Teaching and Learning: Beyond language

As conceptions of communication shift from a single focus on language to the full repertoire of communicational resources (e.g. image, action, sound), this paper challenges the assumption that learning and teaching are primarily linguistic accomplishments. Through an example of school-based teaching, we show that classroom texts are realised through the interaction of different 'modes' of communication (organised, regular, socially specific means of representation). That is, they are multimodal: Action and image are not mere illustrations to language, rather each realises specific representational work. Further we suggest that learning is a multimodal process, and goes beyond language. We conclude that multimodality presents a new challenge to current teacher education and the evaluation of learning.