Abstract
Although multimodality has received vigorous attention and debate in English as a foreign language (EFL) research and classroom pedagogies, the practicality of using multimodal activities in curricula that are designed to teach language skills rather than multimodality is under researched. This paper contributes to the ongoing need for practical applications of multimodality in classroom contexts by describing how a multimodal video project was introduced into an EFL classroom in a Japanese university. The class was following a communicative curriculum prescribed by the university, which had not previously focused on multimodal approaches. The multimodal project was used to assess student's communicative performance. The students worked in groups to create public service announcement (PSA) videos, with the aim of delivering an informative message to highlight a health or social issue that they felt was important. In the project the students: (1) analysed several PSA videos; (2) researched social and health issues; and (3) worked together to plan, film, and edit a final digital product that was displayed in class for their peers. The authors found that the multimodal project worked successfully as a means of assessing communicative language because it generated a wide range of learning opportunities for improvement in English language proficiency and the students could engage in communicative activities with a high degree of autonomy and motivation. Moreover, students could gain experience communicating through multimodal platforms and improve their understanding of multimodal literacies. However, the multimodal project created challenges for the teacher in how to give effective feedback on students linguistic output as well as their multimodal output within the constraints of a busy language classroom.
Keywords
Introduction
A shift to multimodal approaches is necessary to ensure that language curricula provide opportunities for learners to develop the skills and literacies necessary for life in the 21st century (Toohey et al., 2015). However, introducing multimodal approaches into skill-based language curriculums that do not explicitly teach multimodality can be challenging. This innovation addresses this challenge by describing how student-created public service announcement (PSA) videos can be used as a multimodal communicative language assessment within a university curriculum that was designed without a multimodal focus. A feature of PSA videos is that they consist of a short, focused message with a clear purpose. Therefore, students could explore multimodality through authentic English texts that dealt with relevant issues to young people in ways that would be manageable during class time.
The Teaching Context
Introduced at J.F. Oberlin University in Tokyo, Japan, this innovation was carried out in a compulsory language curriculum designed to teach listening and speaking skills. The curriculum was designed to create a balance between communicative activities and traditional language testing activities. Usually, teachers assign a group or individual presentation on a social issue as the communicative assessment. The PSA video project was designed to replace the presentation. It was a six-week project made up of 16 stages (Table 1) that ran concurrently with other curricular exercises such as skill-based textbook activities, testing and homework. The class used for the study was a lower intermediate-level (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages A2) first-year class consisting of 24 students, five males and 19 females, with an average age of 20. The class consisted of Japanese students who had studied on average six years of English in Japanese secondary schools before enrolling in university.
Project weeks and stages.
Reason for the Innovation
Presentations as assessment tools are widely used in the university and the students are familiar with the multimodal skills needed to make presentations. The practitioners in this project wanted to widen the potential multimodal skills available to students through the planning, production and making of PSA videos. Rance-Roney (2008) reports how digital based storytelling, which involves using software to combine images and text into a movie-like story, enables students to adopt different kinds of roles (scriptwriter, director and editor) and engages them in a wide variety of skills (researching, writing and presenting and problem solving) that foster language acquisition. A key goal of the communicative curriculum developed by the university is the encouragement of learner autonomy. Early et al. (2015) discussed how, by using multimodal projects, students were given the opportunity to express their own identity and literacy. In addition, Hafner and Miller (2019) demonstrated how using multimodal projects could create learner agency through group work. Another positive benefit that multimodal studies have shown to yield is learner empowerment. Choi and Yi reported that use of technology to integrate multimodality into the classroom can result in the ‘discovery of underexplored potentials and abilities, which leads to an increased sense of achievement’ (Choi and Yi, 2016: 321).
These potential benefits of multimodality projects fully support the communicative language goals developed by the university and they are of particular interest in a compulsory language curriculum because some learners may feel that the study of English is not relevant to their immediate interests and goals. However, introducing innovative multimodal approaches into curriculums with a skill-based focus rather than a multimodal focus can be challenging. Teachers necessarily depend on shared and established educational knowledge, and multimodality is a relatively new field with little shared classroom knowledge about how to teach the non-linguistic modes alongside the linguistic mode (Van Leeuwen, 2015). Furthermore, as Choi and Yi (2016) point out teachers may be initially reluctant to engage with the technology involved in creating digital multimodal projects.
Description of the Innovation
In the project, students were required to: (1) research and analyse health and social issues that are relevant to students of their own age group; and (2) choose one issue and make an original PSA video designed to change students’ attitudes about the issue (Table 2).
Student public service announcement videos.
In the first week (Table 1), to introduce the students to PSA videos and multimodal communication, students analysed and discussed four short PSA videos that the teacher selected on YouTube. Videos were chosen that introduced students to different styles (adverting aesthetic, documentary and narrative). The students were given a worksheet and asked to note the video creators, titles, messages, styles and any logos or slogans. In groups, students compared notes and talked about their findings and reactions. This was followed by a class discussion about how the videos used the different generic styles to persuade viewers, and how the multimodal resources (visuals, sound, language, music and space) were intertextually combined to communicate their messages. The teacher prompted the students to elicit how the videos made the students feel and how the makers of the videos achieved this. For out-of-class work, students were asked to research current social issues that are important to young people in Japan.
In the second week, students began planning their own videos. Students formed eight groups of three and shared and discussed their individual research on current issues from the previous week between themselves before deciding on a group topic. The teacher gave feedback, and each group finalized their topics. In stage 6, project roles were brainstormed as a class – the roles included project leader, video editor, storyboard artist and script writer. Then the groups decided which roles were applicable to their group and students decided their own roles within their group. In stage 7, groups then began a planning sheet on which they created characters and planned a story outline along with writing down any production notes (location, props and costumes).
In the third week, students continued their planning sheet and made a storyboard with dialogue and further production notes as well as working on a script. The teacher monitored their progress, asked questions, and gave advice where appropriate, thereby acting as a mentor to encourage students (Belcher, 2017; Kress and Jewitt, 2003). For out-of-class work, groups scouted shooting locations and began preparations for their video. In the fourth week, stages 9 and 10, the groups presented their ideas to the teacher who critiqued their work and approved the project. The groups were then given time to rehearse. This enabled them to learn their lines and fine-tune their scenes.
In the fifth week, stage 11, the penultimate class, students were given class time to go out and shoot on campus or given the option to shoot at an off-campus location during out-of-class time. The students edited and completed their videos out-of-class. In the sixth week, stages 12, 13 and 14, the final lesson for this project, students submitted their completed videos, planning sheets and storyboards. In stages 13 and 14, the finished videos were projected on a big screen in class. The students noted the topics and styles of the other groups’ videos on a worksheet while watching the videos. In addition, they were asked to choose the best actor, the most interesting video and the most effective video. In stage 15, the worksheets were submitted to the teacher and the winners of each category were announced.
To evaluate the students the teacher graded the videos based on how well linguistic and non-linguistic elements were used to: (1) effectively communicate their message; and (2) create a fully developed final digital product. In addition, students were given individual grades for their performance in the video and the completion of their planning sheets. Students were made aware of the grading criteria and provided with feedback throughout the project. After completion of the project, student's perceptions of the project were evaluated through ‘micro-evaluations’ (Ellis, 2018:. 236). Here, 21 out of the 24 students gave quantitative and qualitative responses to a questionnaire created by the teacher.
Reflection
As detailed in the description of the innovation, the project provided opportunities for autonomous language production and to exert learner agency through group work, which gave the teacher plenty of scope to assess student's abilities. Students worked well together to complete their videos by assuming roles such as director, editor and storyboard artist. The student feedback supported this positive view of the project with 86% of students feeling they had improved their group work skills. Students commented that they could discuss the project effectively in their groups and that they collaborated well with each other: ‘We have to communicate with other people to make videos’ (student 15). ‘Because I can cooperate with group members. We can give opinions [to] each other' (student 11).
Moreover, 86% of the students found the project motivating and they commented on the satisfaction of making videos and watching the videos created by other groups. Students were excited to show their videos to their peers:
‘As well as making our video, watching other groups’ videos was interesting’ (student 10).
‘Everyone made different types of videos. So, I found there are a lot of problems in the world’ (student 4).
The project created opportunities for formal instruction and had a positive effect on students' language production which the teacher could use to create an effective grading matrix in keeping with the goals of the curriculum. In the questionnaire, 72% of students in the class felt that they had improved their understanding of communicating in different genres. Moreover, students felt that the experience of creating a video in English was beneficial. 76% of students felt that they improved their ability to create videos in English and students' comments were positive:
‘It was my first experience that creating movie in English. I had knowledge how to create [a] movie in Japanese. Creating [a] video in English is [a] little different so I could improve my ability’ (student 12).
However, some students may have found it difficult to juggle the different multimodal elements of the project with what they perceived as language requirements of the curriculum. In the classroom questionnaire only 43% of student felt that they had improved their English-speaking skills and 52% felt that they had improved their English persuasion skills. This highlights an underlying challenge of the project, which was how much class time should be allocated to the teaching of the linguistic mode and how much class time should be allocated to teaching the non-linguistic modes.
The project design gave students plenty of opportunities to be creative using different modalities. For example, in the analysis/discussion activities, students watched the example videos and noted how the videos influenced their feelings as well as what multimodal effects were used (sound effects, music, editing effects and dramatic movements) to communicate their message. In the planning/scripting activities, students could explore and discuss camerawork, props and costumes, characters and the story setting. In the planning, scripting and storyboard activities, students used visual literacy to conceptualize how the different modal elements might come together in the final video.
In terms of multimodal literacy, the students created videos with a distinctive look and feel in their camerawork, music and overall style. This ranged from Group H's incorporating YouTube footage of rubbish on beaches to create a documentary-style warning about the environmental impact of littering to Group D's using pop music with fast editing in a snappy, funny, narrative-style pop video to urge viewers to be careful with their lit cigarettes (Table 2). The variety and quality of the final videos not only demonstrated students’ creativity but also their technical competence. Students created the videos with very little technical support from the teacher. Thus, although in the class questionnaire, 30% of students felt that the technical aspects of shooting and editing were difficult and 45% were neutral (based on 20 students as one student did not respond to this question), from a teacher's perspective they could overcome any technical challenges they faced. The students managed to complete their videos independently because they were already familiar with the software and hardware on their smartphones, and they could learn how to shoot and edit by themselves: ‘I could set the ratio of BGM [background music] to sound on the video. I could change the speed of the video’ (student 5). ‘I enjoyed learning how to make a video. The editing was difficult’ (student 21).
Thus, although students expressed a certain amount of anxiety over shooting and editing the video, from the teacher's perspective, the variety of videos demonstrated students’ creativity This creativity demonstrated in the videos might not have been evident if software had been prescribed and taught before the videos were made because it may have encouraged the students to follow a set model. Students in this study were multimodal literate enough to autonomously use the media that they already consume daily to create their videos. Indeed, young people today, having grown up with smartphones and social media, may well be more adept at the latest technology than the teacher.
Future Directions
This paper demonstrates how one communicative activity, creating PSA videos, can be used to successfully introduce the teaching of multimodality into skill-based language curriculums. Public video platforms offer a wide range of short videos made by individuals or organizations which teachers can utilize as communicative language activities or assessments. Future research and practice should work on improving feedback during and after the project. Due to limited class time, it was difficult for the teacher to give effective feedback on both the non-linguistic modes of the course and the linguistic modes. An established teaching approach that could be used to address the issues is consciousness raising (C/R). Generally, C/R activities encourage students to engage with texts autonomously and hypothesize about how language is used to create meaning outside being taught the rules of language use formally (Willis, 1996). This approach could be used to raise student awareness of the cohesive relationships between the linguistic modes in a text and the non-linguistic modes without language teachers attempting to formally teach multimodality. Therefore, if teachers engaged in multimodal C/R activities regularly, their own confidence and ability to give effective feedback within the constraints of the curriculum could improve.
Another way to address the challenge of creating an effective balance between time spent on the linguistic mode and time spent on the nonlinguistic modes is to change the criteria for evaluating the communicative assessment to include ‘learner equalization’. Learner equalization refers to the equalization of the roles of students who are proficient in the second language and less proficient students who may be able to make other contributions (Thomas, 2017). Student time spent engaging in ‘off-task’ activities such as discussing project goals in the first language or working with technology for camerawork/editing may actually contribute greatly to the quality of the final project, and these contributions should be given equal weight in grading. Evaluating the wider contributions students make can allow less proficient students to take on a positive role in the classroom, thus promoting learner agency and helping to develop a positive second language identity. A learner equalization approach in grading could help support those students who, in the questionnaire, expressed anxiety over their overall use of the second language in the project. However, a learner equalization approach is controversial because it would require changing the evaluation criteria to include evaluating both nonlinguistic modes and practical skills such as working with technology. This may not be possible in institutionally constrained language curricula; therefore, more research is needed in this area.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
