Incorporating digital multimodal composing through collaborative action research: challenges and coping strategies

ABSTRACT

Despite the increasing evidence illustrating the benefits teachers can reap from incorporating digital multimodal composing (DMC) into classrooms through collaborative action research (CAR), scant attention has been given to how teachers collaborate with each other, what challenges they may encounter and how they cope with such challenges in CAR. This study examines four English teachers’ experiences of incorporating DMC in a university-based English curriculum in China. The findings demonstrate that the teachers experienced difficulties in relation to establishing relevance, being digital novices, catering for students’ diversified composing needs, and an institutional failure to recognise the increased workload. In response to the challenges, the teachers adopted five major coping strategies during CAR, which afforded an agentive space for the teachers to engage with DMC. The study has implications for how the pedagogic use of technology-mediated literacy practices such as DMC can be better supported in mainstream curricula.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital multimodal composing
• collaborative action research
• challenges
• coping strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study is supported by the Department of Education, Fujian province, China [FBJG20190086].

Notes on contributors

Lianjiang Jiang

Lianjiang Jiang is Assistant Professor at Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, China. His research interests include digital multimodal composing, new literacy studies and second-language writing. His publications have appeared in international journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Journal of Second Language Writing, Language Teaching Research, Computer Assisted Language Learning and Assessing Writing.

Shulin Yu

Shulin Yu is Associate Professor at Faculty of Education, University of Macau, China. His research interests include second-language writing and second-language education. His publications have appeared in international journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Journal of Second Language Writing, Language Teaching Research, Language Teaching and Assessing Writing.

Yi Zhao

Yi Zhao is Associate Professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Jimei University, China. Her research interests include second-language teaching and teacher learning. She has published in international journals such as Language Teaching Research, ELT Journal and Technology, Pedagogy and Education.