A Multimodal Analysis of Critical Learning Episodes in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

Analyzing classroom interaction offers a very compelling opportunity to expand our understanding of how learning is fostered in the L2 classroom (Gardner, 2019; Walsh, 2006). Several studies have explored how teacher-student interaction supports L2 learning; however, most of these studies examine classroom interaction predominantly from a monomodal and/or linguocentric perspective. Yet, teaching practices in support of L2 learning can only be fully understood by considering the constant interplay of the different modes of communication (Pennycook, 1985). Jewitt (2008) argues that “from decades of classroom language research, much is known about the semiotic resources of language; however, considerably less is understood about the semiotic potentials of gesture, sound, image, movement, and other forms of representation” (p. 246). Thus, based on sociocognitive theory (Atkinson, 2019) and multimodal social semiotics (Jewitt, 2011; Kress, 2010; van Leeuwen, 2005), this study aims to examine how multimodal teacher-student interactions facilitate L2 Critical Learning Episodes (CLEs)— understood as brief instances of classroom interaction where the instructor and the researcher believe that learning --as a process of participation and engagement with L2 environments, thus not purely mental-- is being fostered or inhibited. Five EFL classrooms with their corresponding teachers and students at a private Colombian University were recruited for this qualitative multiple-case study. The data set includes five video-recorded EFL lessons, five stimulated recall interviews, and some teaching-learning materials used in these classrooms. The videotaped lessons were analyzed within a Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis framework (Norris, 2004, 2016, 2019, 2020). Besides speech and writing, findings reveal that modes such as gestures, posture and proxemics, gaze, and head movement played not a marginal but a prominent role in performing critical pedagogical functions such as enhancing shared/focused attention, strengthening alignment, helping teachers and learners to visually make meaning about morphological, syntactical, and lexical units, and serving as devices to check/show understanding.