ESP For Ecotourism: Discourse Skills,Technology,And Collaboration For Job Contexts

This capstone’s primary aim was to design a companion instructional guide for teachers of English for Specific Purposes for ecotourism professionals in Mexico. It identified gaps left by traditional EFL courses that tend to lack strong connections between language instruction and real-world job requirements for English usage. It looked at curricular reform efforts in other world regions with the intention to innovate ESP instruction in Mexico. Findings include recommendations for student-centered curricula that incorporate multimodal learning activities and authentic contexts for tourism jobs. Multiliteracies pedagogy drove the creation of the instructional guide’s components, which provide support in conducting small-group projects to develop interactive discourse, online research, and digital design skills within communities of practice. The guide includes resources, materials, and instructions to conduct needs analysis, foster mutual support, build collaboration among stakeholders, facilitate situated practice with applied technology, and increase knowledge for cross-cultural communication

BEYOND TRADITIONAL LITERACIES: A MULTIMODAL-BASED INSTRUCTION TO FOSTERING STUDENT DIGITAL LITERACY LEARNING

The fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) marked by artificial intelligence and cyber-physical systems has transformed the landscape of education including English literacy instruction. Some literacy educators claim that the success of students’ today as millennial kids (Gen-Zs) and future employees has been linked to digital literacy. This term is defined as the skills associated with using digital technology to enable users to locate, organize, understand, evaluate and create information and using those skills to solve problems in technology-rich environments. This study attempts to investigate the extent to which multimodal pedagogy helps improve students’ digital literacy skills in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) setting in a vocational higher education. A theoretical multimodal semiotic approach along with multiliteracies pedagogy is served as the overarching guideline in the overall instructional procedures grounded specifically from the principles of learner-centeredness, constructivist learning, and social interaction. A qualitative case study approach was adopted to provide an in-depth explication and analysis of students’ literacy development. Data collection included classroom observations and students’ digital artefacts. In the course of the study, the students were engaged in the creation of two digital projects of different genres: digital information report in the form of text-image creation and digital persuasive talk in the form digital video production. The key findings of this study suggest that multimodal pedagogy is an effective instructional method for digital literacy learning in that several aspects of digital literacy had proven to be significantly improved

Harnessing multimodal literacy for knowledge dissemination in ESP settings

Ongoing progress in digital technology continues to have a growing impact in all areas of life and the field of language teaching is no exception. With particular reference to ESP, it is now crucially important to incorporate multimodal digital resources in the classroom that can be leveraged to help learners construct knowledge in specialized discourse domains and exploit the interplay of verbal and non-verbal meanings for a deeper understanding. Towards this goal, researchers at the University of Pisa have compiled a multimodal corpus of video clips representing disciplinary areas of particular interest to ESP students (i.e., business/economics, political science, law, medicine, tourism), as well as a variety of web-mediated genres that can be adapted for classroom use, including OpenCourseWare lectures, TED Talks, and digitally available films, television series, documentaries, interviews, and docu-tours. This contribution provides an overview of the methodological issues involved in designing, collecting, and analysing a multimodal corpus to be exploited by linguists and practitioners working in ESP in higher education

Digital innovations in online articles in the field of Chemistry: Implications for the teaching of genre and new academic and digital literacies

Este trabajo pretende identificar las innovaciones digitales presentes en tres revistas de Química, considerar sus propósitos retóricos y examinar por qué aparecen en la comunicación académica en línea. El corpus se utilizó con fines pedagógicos en la Universidad de Creta para identificar las habilidades y los retos que los estudiantes de Química necesitaban o afrontaban, respectivamente, al componer, analizar, deconstruir y comparar géneros similares. Se analizaron las percepciones de profesores, jóvenes investigadores y estudiantes para descifrar sus prioridades y necesidades. A partir del análisis de cuatro conjuntos de datos, entre ellos un corpus de artículo de investigación, cuestionarios, entrevistas e informes de reflexión en voz alta, se extrajeron implicaciones para la enseñanza de los géneros y las nuevas alfabetizaciones académicas y digitales, de modo que los profesores de ESP y EAP puedan tomar decisiones informadas sobre el diseño de los cursos, la pedagogía de los géneros y cómo pueden fomentar las alfabetizaciones académicas digitales utilizando publicaciones académicas. Los resultados sugieren que las innovaciones digitales en las revistas de Química, dependiendo de cómo las abordemos, entendamos, remediemos (reutilicemos) y utilicemos (como productores o usuarios de contenidos), pueden afectar a la forma en que nos relacionamos con otros miembros de la comunidad (miembros de la comunidad de discurso o comunidad de práctica), la forma en que percibimos la comunicación académica, cómo "hacemos" comunicación académica y cómo negociamos nuestras formas de ser y hacer dentro de un ecosistema de género establecido pero en constante cambio.<br /

Multimodal Teaching Practices for EFL Teacher Education: An Action Based Research Study

The focus of this research is to examine the literacy practices of EFL teaching and learning in an education course from a multiliteracies and multimodality perspective. A case study consisting 24 pre-service teachers and 8 in-service school teachers who were enrolled in a Masters of Education programme at a private college in India were selected for the research. The researchers of this study describe how they designed and executed the aforementioned teaching concerns in India using two multimodal techniques for pre-service and in-service teacher education programs. Results of the study reveal that introducing multimodal techniques into teacher education, particularly among EFL teachers, is a challenging experience. It is as a result of these considerations that the approach takes into account difficulties such as teacher reluctance to adopt multimodal practises, as well as challenges related to instructional and philosophical issues. The researchers offer suggestions for developing techniques as well as a roadmap for future EFL teacher education and training

IMPLEMENTING MULTILITERACIES PEDAGOGY TO FOSTER STUDENTS’ MULTIMODAL LITERACY IN A TECHNOLOGY-SUPPORTED ESP COURSE: A CASE STUDY IN AN INDONESIA POLYTECHNIC CLASSROOM

The rapid changes of information and communication technologies bring new literacy landscape which requires teachers to realign, reconceptualize, and reform their pedagogical frameworks to assist learners to acquire knowledge and skills in handling and transforming knowledge and information gained from these multimodal resources and apply that knowledge in their social contexts. In the context of English language education, multiliteracies pedagogy was offered as a promising solution to bring in line with these educational demands. This study attempts to explore the potentials of multiliteracies approach in developing students’ multimodal literacy in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classroom in a higher vocational education in Banjarmasin. The theoretical construct of multiliteracies was deployed as the basis for setting up the pedagogical practices in that the instructional procedures carried out in the classroom strictly adhere to the principles of this theory. To obtain a detailed and comprehensive account of the implemented teaching program, a qualitative case study design was applied. The participants of this study were 30 semester two students of Informatics Engineering taking English as their compulsory subject. To establish trustworthiness of the research results, multiple sources of data collections were utilized including classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, open-ended questionnaires, students’ written reflections, and students’ artefacts. The data gained from these research instruments were qualitatively analyzed through thematic and categorical coding. The findings of this study suggest that multiliteracies pedagogy helped ESP learners to develop multimodal literacy in several ways. Firstly, despite the challenges encountered during the implementation, the multiliteracies teaching program to some extent was able to elevate students’ competences in viewing (observing and comprehending) and composing multimodal texts and disseminating those texts publicly through digital media. Secondly, students in varying degree had the ability to recognize and orchestrate design elements of multimodal texts that include words (linguistic mode), visual and moving images (non-linguistic mode). In terms of linguistic mode, students were likely able to produce comprehensible sentences and articulate their ideas in a logical manner regardless their inappropriate selections of lexical terms and inaccuracy of grammar usage. In terms of non-linguistic mode, students were able to demonstrate their understanding of the typical functions that each mode serves. Lastly, the enactment of multiliteracies pedagogy could likely empower students to be creative and independent in their ESP learning. In respect to students’ perceptions, the multiliteracies teaching program was perceived to be very engaging and motivating and able to improve their English competence and digital skills. This study informs that the multiliteracies pedagogy is a powerful pedagogy to be implemented in ESP context and in that implementing this pedagogy is timely for learners who are nowadays surrounded by a technology-saturated and an image-rich environment

Introduction: The nexus of multimodality, multimodal literacy, and English language teaching in research and practice in higher education settings

The aims of this Special Issue are to (1) advance the current state of research-based knowledge about how multimodal and multimedia resources can be leveraged to enhance multimodal communication practices in English language teaching in higher education, and (2) to provide a platform for original research-based practical applications that incorporate innovative multisemiotic resources and techniques, thereby offering new perspectives on the benefits of the multimodal approach when teaching English for both general and specific purposes at the university level. In the following section, we discuss the role of multimodal literacy in the context of enhancing language proficiency as the underlying objective of English language practitioners

A study of cohesion in international postgraduate Business students’ multimodal written texts: an SF-MDA of a key topic in finance

Empirical research studies of finance students’ language use have investigated students’ performance in finance courses and the effect of class attendance on students’ performance.Similarly, research on accounting students’ texts has been directed at readability of accounting narratives and lexical choices. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) based research in multimodal communication and representation has been confined to school and workplace contexts. Whereas multimodal communication investigations in tertiary contexts has been conducted across the fields of mathematics, science and computing, and nursing, business courses have not been explored. The purpose of this paper is to report on a case study designed to investigate the key multimodal academic literacy and numeracy practices of ten international Master of Commerce Accounting students enrolled at an Australian university. Specifically, it aims to provide an account of the salient textual and the logical patterns through the analysis of cohesive devices in a key topic in the Principles of Finance course, namely capital budgeting techniques and management reports. This study is pertinent as most international ESL/EFL students’ enrolments in Australia and elsewhere is in business programs. This study is underpinned by Halliday’s (1985) Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach to language and Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) cohesion analysis scheme. The study employs a Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) for the analysis of cohesive devices in the participants’ multimodal texts. Lexical cohesion formed the largest percentage of use, and in particular repetition of the same lexical items, followed by reference.The findings contribute to the description of the meaning-making processes in these multimodal artefacts. They provide a potential research tool for similar investigations across a broad range of educational settings. Implications of the findings for finance students and educators are finally presented

Multiliteracies for academic purposes : a metafunctional exploration of intersemiosis and multimodality in university textbook and computer-based learning resources in science

This thesis is situated in the research field of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in education and within a professional context of multiliteracies for academic purposes. The overall aim of the research is to provide a metafunctional account of multimodal and multisemiotic meaning-making in print and electronic learning materials in first year science at university. The educational motivation for the study is to provide insights for teachers and educational designers to assist them in the development of students’ multiliteracies, particularly in the context of online learning environments. The corpus comprises online and CD-ROM learning resources in biology, physics and chemistry and textbooks in physics and biology, which are typical of those used in undergraduate science courses in Australia. Two underlying themes of the research are to compare the different affordances of textbook and screen formats and the disciplinary variation found in these formats. The two stage research design consisted of a multimodal content analysis, followed by a SF-based multimodal discourse analysis of a selection of the texts. In the page and screen formats of these pedagogical texts, the analyses show that through the mechanisms of intersemiosis, ideationally, language and image are reconstrued as disciplinary knowledge. This knowledge is characterised by a high level of technicality in image and verbiage, by taxonomic relations across semiotic resources and by interdependence among elements in the image, caption, label and main text. Interpersonally, pedagogical roles of reader/learner/viewer/ and writer/teacher/designer are enacted differently to some extent across formats through the different types of activities on the page and screen but the source of authority and truth remains with the teacher/designer, regardless of format. Roles are thus minimally negotiable, despite the claims of interactivity in the screen texts. Textually, the organisation of meaning across text and image in both formats is reflected in the layout, which is determined by the underlying design grid and in the use of graphic design resources of colour, font, salience and juxtaposition. Finally, through the resources of grammatical metaphor and the reconstrual of images as abstract, both forms of semiosis work together to shift meanings from congruence to abstraction, into the specialised realm of science