Language Learning with Multimodality

In the midst of this growing research on multimodality and interest in pedagogy, researchers and educators alike understand how technologies and multimodal texts are changing the representations of meaning and expanding our communication practices. Therefore, multimodal and digital texts present significant challenges to the schooling system in which assessment is strictly based on the success of the text of an individual learner. These multimodal texts include words and images are produced through different media of communication, for example: the computer: internet information and PowerPoint presentation; paper-based texts: picture books, magazines, novels, information books; sound and visual media: radio, television and DVDs (Burke & Hammett, 2009). Whatever the medium of communication, multimodal texts are made of different combinations of modes: gestures and/or movement; images: moving and still, diagrammatic or representational; sound: spoken words, sound effects, and music; writing or print, including typographical elements of font type, size, and shape. Consequently, these multimodal texts created in a collaborative space challenge schools, curriculum, and teachers to “rethink traditional practices and to change mindsets (Burke & Hammett, 2009, p. 2). 

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According to Hammett and Burke  (2009), reading multimodal texts is already a part of the formal language and literacy curriculum and appears sometimes within current tests and examinations under the guise of “comprehension” (p.17). However, Hammett and Burke (2009) argue that composing or creating multimodal texts does not appear at all in English tests, since assessing multidimensional texts is not seen as possible within current frameworks used for national tests of writing ability. Assessment in schools is usually paper-based, usually involves reading and writing, and most often measures individual achievement.

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Therefore, assessing multimodal texts have resulted in challenges and questions related to the nature of the texts as well as practical difficulties. When defining these multimodal texts in terms of schools texts, they do not neatly fit into the current genres taught in school (Hammett and Burke, 2009). Part of these challenges are questions related to the fairness of assessing these multimodal texts. These questions rise especially in assessing the multimodal in large scale assessments, in which large numbers of students are assessed across departments, institutions, states, or countries often for diagnostic or proficiency purposes (Poe, 2013). Baldwin (2012) explains that in the measurement community, fairness means “assessment procedures that measure the same thing for all test takers regardless of their membership in an identified subgroup” (p. 328). Therefore, fairness is about ensuring the lack of bias and ensuring that assessments are accessible for all texts.

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Other challenges are linked to national administered testing which usually depend on material being taken away and assessed at a different place and time from the classroom in which it was written. The work then can be described, commented on, and assessed at a distance, which is a problem for multimodality, as writing is considered only part of a multimodal text (Hammett and Burke, 2009). (Kalantzis, Cope, & Harvey, 2003) As cited in Hammett and Burke (2009), argue that successful learners will need to be flexible, collaborative, and versatile. For this to happen not only will curricula need to be differently conceived and shaped but also will teaching and learning need to reflect greater diversity of approaches and texts. As a result, assessment of multimodal texts brings new responsibilities to teachers and program administrators when considering to make multimodal texts assessment fair and reliable for all students.

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