Harnessing multimodality in language teacher education: expanding English-dominant teachers’ translanguaging capacities through a Multimodalities Entextualization Cycle

ABSTRACT

This qualitative case study (Yin, [2014]. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. 5th Ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.) emerged from our effort to support teachers, who predominantly identify as monolingual speakers, in learning about translanguaging through a less-explored facet of translanguaging: multimodality. Drawing upon Bezemer and Kress’s (2016) social semiotic framework for multimodal analysis and Lin’s, [2019]. “Theories of Trans/Languaging and Trans-Semiotizing: Implications for Content-Based Education Classrooms.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 22 (1): 5–16. doi:10.1080/13670050.2018.1515175.) Multimodalities Entextualization Cycle (MEC), we ask: ‘What did integration of multimodal resources contribute to pre- and in-service teachers’ learning about translanguaging in an online asynchronous course within an English as a Second Language teacher education program at a Midwest U.S. university?’ Through multimodal analysis (Jewitt 2017), we analyzed the texts teachers created in response to four multimodal tasks; this included analyzing semiotic meaning conveyed through the multiple modes teachers integrated in their responses. We also compared broader patterns in their cumulative learning about translanguaging as a part of an MEC. Our findings suggest that envisioning a cycle of multimodal learning tasks can provide predominantly monolingual-identifying teachers with means to expand their own dynamic repertoires as they make sense of translanguaging. We conclude with recommendations for how language teacher educators can harness multimodal resources to expand teachers’ capacity to enact translanguaging as an equity-based pedagogy of hope. (194 words)

KEYWORDS:

• language teacher education
• translanguaging
• multimodality
• case study
• multimodal analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Deroo and Ponzio (2019), p. 7

2 Hereinafter, we refer to pre-service and in-service teacher participants collectively as “teachers” to distinguish them from students in their K-12 classrooms.

3 Only upon first mention of each participant do we specify whether they are pre- or in-service teachers; readers can also refer back to Table 2 for reference.

4 Juchitan is an indigenous town in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christina M. Ponzio

Christina M. Ponzio is a lecturer at University of Michigan and University of Washington-Bothell. Her work investigates how teacher educators, teachers, and learners negotiate their language identities with broader ideologies in traditionally English-medium spaces to enact translanguaging as critical praxis.

Matthew R. Deroo

Matthew R. Deroo is Assistant Professor of Digital Literacies for Multilingual Students at the University of Miami. His interdisciplinary research centers around three lines of inquiry: supporting immigrant youth from a translanguaging perspective, multimodal theoretical framing in teacher learning, and community engaged scholarship.