The 9th International Conference on English Language Teaching (ELT) In China (ELT2020)

Pedagogically, the application of multimodality in classrooms involves semiotic resources from all senses available, which makes it possible to include perceptual elements beyond teachers' verbal outputs to attract students' attention as well as stimulate their interest. Consequently, it efficiently improves the students' learning outcome. Past research has centered on the effects of multimodal teaching on language education; yet, few studies have shifted their focus onto the implementer of multimodal pedagogy: teachers. This research project aims at a higher-order study regarding teachers' conceptual awareness of multimodality and their strategies in implementing the multimodal conception in language teaching context. Specifically, a qualitative case study of 5 English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers is deployed to survey the in-class application of multimodality with data collected from lesson video recordings and semi-structured interviews. Using multimodal discourse analysis, this study looks closely into the actual selection and configuration of modalities in classrooms as well as teachers’ perception, experience and evaluation of multimodal teaching to see if there is an overall consistency between EFL teachers' understanding of the nature of modalities and their utilization of modalities in practice. This study hypothesizes that a more thorough understanding of teachers' preference in implementing multimodality is crucial in the development of effective language teaching methodology. From a theoretical perspective, deriving parameters for multimodal language teaching evaluation can potentially lead us to find out reliable indicators for effective language education and teacher training in general.

multimodal discourse analysis,discourse analysis,language education