Where multimodal literacy meets online language learner autonomy: “Digital resources give us wings”

Hauck, M; Satar, M; Kurek, M

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-74958-3_5

Where multimodal literacy meets online language learner autonomy: “Digital resources give us wings”

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Müge Satar ORCiD

Downloads

Accepted version [.pdf]

Licence

This is the authors' accepted manuscript of a book chapter that has been published in its final definitive form by Springer, 2021.

For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.

Abstract

The growing popularity of multimodal resources in technology-mediated learning and teaching practices has brought to the fore the issue of learners’ competencies in interpreting, employing and interacting with various semiotic resources, of which language is just one (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001). This is best captured by the concept of multimodal literacy, understood as participants’ awareness of the affordances of available modes to enable “transformative engagement” (Bezemer & Kress, 2016) with a wide range of meaning making resources/sign making systems. In this chapter we explore the meaning-making processes of learners participating in Virtual Exchange and using the available multimodal resources for the presentation of self. The core constructs that provide the background to our study come from the field of social semiotics. In line with Kress (2010), we conceptualize online language learners and teachers who display semiotic awareness as autonomous sign makers representing their ideas through multiple modalities. As we argue, learners who are aware of semiotic resources of different modes and are capable of engaging with them in an informed, transformative way, exercise enhanced levels of autonomy. Throughout the chapter we demonstrate that a task-based approach to multimodal literacy development in Virtual Exchange setting can foster learners’ autonomy in how they engage with available semiotic resources.