Multimodality Talks Series: What Can Multimodality Offer for Education?

Day:  25 February 2022

Time: 12:00 – 13:30 GMT

Place: online

Speaker: Victor Lim Fei, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

To attend the talk, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.se/e/multimodality-talks-series-victor-lim-fei-tickets-249099412047

Abstract

The “multimodal turn” (Jewitt, 2009) in education is a recognition that the sole focus on language in literacy learning is inadequate and needs to be broadened to include multimodal meaning-making (New London Group, 1996). In this talk, I reflect on the implications of multimodal research on learning and teaching in the school context. Drawing on the work of social semiotics (Kress, 2010), I discuss the implications they bring to curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment practices. By way of example, I discuss the findings from my research project on integrating multiliteracies into the English language classroom in Singapore and highlight the importance of designing opportunities for students’ multimodal meaning-making in the classroom (Lim, Towndrow & Tan, 2021). I also discuss the importance of assessing multimodal literacy (Unsworth, Cope & Nicolls, 2019; Lim & Tan, 2021) to ensure alignment between curricular goals and assessment practices as well as how we can recognise and value students’ designs as learning (Kress & Selander, 2012). I argue that incorporating multimodal literacy in the curriculum, supporting the teachers’ multimodal pedagogies, and rethinking assessment practices are ways to meet the literacy demands in the contemporary communicative environment and address the inequities that may accompany new literacy practices (Lim, Cope & Kalantzis, forthcoming).

References

Jewitt, C. (2009) (Ed.). The Routledge handbook of multimodal analysis. Routledge.

Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality – A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Routledge.

Kress, G. & Selander, S. (2012). Multimodal design, learning and cultures of recognition. The Internet and Higher Education, 15(4), 265-268.

Lim, F.V., Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (forthcoming) A pedagogic metalanguage of transposition for learning: Mediating invisible inequities in the digital age. Frontiers in Communication. 

Lim, F.V., Towndrow, P.A., & Tan, J.M. (2021). Unpacking the teachers’ multimodal pedagogies in the Singapore primary English language classroom. RELC Journal.

Lim, F.V., & Tan, J.M. (2021). Curriculum and assessment mismatch: Examining the role of images in literacy assessments. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. 44(3), 22-33.

New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-93.

Unsworth, L., Cope, J., & Nicholls, L. (2019). Multimodal Literacy and Large-scale Literacy Tests: Curriculum Relevance and Responsibility. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 42(2), 128-139.

Bionote

Fei Victor Lim is Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He researches and teaches on multiliteracies, multimodal discourse analyses, and digital learning. Victor has experience as Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator of several research grants. He is an editor of Multimodality and Society and an associate editor of Asia Pacific Journal of Education, and Designs for Learning. Victor is author of the book Designing Learning with Embodied Teaching: Perspectives from Multimodality published in the Routledge Studies in Multimodality in 2021 and a forthcoming book with Lydia Tan-Chia, Designing Learning for Multimodal Literacy: Teaching Viewing and Representing.

You’ll receive the link to join the meeting upon registration.