Embracing Multimodal Resources in Teaching English and Other Languages at a HE Institution
Abstract
Although multimodality is not a novel concept in language teaching, its strategic application continues to evolve and expand. The study intends to extend the current body of literature on multimodality in language teaching by focusing on the strategic use of multimodal resources for teaching English (as an L2) and other foreign languages (as L3 and/or L4) through the lens of teachers’ beliefs about their value in teaching a certain skill. An anonymous questionnaire, featuring both open-ended and closed-ended questions, alongside semi-structured interviews, was used to investigate the strategic utilization of multimodal resources among two groups of language educators at a public university in Lithuania. The study aims to explore the following: which multimodal resources the two groups use, what criteria the teachers set to select those resources, what objectives the resources help to achieve while teaching linguistic skills and competences, and what benefits and potential drawbacks they can identify based on their experience. Naturally, a comparative approach is employed to explore similarities and differences regarding pedagogical opportunities and implications that the use of visual, auditory, digital, and /or other multimodal resources brings to students and educators in a foreign language classroom.
Key words
Higher education; multimodality; L2, L3; language teaching.
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