to record four multimodal videos and turn them into four separate YouTube links that could be conveniently shared by the school and easily reach our parents amidst the pandemic.
This project was a novel way for the PTA to reach out to the parents, and it required the PTA members to be knowledgeable with using technological resources, platforms and tools and be able to fix any technical hiccups encountered along the way. So were worried yet thrilled at the thought of overcoming obstacles and turning ourselves into mama YouTubers. As I was in charge of this project from scratch, I took on a proactive role in planning, design, sourcing of technological gadgets, dessert recipes and food ingredients, art materials and, most important of all, finding a user-friendly video maker app that could turn our project into a decent, if not professional, video presentation. Using Microsoft’s HD Movie Maker Pro, I was able to compile video recordings (of our parents playing the roles of chefs), written scripts and recipes, images, ppt slides and even licensed soundtracks into one perfect video. Behind the final product, however, were numerous failed attempts at recording, several retakes, tons of script revisions, voice-overs for missing scripts, footage editing, soundtrack violations due to royalty issues, and many more. What’s more, not all members were keen on presenting in front of the camera, so we were liberal and let each member sign up for a role they were comfortable with.
2. I believe that multimodal writing for educational purposes can bring affordances to students who have a range of abilities. I have seen my Grade 5 student put together a PYP (the IB curriculum) multimodal video equipped with pop-up and fleeting images, soundtracks and texts using iMovie. Since he has learning difficulties and finds writing long paragraphs very challenging and intimidating, being afforded this medium and option worked to his advantage, made him feel included and boosted his confidence and self-esteem.
1. Last semester, I wrote travel narratives and supplemented the text with images in one of my courses. Similarly, I also wrote a blog post, which includes text and pictures. I think the supplement of images makes the work more attractive than simply using words since images can easily catch the audience’s eyes and make it easy for the readers to understand the content. As for the challenges of multimodal composition, I found that finding pictures that can fit the text is not an easy task and I need to consider copyright of the pictures that I intend to use.
2. I think multimodel writing is conducive to students’ autonomy because they need to search for images and find ways to edit a video. And they would be more motivated to do multimodel writing since they are given opportunities to try something that they have never done before, such as recording audio, editing video and so on.
I’ve had some experiences of multimodal writing recently. One is publishing some travel notes on Wechat, which is engaging but a bit time-consuming. To make my travel notes more attractive and reader-friendly, i tend to add some pictures, videos and music. All these multimodal features allow a freer and more creative expression, and give me a sense of accomplishment after finishing the products. However, it can be a tough job sometimes. At first, I learned how to publish my work on the social media, mainly focusing on the format. Then I tried to edit the images to make them more attractive. Finally i learned how to edit videos using some online software, which can be really grueling. All in all, it’s a fantastic experience as I not only develop my technological skills but a digital identity to reach out audience online.
As for the implications for pedagogy, my take on this is that it’s appropriate for learners who have a good command of digital tools. Otherwise, it can be really challenging and discourage learners.
I experienced multimodal writing in my university years. Our team needs to make an educational video for the field trip. We enjoyed to explore the culture and interact with the local citizens. However, it was our first time to make a video, so we spent a lot of time to complete the script (captions), recording and editing. After that experience, we can make the new one quickly.
The multimodal writing can allow students to think out-of-the-box. We can be creative and open-minded. Comparing with the traditional writing, learners will also have higher motivation to finish the writing.