López Bustos Dixon 2015

Running head: EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES
Exploring Pre-service EFL Teachers Multimodal Literacy Practices: Implications for Teacher
Education
Dixon Lpez Bustos
Universidad Distrital Francisco Jos de Caldas

School of Science and Education
Master in Applied Linguistics to the Teaching of English
Bogot, Colombia
2015
EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES
Exploring Pre-service EFL Teachers Multimodal Literacy Practices: Implications for Teacher
Education
Dixon Lpez Bustos
Thesis Director:
Alejandro McNeil, M.A.
A thesis submitted as a requirement to obtain the degree of

M.A. in Applied Linguistics to the Teaching of English
Universidad Distrital Francisco Jos de Caldas

School of Science and Education
Master in Applied Linguistics to the Teaching of English
Bogot, Colombia
2015
NOTE OF ACCEPTANCE
Thesis Director:
_________________________________
Alejandro McNeil, M.A.
Juror:
_____________________________________
Juror:
_____________________________________
Acuerdo 19 de 1988 del Consejo Superior Universitario

Artculo 177: La Universidad Distrital Francisco Jos de Caldas no ser responsable por las
ideas expuestas en esta tesis.
Acknowledgements
I take this opportunity to express gratitude to all the people who contributed to the work
described in this thesis. I thank my academic advisor Alejandro McNeil for his patience and
support, and my jurors Edgar Aguirre Escobar and Carlos Rico Troncoso who provided me with
helpful insights to improve and complement my work. I would also like to thank the faculty
members in the masters program, from whom I learned so much throughout these years.
Overall, I thank my family for their unconditional love and support.
Abstract
This document reports a research study conducted in a distance education undergraduate TEFL
program from a private university in Colombia. Throughout a pedagogical implementation in a
writing course, a group of pre-service EFL teachers engaged in a multimodal composition
experience. Following the procedures of a qualitative case study, data was gathered through the
participants artifacts, a questionnaire, and interviews in order to inquire about the literacy
practices the pre-service EFL teachers engaged in when composing multimodal texts, and gain
insights about their views towards multimodal literacy teaching from this experience. Findings
showed that the pre-service EFL teachers engaged in culturally situated literacy practices as they
used available meaning-making resources to create new meanings. Also, the pre-service EFL
teachers recognized the potential and the affordances of multimodal texts in literacy teaching and
acknowledged that the teaching of multimodal literacy requires collaboration and teamwork.
Key words: multimodal literacy practices, EFL, teacher education, distance education
Resumen
Este documento reporta un estudio que se llev a cabo en un programa a distancia de formacin
de docentes de ingls como lengua extranjera en una universidad privada en Bogot, Colombia.
Mediante una implementacin pedaggica en un curso de escritura, un grupo de docentes de
ingls en formacin participaron en una experiencia de composicin multimodal. Siguiendo los
procedimientos de un estudio de caso cualitativo, se recolectaron datos a travs de artefactos de
los participantes, un cuestionario y entrevistas, con el fin de informarse acerca de las practicas de
literacidad de los docentes en formacin a la hora de componer textos multimodales, y de sus
puntos de vista sobre la literacidad multimodal, a partir de esta experiencia. Los resultados
mostraron que los docentes en formacin llevaron a cabo practicas de literacidad situadas
culturalmente y usaron recursos disponibles para la construccin de significados, con los que
crearon nuevos significados. Adems, los docentes en formacin reconocieron el potencial y las
posibilidades que los textos multimodales pueden ofrecer en la enseanza de literacidades; y
reconocieron que la enseanza de la literacidad multimodal requiere colaboracin y trabajo en
equipo.
Palabras clave: practicas de literacidad multimodal, EFL, formacin de docentes, educacin a
distancia
Table of Contents
List of Figures .................................................................................................................................. i
List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. ii
Chapter One .................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Statement of the problem ................................................................................................................ 4
Research questions .......................................................................................................................... 6
Research objectives......................................................................................................................... 6
Justification ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Chapter II ...................................................................................................................................... 10
Literature review ........................................................................................................................... 10
Understandings of Literacy ........................................................................................................... 10
Multimodality and Multimodal Literacy ...................................................................................... 13
Designs of meaning....................................................................................................................... 14
Teacher education and distance education .................................................................................... 16
Research on multimodal literacy .................................................................................................. 20
Chapter III ..................................................................................................................................... 26
Research design ............................................................................................................................ 26
Type of study ................................................................................................................................ 26
Context and participants ............................................................................................................... 27
Role of the Researcher .................................................................................................................. 28

Data gathering methods and procedures. ...................................................................................... 29
Ethical considerations ................................................................................................................... 30
Chapter IV..................................................................................................................................... 32
Instructional Design ...................................................................................................................... 32
Pedagogical Intervention .............................................................................................................. 35
Learning Outcomes ....................................................................................................................... 43
Chapter V ...................................................................................................................................... 45
Data Analysis and Findings .......................................................................................................... 45
Data management.......................................................................................................................... 45
Data analysis procedures............................................................................................................... 46
Findings ........................................................................................................................................ 48
Culturally situated literacy practices............................................................................................. 50
Using available meaning-making resources to create new meanings ........................................... 55
Recognizing the meaning potential and affordances of multimodal texts .................................... 60
Teaching is a multimodal experience ........................................................................................... 63
Multimodal literacy teaching: a collaborative effort .................................................................... 65
Chapter VI..................................................................................................................................... 67
Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications .................................................................................. 67
Limitations .................................................................................................................................... 70
Further research ............................................................................................................................ 72

References ..................................................................................................................................... 74
Appendices.................................................................................................................................... 81
Appendix A ................................................................................................................................... 81
Appendix B ................................................................................................................................... 82
Appendix C ................................................................................................................................... 83
Appendix D ................................................................................................................................... 85
List of Figures
Figure 1. Common production tasks in EFL................................................................................... 5
Figure 2. Structure of a theme-based unit ..................................................................................... 36
Figure 3. Integration of the pedagogical intervention ................................................................... 38
Figure 4. Integrated-skills task for the creation of a comic .......................................................... 41
Figure 5. Integrated-skills task for the creation of a poster .......................................................... 42
Figure 6. Display of findings ........................................................................................................ 49
Figure 7. Anas cartoon on kind-hearted lies ................................................................................ 51
Figure 8. Carlos cartoon on kind-hearted lies.............................................................................. 52
Figure 9. References to popular culture ........................................................................................ 53
Figure 10. Luisa's take on poverty ................................................................................................ 54
Figure 11. Layout options for creating comics ............................................................................. 56
Figure 12. Narrative structure of comics ...................................................................................... 57
Figure 13. Visual cues to support written meaning ...................................................................... 58
Figure 14. Video edition and gestures .......................................................................................... 59
ii
List of Tables
Table 1 Timetable of the pedagogical implementation................................................................. 39
1
Chapter One
Introduction
Being literate, traditionally understood as having the ability to read and write, is highly
valued in the contemporary world. Even though other aspects of education can be contested, no
one questions the importance of reading and writing as foundational skills (DiSessa, 2000, p.1).
Similarly, it is fair to say that the development of reading and writing skills in foreign language
(FL) learners represents a crucial part of their learning process, since these skills are essential for
creating and understanding meanings in the foreign language (FL), and for constructing
communicative competence.
However, literacy is a much more complex and dynamic term. For instance, current
directions in literacy studies see literacy as a socially constructed practice (Baynham, 1995; Gee,
1996; Barton & Hamilton, 2000). This implies that literacy cannot refer only to reading and
writing as isolated decoding and coding skills, but that it is learned through the social practices
of our daily lives. From this perspective, literacy practices are always mediated and shaped by
the roles community members assume in various social contexts.
Additionally, emerging literacies are being considered, in great part because of the advent
of new technologies. The rapid development and spread of the Internet and other ICT during the
last decades has undoubtedly influenced everyday modes of communication. Indeed, these
technologies are becoming so fundamental to society that most areas of social practice in daily
life are affected by the information revolution (Snyder, 1999). One of these emerging notions
of literacy is that of multimodal literacy (New London Group,1996; Kress, 2000), which has to
2
do with understanding different ways of knowledge representation and meaning-making. Even

though the linguistic text is still dominant, other modes like image, gesture and sound are
becoming more important to communication. In this regard, the growing use of ICT is playing a
definite role because they facilitate the production and access to a wide variety of modes that go
beyond the written text.
As an EFL teacher, teacher educator, and technology enthusiast, I believe that the
complexity of literacy brings about challenges, as well as opportunities that need to be addressed
in the classroom. Apart from the necessity to incorporate the skills to effectively use ICT,
teachers are now required to rethink their understanding of literacy if they are to improve their
teaching and learning practices. With these ideas in mind, I planned and implemented a
pedagogical intervention that took place in a distance education writing course for pre-service
EFL teachers, and carried out a study with the purpose of exploring their experiences as they
engaged in the composition of both traditional and computer-mediated multimodal texts.
The present report aims to describe this research experience along six chapters. The first
chapter includes the statement of the problem, the research questions and objectives, and the
justification for the study. The second chapter contains a review of literature with a discussion of
the main constructs that support this work, as well as a state of the art of research on multimodal
literacy. Chapter three provides an account of the research design for this study, which includes
the type of study, the context in which it took place and the participants that were involved, and a
description of the data gathering methods and procedures. Chapter four presents the instructional
design with an account of the pedagogical intervention that was implemented. Chapter five
explains the procedures for data management and analysis, as well as the findings of this
research. Finally, chapter six presents the studys conclusions, pedagogical implications,
3
limitations, and recommendations for further research. In the following section I will start by
setting the background and provide a description of the contextual factors, observed issues, and
theoretical considerations that gave rise to this study.
4
Statement of the problem

The distance education B.A. program in teaching English as a foreign language at
Universidad Santo Toms is an undergraduate program that trains EFL teachers for the different
cycles of the Colombian educational system. Distance education implies that the program is
flexible in its delivery and organization, allowing the pre-service teachers to carry out most of
their learning activities and interactions in an online learning environment (Moodle), but also
including complementary face-to-face classes that correspond to 10-30% of class work,
depending on the different types of subjects and contents.
In this program, I am the teacher in charge of some subjects that have to do with the
development of language skills, particularly, intermediate and advanced EFL reading, and
writing courses. During the process of syllabus design, and as I searched for information to
prepare my classes, I started to inquire about literacy teaching and learning. I came across a
variety of sources that argued for the importance of embracing broader notions of literacy;
notions that go beyond traditional conceptions of learning how to read and write. This initial
interest led me to interview my colleagues and to examine the syllabi of some of the courses
offered in the program. During this inquiry, I found that most of the activities proposed in the
courses that were reviewed, and that entailed some kind of production in EFL, required preservice teachers to write compositions that favored the use of linguistic text -mainly, papers and
forums- and rarely asked learners to employ other ways of meaning making such as pictures,
videos or sounds (see figure below).
5
Figure 1. Common production tasks in EFL
Understanding literacy with its different possibilities for meaning making presents a
challenge for EFL literacy teachers. Kress (2000) even claimed that it is now impossible to
make sense of texts, even of their linguistic parts alone, without having a clear idea of what other
modes of representation might be contributing to their meaning (p.337). With this idea in mind,
and considering the aforementioned findings, I realized that the dominance of the linguistic text
was a limiting situation for the program, that was preventing pre-service teachers from getting a
better understanding of what literacy entails nowadays. The limitations were even more
pronounced, considering that this is a distance education program in which most interactions are
mediated by ICT and thus, have the potential to facilitate multimodal literacy practices that may,
in turn, inform the pre-service teachers views of literacy teaching.
As a way to address this concern, I planned and implemented a pedagogical intervention
in one of my writing courses, and carried out a study with the purpose of exploring the preservice teachers experiences as they engaged in the composition of both traditional and
computer-mediated multimodal texts. The research questions and objectives that guide the study
are presented below:
6
Research questions
What literacy practices do pre-service EFL teachers engage in when composing multimodal texts
in a distance education writing course?
What insights about the pre-service EFL teachers views on multimodal literacy teaching can be
gained from their experiences with multimodal texts?
Research objectives
To describe the literacy practices pre-service EFL teachers engage in when composing
multimodal texts in a distance education writing course.
To yield insights regarding the pre-service EFL teachers views on multimodal literacy teaching
from their experiences with multimodal texts.
7
Justification
In my teaching context, promoting activities that address literacy practices mediated by
ICT is particularly relevant. The fact that I teach a distance education writing course, in which
most of the learning activities and interactions occur online, means that the pre-service teachers I
teach are already familiar with the mediation of ICT in learning and teaching processes. Thus, in
addition to the objective of helping pre-service teachers to learn writing strategies and develop
writing skills, my challenge as a teacher educator is to help them to question their current views
and to approach literacy from multiple modes of learning and communicating so that they can
use this knowledge to shape and enhance their own teaching practices.
The broader approach to understanding literacy this study advocates for is supported by
current theory. From a sociocultural view, literacy is more inclusive than reading and writing,
and encompasses ways of knowing that cannot be detached from the social contexts they are
embedded in. Rather, literacy is a complex social practice learned through dialogic
communication and apprenticeship into literate discourse communities (Warschauer, 1997,
p.96).
Additionally, the use of digital technologies confronts learners with situations that
involve the utilization of an ever-growing variety of skills, requiring them to develop new kinds
of literacies. It is here where a multimodal view of literacy gains relevance since literacy
pedagogy must now account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information
and multimedia technologies (New London Group, 1996, p. 61).
8
I believe that the intricate nature of todays literacy practices provides many research
opportunities. I agree with Snyder (2001) when she claims that, in regard to literacy studies, the
challenge is twofold: The challenge for researchers is to extend understanding of the ways in
which the use of ICT may shape literacy practices. The challenge for teachers is to learn how to
use the new technologies efficiently, ethically and responsibly, with a view to taking advantage
of their educational potential (p.118). Thus, the relevance of studies like the one that is
proposed in this report is both theoretical and practical.
Colombian policies in foreign language education are not distant to the aforesaid
challenges. The issue is addressed in the document Lineamientos curriculares - Idiomas
extranjeros in its fourth chapter Las nuevas tecnologias en el currculo de lenguas extranjeras
(MEN, 1999), which points out that in order to have competent readers capable of responding
effectively and critically to the ongoing social, technical and cultural changes, we should think of
the exploration and use of new technologies, and fulfill the need for training on text production
and comprehension according to the advances of electronics and telecommunications.
Given the significance of literacy teaching and learning, Colombian EFL teachers should
strengthen their knowledge in ways that allow them to empower learners to use different modes
of representation to make meaning. For this to happen, teacher educators are required to provide
future teachers with tools to understand and identify the role of ICT in literacy teaching, and
suggest new principles and strategies for an effective teaching in the classroom. As a
contribution to this purpose, and considering that information technology will continue bringing
changes to the field in the coming years, the present study becomes relevant and is aligned with
the objective of enhancing pre-service teachers understanding of literacy teaching and learning.
9
In the review of literature that follows, I will present a discussion of the main constructs
that support this work, as well as a state of the art of research on multimodal literacy. Even
though the aim of this review is not to provide an exhaustive account of research on this field, it
does reflect the growing interest of educators in having a better understanding of multimodal
texts as resources for learning.
10
Chapter II
Literature review
In the following pages, I present a discussion of the main concepts that underpin this
study. Initially, I revise a conceptual framework for literacy to then focus on theory on
multimodal literacy. Afterwards, I address relevant theory on pre-service teacher education and
some considerations about distance education, and the role of ICT in teacher education. I
conclude this chapter with a review of research articles that are related to multimodal literacy
experiences.
Understandings of Literacy
Literacy is a complex term that is used to represent a wide variety of phenomena that
surround the acquisition of reading and writing skills. There is general agreement among
scholars that the term involves far more than the simple ability to code and decode texts. In this
regard, Gee (1996) calls literacy a socially contested term whose traditional meaning the
ability to read and write appears rather straightforward and obvious. However, in such
traditional definition, literacy is extracted from its social, cultural, and historical context. When
treated as a technical skill or mental operation independent of social context, literacy is
associated with consequences that have no relation to the social situations in which it is
embedded (Evans, 2005).
Johns (1997) states that literacy is much more inclusive than reading and writing, and
that it requires the understanding that these skills are not isolated, but instead, they are influenced
11
by each other as well as by the skills of speaking and listening. Moreover, literacy includes ways
of knowing particular content, languages and practices, and refers to strategies for understanding,
discussing, organizing and producing texts. These abilities are mediated by the social context in
which a discourse is produced and the roles of text readers and writers.
In this line of argument, a sociocultural approach to literacy suggests that reading and
writing, whether in the first or second language, cannot be seen as a set of decontextualized
skills. Baynham (1995) argues that literacy must be understood in context as situated social
practice acquired principally through exposure to literate communities. Then, literacy practices
can be interpreted as things people do with texts to create meanings in social communities
(Street, 1984; Baynham, 1995; Barton & Hamilton, 2000). A similar view is offered by
Warschauer (1997) who states that literacy is a complex social practice learned through dialogic
communication and apprenticeship into literate discourse communities. He adds that literacy
practices involve skills of abstraction, reflection, analysis, interpretation, cross-cultural
understanding, collaborative problem-solving and critical thinking.
This idea is sustained by Snyder (1999), who claims that being literate also involves the
capacity to analyze the practices and universes of meaning in which texts are embedded. Being
literate entails the capability to enter actively into creating, shaping and transforming social
practices and universes of meanings (p.8). In this perspective, learners entering a community of
practice (Wenger, 1998) must creatively assimilate not merely the vocabulary and syntax of a
language, but complex patterns of language use in social process.
The understanding of literacy as a socially situated practice is only one of the many
directions that have been taken in literacy studies. With the development of the information and
communication technologies (ICT), the definition of literacy has taken even broader dimensions.
12
Even though it is understood that the use of ICT is reshaping our literacy practices and that new
literacies must be considered, there is no agreement in the definitions and terminology used to
refer to them. During the review of literature that I carried out for this study, I found terms like
digital literacy (Lanham, 1995), computer literacy (DiSessa, 2000), electronic literacies
(Warschauer, 1999), new literacies (Lankshear and Knobel, 2003), e-literacies (Kaplan, 1995),
multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996), among others. When discussing digital literacy,
Lanham (1995) comes up with even more specific notions, such as reproduction literacy, which
involves skills in utilizing digital reproduction in learning; information literacy, which has to do
with the ability to evaluate the acquired information, and identifying false, irrelevant or biased
sources; lateral literacy, which is based on constructing knowledge from non-linear navigation
and would correspond to the abilities involved in using hypertexts; and, photo-visual literacy,
which is the ability to read information from graphical interfaces and would be the literacy to
command in order to perform well in visual environments.
The wide variety of theoretical approaches to understanding literacy, only reinforces the
the need to carry out research to carefully examine our practices as literacy teachers, and
establish connections with our immediate teaching contexts. In my particular case, I have
become interested in getting a better understanding of the ways in which we, as literate agents,
use different types of media to convey and make sense of meanings. This interest led me to
consider the idea of multimodal literacy as a key concept in this work. The following section
discusses this construct from its most representative theoretical sources.
13
Multimodality and Multimodal Literacy

The theory of multimodality addresses the way in which people communicate and
interact, not just through writing, but also through speaking, gesture and visual forms. The switch
from a dominant mode writing to the simultaneous use of different modes, has been
facilitated by the increasing use of ICT in our daily lives. About this, Eshet (2002) claims that
the advancement of computer interfaces shows the trend of evolving from non-interactive, textbased complex interfaces, into intuitive picture-based graphic interfaces. This evolution marks
three major trends: an increase in the level of visualization, an increase in the level of
interactivity and a decrease in the level of cognitive mediation required to reach proficiency.
Kress (1998) analyses the same phenomenon. He states that after a period of some two to
three hundred years of the dominance of writing as the means of communication and
representation, there is now a deep shift taking place in the system of media, represented by a
rapidly increasing use of visual and aural modes of communication. The development and
expansion of the electronic technologies is one of the causes of this tendency and will keep
contributing to set up visuals and audio, as complementary to written language in many domains
of public life.
In his analysis, Kress (1998) compares the features of three different modes of conveying
meaning: speech, writing and visual language. Speech is necessarily a temporally, sequentially
organized mode. These features lead to an underlying logic of sequence on time and thus to the
representation of sequential events in the world. Writing differs from speech in that sequences of
actions can be changed into the textual mode of narrative. The visual language, by contrast, is a
spatially and simultaneously organized mode. Its spatiality and simultaneity lead to an
underlying logic of co-presence of elements and their spatial relation.
14
All modes of expression produce semiotic objects (meanings), and each one produces a
distinct view of the world. The differences between the kinds of language and the interaction
among them, offer a wide range of possibilities for communication, which in the educational
setting, can benefit the experiences of learners.
At this point, it is important to clarify that, even though multimodal texts are associated
with ICT, not all multimodal texts are digital. While it is true that most writing in the 21st
century is mediated through digital technologies, there are many non-digital multimodal texts,
such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines. In fact, Adler-Kassner and Wardle (2015) claim
that there is no such a thing as a mono-modal text. That is to say, all texts are multimodal. Even
written papers can be recognized, not only for their linguistic mode, but also from visual features
like font, special arrangement of the page, paragraph distribution, etc. With this clarification,
multimodal texts, as referred to in this work, are understood as those texts that take great
advantage of visual, aural, and textual modes to convey meaning.
Designs of meaning
One final notion that is closely related to a theory of multimodality is that of Designs of
meaning. The New London Group (1996) introduced the concept of Designs of meaning, both to
refer to the meanings that are already available, and the process of creating new meanings. They
explain that, as we use the word grammar to refer to the logic of the creation of written language,
the notion of Design, which is usually issued to refer to the visual dimension, can cover the
logics of the creation of meaning in other modes of representation. The term can also identify
either the organizational structure of products, or the process of designing. They propose to treat
any semiotic activity, including using language to produce or consume texts, as a matter of
15
Design, involving three elements: Available Designs, Designing, and The Redesigned. Available
Designs are the meaning-making resources that learners draw upon in order to create their own
meanings. Designing is the process of meaning creation and recreation itself. The Redesigned is
the outcome of the meaning-making process and is never a repetition or reorganization of the
initial available designs. These three elements emphasize the fact that meaning making is an
active and dynamic process, and not something governed by static rules. Writers design and
redesign all the modes of representation they draw upon in the production of multimodal texts in
order to convey their intended meanings. Later on, in the data analysis section of this paper, I
will revisit the concept of Design when analyzing the multimodal texts composed by pre-service
teachers.
In the previous pages, I have presented the different theoretical considerations about
literacy that underpin this study. This revision helped me to identify important elements that
constitute my understanding of literacy for the purposes of this work:
Literacy practices are meaning-making processes that are socially situated and thus are
learned through our interactions and communication with others. These processes are
multimodal in nature. Being literate means that one has the capability to create and comprehend
new meanings by employing different modes of representation, each one of which contributes to
the ultimate meaning that we want to convey or understand. When literacy practices are
mediated by technology, they are reconfigured and facilitated due to the affordances of digital
media.
16
Teacher education and distance education

In this section, I address some considerations about pre-service teacher education and
distance education, in order to account for the context in which the pedagogical intervention took
place, and the people who participated in it. Teacher education has become an important factor
for governments around the world. The efforts on the expansion of schooling that characterized
the public policies on education in developing countries for the last decades, now pose the
challenge of recruiting and training new teachers in order to replace the large numbers of
teachers due to retire, and complete the drive for universal schooling (UNESCO 2008, p. 22).
Nonetheless, the importance of teacher education is not only related to numbers and volumes.
The quality of education at all levels is a current concern for education ministers, especially in
countries like Colombia, where there is a need for highly-qualified teachers who are aware of
classroom realities, and knowledgeable about current pedagogical theories. It is within this set of
conditions that distance education comes into play.
For the purposes of this study, distance education is understood as forms of educational
provision that use contemporary technologies to enact varied combinations of synchronous and
asynchronous communication on learners and educators physically separated from one another
for part or all of the educational experience (Danaher & Umar, 2010, p. 12). I consider that this
definition is aligned with the pedagogical model, and the type of learning activities and
mediations that are used in the context where the study took place (see chapter IV, p. 32-33).
Also, it accounts for two of the main institutional principles of the university I work for, which
are the integration of ICT to curricula for the advancement of the institutional mission (USTA,
2010), and the generation of actions of social, cultural, and educational influence in the different
regions of the country where the university operates (USTA, 2004b).
17
The role of distance education in teacher education acquires relevance, since it enables
teacher education to take place in the regions where proper training is most needed, and also,
through the growing use of information and communication technologies (ICT), it makes
possible the creation of virtual communities of practice in which working teachers can learn from
experienced practitioners and from each other (Daniel, 2010).
In their review of contemporary research on open distance learning in teacher education,
Danaher and Umar (2010) claim that the experiences of many developed and developing
countries have shown that, when properly organized and managed, distance education can enable
countries to:
Provide cost-effective pre-service and in-service teacher education;
Support school-based pre-service and continuing professional development programs for

teachers;
Upgrade unqualified teachers and enable qualified teachers to acquire higher teaching
qualifications;
Provide teachers in remote or rural areas with access to professional training in order to
meet their continuing professional development needs; and
ensure quick dissemination of information to large numbers of teachers about curriculum

innovations, new teaching methodologies and practices, and new professional standards
for teaching.
The intersection between teacher education and distance education has also been
considered from the field of language teacher education. Hall and Knox (2009) reported the
findings of a large-scale international survey of TESOL teacher education providers, that aimed
at mapping current provision and research in the field. They concluded that language teacher
18
education by distance is firmly established in language education, which, in turn, presents both
opportunities and responsibilities:
For language teachers, distance education is a chance to participate in the discourse
community of language education in ways and from locations where it would once not
have been possible. For language teacher educators, it is an opportunity to be involved in
a field whose practices and knowledge base are undergoing rapid and important change,
and to contribute to the directions of those changes. For researchers, it is an opportunity
to explore, document, and theorize these developments and their implications. (2009, p.
78)
Hall and Knox (2009) add that the evolution of traditional roles and practices challenge
educators, administrators, and researchers to include people and perspectives once excluded, and
to embrace people and perspectives once distanced.
In the local context, there has been an increasing interest in exploring the integration of
ICT into teacher education programs. Even though most studies are not framed within a distance
education context, they reflect the attention that researchers have given to the opportunities that
these mediations offer. In this regard, Espitia and Clavijo (2011) carried out a study in which
tools such as blogs, learning software, e-mail, forums and internet-based tools were used by a
group of EFL teachers to improve EFL learning and teaching. The study was divided into two
phases. In the first phase, the participants planned, discussed, and implemented a pedagogical
project for young EFL learners. In the second phase the participants reported and evaluated their
performance using forums and blogs with their students. The study showed that teacher
education experiences are crucial for teacher learning to integrate the use of forums and blogs in
the EFL Curriculum. It also showed that the use of blogs and forums requires addressing
19
language pedagogy from a perspective that values communication, collaboration and

participation as central elements of learning.
Another study, by Clavijo and Quintero (2012), developed with a group of 34 TESOL
students of a public university in Bogot, Colombia, focused on the need to rethink the pedagogy
of language in order to promote the development of foreign language competencies and digital
literacy among students. The study analyzed the pedagogy implemented in virtual environments
through collaborative projects, debates on topics proposed by students, design and development
of personal blogs, and the creation of wikis. The results showed that the pedagogy based on
collaborative projects developed by students turned out to be an enriched learning experience
with the inclusion of ICT, and that this pedagogy could become a model for the pre-service
teachers future teaching practice. The pedagogical experience also showed complementary
relationships between teaching contents and students personal interests, which have
consequences to learning.
In yet another study, Mora et al. (2012) present the collective experience of two
professors and three students in implementing WebQuests in a pre-service English education
component. Implementing WebQuests in this pre-service program enabled an expansion of the
conceptual framework that is currently in place for WebQuests by adding ideas about
competences and socio-cultural and critical thinking theories. This implementation process
generated a series of changes in the way students saw themselves as learners and future teachers,
gaining more ownership of the idea of WebQuests. The instructors, as the result of their work,
are now thinking of better ways to redefine their practices, and expand the boundaries of preservice teacher education through technological mediation.
20
As it has been shown in the previous paragraphs, there is a growing necessity for
understanding the intersection between teacher education and distance education. Even though
there have been efforts for studying the connection between these two domains of practice, at
both international and national instances, there are still many questions to be solved. Hopefully,
this study will contribute to this area of research in our country.
Research on multimodal literacy
There is a considerable body of research on multimodal literacy. However, national
sources on this regard are still scarce. In this section I present a review on recent qualitative
research that addresses literacy practices from a multimodal perspective. This review focuses on
the different perspectives that researchers have had towards multimodal literacy, and the types of
findings that were obtained in each study.
Early & Marshal (2008) explored a multimodal approach that integrated language and
content teaching in order to support high school ESL students with limited English proficiency to
engage in complex interpretations of literary works in English and to portray their interpretations
linguistically in written academic discourse. Students were able to display their interpretations of
literary texts by means of visual representations based on mandalas, a kind of Hindu traditional
diagrams. The study concluded that a multimodal approach, in combination with cooperative
group work and L1 use, has considerable potential in promoting ESL students academic
success.
Something worth mentioning about this study is that it fostered the use of multimodal
texts that were not mediated by ICT. As discussed in previous paragraphs, multimodal texts are
not exclusive to the digital form. Even though most studies that refer to multimodality imply the
21
use of some kind of technological mediation, in this study the absence of such mediation does
not represent a difficulty for analyzing multimodal literacy practices. I also consider this piece of
research a valuable source because it showed that a combination of the linguistic and the visual
modes helped students frame and express their ideas in a more effective way.
A study carried out by Ranker (2007) describes how John, a former student, composed
texts during an informal writing group at an American school. The author found that John
borrowed elements from popular culture: video games, television, web pages and comics, in
order to assemble his own meanings. The author used the multiliteracies design framework
(New London Group, 1996) to analyze Johns compositions and to provide a metalanguage for
understanding, appreciating, and interacting pedagogically with the complexity of students'
composing processes that incorporate popular media. Something interesting about this study is
that the research project emerged from theoretical developments, rather than the students actual
needs. Also, this study provided insights in regard to the analysis of multimodal texts.
Hughes, King, Perkins, & Fuke (2011) examined how literacy skills develop and how
image, text and sound converge to make meaning for adolescents when reading and
writing/creating multimodal sequential art panels in the style of graphic novels. The study
comprises two case studies. The first case study focused on six male students in a grade 11
workplace preparation English class at a secondary school east of Toronto, Canada. During six
weeks of class time they read two graphic novels and created a series of their own. The second
case involved six different students, males and females, in a multigrade alternative program for
expelled students. Over six weeks, they read a variety of graphic novels. Their unit culminated in
the creation of sequential art panels that told the story of a turning point in their lives or the event
that landed them in the alternative program. The researchers employed video, photo, and other
22
material artifacts from classroom sessions, semi-structured interviews with selected students and
field journals as instruments for data collection. Given the nature of the study, students products
(their own graphic novel examples) were a fundamental source of data, and some samples were
used in the article to present the results of the study. The findings of this study suggest that the
reading and writing of graphic novels can help teachers to engage students who normally resist
traditional writing while developing the multimodal literacy skills needed for success in the 21st
century. If compared with the study by Ranker (2007) the analysis of students products is less
rigorous and instead, there is higher focus on students attitudes towards the process of writing.
Situated within a new literacies framework, Turner (2011) looked specifically at
Multimodal Media Production (MMP) in the development of ICT literacies. The study aimed to
answer the following questions: What specific how-to ICT skills did students develop? How
does the acquisition of skills in the MMP process further students literacies, namely the ability
to interpret and produce texts? How does students understanding of the utility of ICT literacies
across contexts change?
The study took place in a MMP course at an urban public school in California USA, in
one of the most impoverished, lowest performing districts. The participants were an average of
30 African American and Latino middle school students.
The study found that students improved their basic computer, Internet research, and
audiovisual skills. Additionally, their literacies were further developed as they learned to
creatively interpret and articulate their meanings. Besides, students were able to articulate how
these skills and literacies were translatable across different contexts. Something I highlight about
this work is that its instructional design not only focused on the development of media and
23
computer literacies, but also helped students develop critical literacy skills as they engaged in
discussions about the use of media in their contexts.
Bruce (2009) carried out a study that explored the way in which students created video
compositions in a secondary English language arts media studies program. Students (tenth to
twelfth graders) were required to complete two curricular assignments: a music video and a minidocumentary. For both requirements, they were free to choose their own songs and topics. The
guiding research questions for this project were: What are the specific processes by which
students in the study composed video? How can their processes be described in a model of video
composition? The study found that video composition is a complex, recursive process that allows
for sequential multimodal representation of thoughts and ideas.
Ajayi (2009) explored how adolescent learners were encouraged to use multimodal
resources to interpret a cellular phone advertisement and construct their understanding of it, in a
classroom setting that attempted to make connections with the students out-of-the-classroom
literacy practices. The study was carried out in a Junior High school in the United States.
Eighteen English learners participated in the study for three weeks. Most of them were Hispanic
and classified as low socioeconomic status. The data collected for this study included the
students annotated drawings, their classroom oral explanations of the drawings, the teachers
questions, explanations, and comments; and whole-class discussions around the artifacts. In
addition, post treatment interviews were conducted with the participating students.
The findings revealed that the students situated meanings of the advertisement texts in
specific contexts that reflected their own social and cultural experiences. The use of
multimodal/multiliteracies pedagogy allowed the students to enter into text composition from
24
different paths and fostered critical literacy practices by offering ESL students opportunities to
create new identities and challenge discursive practices that marginalize them.
Smythe and Neufeld (2010) studied a seven-month digital literacy intervention in a
grades 6 and 7 classroom in Canada. Committed to exploring new approaches to meeting the
diverse learning needs of their students, the teachers of these courses extended their usual
curriculum focus on written narrative using pen-and-paper technologies to incorporate spoken
word, sound, art, and music in the form of learner-generated podcasts. The study adhered to
methods of ethnographic classroom research that included prolonged and repeated participant
observations, semi-structured interviews, field notes, and member checking. The study found
that in producing their podcast, students drew upon what was at hand, including popular culture,
the transnational cultural identities they negotiated on a daily basis, and their capacity for
creativity, play, and collaboration.
In the local context, Farias and Obilinovic (2009) carried out a collaborative experience
between two groups of EFL novice teachers from Chile and Colombia. They explored the
potential of a virtual platform and other ICT to create communities of practice and interest by
engaging in critical pedagogy activities that allowed the participants to look at their education
from a comparative perspective. Even though the authors center the study on aspects of
communities of practice and critical literacy, they also address multimodality and identify it as a
factor that may help teachers understand how the different modes of presenting the information
to the second language learner may facilitate, or hinder, the interaction needed.
Finally, Shin and Cimasko (2008) examined how ESL writers used available modes in
multimodal argumentative essays posted on the Internet. Specifically, they looked at how writers
appropriate and synthesize multiple modes of representation for creating and delivering
25
meanings, as well as how the kinds of strategies writers employ can lead to a richer
understanding of multimodal composing practices. The study was conducted in the context of an
ESL freshman composition course at a large university in the United States and included 14
undergraduates of different nationalities. The findings indicate that word-dominated discourse
was the primary factor in selecting available modes. Non-linguistic modes were primarily used to
illustrate written essays. However, students also used non-linguistic modes to project cultural and
national identities and to express emotional connections with their topics.
In this chapter, I presented a discussion of the main concepts that support this study:
literacy, the theory of multimodality and multimodal literacy, pre-service teacher education, and
distance education. Two major conclusions can be drawn after this literature review. The first
one is that the dynamic nature of literacy, the constant advances on ICT, and the complexity of
literacy learning require from researchers and educators to keep working on investigating how
literacy practices are enacted in the educational context and how they evolve over time. The
second conclusion is that, with the progress of technology, and the current need for more and
better-trained teachers, the role of distance education and ICT for learning will become even
more important for teacher education. Teacher educators now have the challenge of integrating
ways of learning that facilitate the inclusion in professional development programs of those
teachers who otherwise would not have access to them.
The aforementioned conclusions support the need for doing research on multimodal
literacy and teacher education, and therefore are in agreement with the objectives proposed for
the present study. In the following pages I will proceed to explain the context and
methodological considerations that were adopted in order to reach such objectives.
26
Chapter III
Research design
In this chapter, I present a detailed description of the research design that was selected for
this study, which aimed at answering the following research questions: What literacy practices
do pre-service EFL teachers engage in when composing multimodal texts in a distance education
writing course? What insights about the pre-service EFL teachers views on multimodal literacy
teaching can be gained from their experiences with multimodal texts? First, I present the type of
study. Second, I describe the context and the participants that were involved. Then, I briefly refer
to my role as a researcher. Later, I review the data collection instruments and procedures that
were used, and lastly, I address some ethical issues that were considered as the study took place.
Type of study
This research study was framed within the descriptive tradition (Ellis, 2012), considering
that the purpose of the study was to generate interpretations and descriptions of phenomena
occurring in a particular social context. A qualitative case study design was selected, since it
offered an appropriate framework to account for the literacy practices involved in a multimodal
writing experience of a group of pre-service teachers at Santo Toms University. According to
Merriam (1988) a qualitative case study is "an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a
single instance, phenomenon, or social unit" (p.9). Case studies are descriptive and heuristic, and
rely on inductive reasoning in handling multiple data sources.
In a case study, the researcher observes the characteristics of an individual unit. The
27
purpose of such observation is to probe deeply and to analyze the intensity of the phenomena
with a view to establishing generalizations about the wider population to which the unit belongs
(Cohen and Manion, 1985, as cited in Nunan, 1992). Nunan (1992) states that the case study has
a great deal of potential as a research method in applied linguistics and highlights one of its
major strengths which is its suitability to small-scale investigations as those carried out by
graduate students and classroom practitioners.
I decided to choose this methodology because of the particular characteristics of the
population I worked with, which make of it a case worth studying. Such characteristics will be
described in the following section.
Context and participants
This research project was carried out at Universidad Santo Toms in the distance education
undergraduate TEFL program (Licenciatura en Lengua Extranjera: Ingls). This program is part
of the Faculty of Education, which is in turn affiliated to VUAD (Vicerrectora de Universidad
Abierta y a Distancia), a unit that groups the undergraduate and graduate distance education
programs that are offered by the university.
Being a distance education program, there are pre-service teachers (PSTs) from 12 regions
in Colombia. Namely, Barranquilla, Bogot, Villavicencio, Manizales, Medelln, Bucaramanga,
Ccuta, Tunja, Neiva, Pasto, Cali and Chinquinquir. PSTs interact with the teacher educators
and classmates, and participate in learning activities through an online learning environment
(Moodle Learning Management System). Besides, PSTs are required to attend a number of faceto-face tutoring sessions along the semester. PSTs who are in regions different from Bogot have
the support of a regional tutor in each subject.
28
This study was carried out in a writing course that students of the undergraduate TEFL
program take when they reach ninth semester. This course is part of the communicative skills
focusing area in the programs curriculum. The participants of the study were 9 EFL pre-service
teachers who enrolled in the course during the first semester of 2014. 8 of the 9 participants were
already working at schools or language institutions by the time they joined the course. The
participants belonged to socioeconomic strata 1,2 and 3, and their age average ranged between
22 and 40 years old. For the purposes of this study, pseudonyms were used to keep the identity of
the participants confidential. These pseudonyms are included in the data analysis section to
facilitate the presentation of results (see chapter V).
The participants were selected through purposeful sampling (Patton, 1990). Patton (1990)
claims that the value of purposeful sampling lies in selecting information-rich cases for study in
depth. Information-rich cases are those from which one can learn a great deal about issues of
central importance to the purpose of the research. With this idea in mind, I used intensity
sampling, which consists of information-rich cases that manifest the phenomenon of interest
intensely (but not extremely). By using the logic of intensity sampling, the researcher seeks
excellent or rich examples of the phenomenon of interest, but not unusual cases.
Role of the Researcher
My role in this research project was that of participant-observer. Since I was the teacher in
charge of the course, I was actively participating in the proposed activities, and was able to
collect fieldwork data. Participant observation enables researchers to learn about the activities of
the people under study in their natural setting through observing and participating in those
activities (DeWalt & DeWalt, 2002). It provides the context for development of sampling
29
guidelines and interview guides.

Data gathering methods and procedures.
In accordance with the proposed type of study, qualitative data was gathered and analyzed.
Regarding this kind of data, Patton, as cited in Merriam (1988), claims that qualitative data
consist of detailed descriptions of situations, events, people, interactions and observed behaviors,
experiences, attitudes, beliefs, thoughts and excerpts or entire passages from documents,
correspondence, records and case histories (p.23).
Accordingly, the methods for data collection in this study were:
Pre-service Teachers Online Artifacts. For the purposes of this study, pre-service
teachers multimodal compositions were the primary source of qualitative data. These artifacts
were the videos, audio files, posters, and comics that the PSTs created during the
implementation. Since the composition took place in online services, I was able to retrieve and
store the PSTs production for its analysis. Particularly, the data gathered with this instrument
aimed at addressing the first research objective: describing the literacy practices that the
participants engaged in during the intervention (see appendix A).
Semi-structured interviews. In a semi-structured interview, the interviewer has a
general idea of where he or she wants the interview to go, and what should come out of it, but
does not enter the interview with a list of predetermined questions. Topics and issues rather than
questions determine the course of the interview (Nunan, 1992). The advantages of this technique
are that it gives the interviewee a degree of power and control and provides the interviewer with
a great flexibility. Besides, it gives privileged access to other peoples lives. I used interview
protocols to organize the development of each interview (see appendix B). The data collected
30
with this instrument aimed at addressing, principally, the second research objective: yield
insights about the participants own teaching practices after the intervention.
Questionnaire with open ended items. Questionnaires as data-gathering instruments are
popular research instruments in many fields including communication, education, psychology,
and sociology. A questionnaire is an appropriate instrument for collecting data on what your
students think or believe about certain issues. For this reason, a questionnaire is a standard datagathering instrument for a needs analysis (Griffee, 2012). Another advantage of questionnaires is
that class members can respond anonymously, which might reduce the teacher influence that
would be present, for instance, in an interview, where the respondent would be known. Finally,
open-ended questions provide a fuller explanation than answers that are expressed in numbers or
true/false responses. I applied one questionnaire at the end of the intervention, which was
administered online (see appendix C).
The analysis of the data gathered with the instruments mentioned above drew on
grounded theory informed techniques. According to Strauss and Corbin (1990), grounded theory
is a general methodology for developing theory in which the researcher surfaces themes and
concepts from the data as they read them. In relation to this project, the aim of grounded theory
is to understand and explain the literacy practices that may emerge when pre-service teachers
compose technology-mediated multimodal texts.
Ethical considerations
Based on Pattons (2002) Ethical issues checklist, as a researcher, I am responsible of
ensuring that:
The participants and the institution are informed about the purpose of the research
31
they are asked to participate in (see appendix D Consent form).
They understand the risks they may face as a result of being part of the research.
They understand the benefits they may get as a result of participating.
Confidentiality is guaranteed.
There is peer-checking, so that the participants are aware of the interpretations that
are given to the data they provide.
32
Chapter IV
Instructional Design
The present study aims to describe the literacy practices pre-service EFL teachers engage
in when composing multimodal texts, and to yield insights regarding their views on multimodal
literacy teaching from their experiences with multimodal texts in a distance education writing
course. As part of this research study, I designed and implemented a pedagogical intervention
with the purpose of creating opportunities for such literacy practices to take place. In the
following paragraphs, I present information on the teaching context, the stance and assumptions
regarding learning and technology the instructional units are built on, and a description of the
procedures and activities that constituted those units. I conclude the chapter with an account of
the learning outcomes that were derived from the pedagogical experience, regarding language
and learning skills development, writing skills, and the acquisition of writing strategies.
This research study took place in the distance education undergraduate TEFL program at
Universidad Santo Toms, a Colombian private university. The program is part of the Faculty of
Education, which is in turn affiliated to VUAD (Vicerrectora de Universidad Abierta y a
Distancia), a unit that groups the undergraduate and graduate distance education programs that
are offered by the university. In this program, there are pre-service teachers from twelve different
regions in Colombia, who interact with the tutors and classmates mainly through the universitys
virtual campus that is based on the Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle. Pre-service
teachers also have the opportunity to attend a number of complementary face-to-face tutoring
sessions along the semester at the CAU (Centros de Atencin Universitaria), which are
33
university branches located in different regions of the country. As it happens with the rest of
undergraduate and graduate programs, the TEFL program integrates the principles that support
the educational practices at Universidad Santo Toms. This is an institution characterized by its
humanist approach, and its identity is strongly based on the principles of autonomy, ethics,
freedom, relevance, sense of belonging, universality, critical thinking, dialogue, democracy,
flexibilization, and inter and trans disciplinary articulation (USTA, 2004a).
Before going into the details of the pedagogical intervention, it is important to present my
own assumptions about learning, language, and technology, since they permeate the decisions
that I made as I planned and implemented the intervention. In regard to learning, my stance and
assumptions are based on my understandings of the theory of social constructivism (Vygotsky,
1978) in which the students prior knowledge, scaffolding, interaction and collaboration of
participants in the construction of knowledge are key elements. From this view, cognitive
functions originate in, and must therefore be explained as products of social interactions and
learning is a process by which learners are integrated into a knowledge community. The
teachers role is then to support that active process through exploration and dialogue (Duffy &
Cunningham, 1996). I believe this position towards learning is in agreement with the institutional
principles that support the educational model of Universidad Santo Toms, since these principles
also argue for the importance of maintaining a dialogical relationship student-teacher (USTA,
2010). Besides, within the rationale for this research project is the assumption that the increasing
use of digital technologies requires learners to reshape their literacy practices. Thus, the students
interaction with teacher and peers through ICT is an essential aspect that defines the way in
which learners construct meaning.
34
As a result of carrying out this study, my vision of learning is also informed by the
multimodal approach to language and communication that supports this study. I draw on the
following definition by Kress (2010) that illustrates a social-semiotic view of meaning and
learning:
Learning is the result of the transformative engagement with an aspect of the
world which is the focus of attention by an individual, on the basis of principles
brought by her or him to that engagement; leading to a transformation of the
individuals semiotic/conceptual resources. (p.182)
This view of learning emphasizes that meaning is made in a multiplicity of modes that are
rarely isolated from each other. On the contrary, meaning making takes place in ensembles of
modes in which each one of them contributes to the creation of new meanings.
As for my view of language, it is informed by the notion of language as culture (Tudor,
2001). From this perspective, language is understood not just as a linguistic system, but as a
means of expression and communication used by human beings. Thus, language embodies and
expresses aspects of the culture and world views of its speakers. This view of language is closely
related to one of the findings of this study, which will be addressed in chapter five.
In regard to the way I understand the role of technology in this implementation, it is
important to note again that not all multimodal texts are mediated by technology. A picture, a
magazine, a drawing or an illustrated book, are all examples of multimodal texts. Moreover,
multimodal texts have always existed, since meanings have always been conveyed by different
kinds of media. The point is that these modes had not had the potentials that now exist in many
aspects of everyday communication. I decided to integrate technology because, undoubtedly,
ICT facilitate the production and access to modes that go beyond the written text. To this extend,
35
we may consider technology as a means. However, the role of technology goes beyond that,
because the growing use of ICT actually implies a reshaping of our literacy practices. Thus, the
role of technology for this project transcends to that of mediator as it plays an active part in the
processes of learning and meaning making.
Pedagogical Intervention
The pedagogical intervention that supports this study was incorporated into the syllabus
of a writing course in a distance education undergraduate TEFL program. Below, I will describe
the course structure and activities. Then, I will explain how the pedagogical intervention was
incorporated into the writing syllabus.
The syllabus of the writing course is organized around six theme-based units in which
reading and writing skills are interwoven in an integrated-skills approach (Oxford, 2001). The
pre-service teachers work is supported by a course book and an online platform that allows them
to complete language use and vocabulary exercises and integrated-skills tasks to complement
their work in each unit. Each one of the units is organized into three stages, as shown in the
figure below: Focus on the topic, focus on reading, and focus on writing.
36
Figure 2. Structure of a theme-based unit
The first stage aims to get the pre-service teachers (PSTs) thinking about the units
theme, develop awareness, draw on prior knowledge and establish connections to the text, and
encourage discussion around the topic. This is usually done through discussion forums in the
online platform. The second stage, focus on reading, presents two readings in different genres
(e.g. an article and a diary log) and asks PSTs to read for main ideas, read for details and make
inferences. One of these readings usually serves as a model that the PSTs can follow in the
writing stage. The last stage, focus on writing, engage PSTs in a writing assignment. Within the
writing stage, PSTs are asked to use a pre-writing strategy such as free-writing, clustering,
brainstorming, listing, etc. PSTs are then asked to write a first draft of a text using a specific
structural or rhetorical pattern (e.g. cause and effect essay). After receiving feedback from the
teacher, PSTs are asked to revise their work and write a final draft. The completion of the three
stages of each unit takes about three weeks.
Within this syllabus, I incorporated the pedagogical implementation, which consisted of
three multimodal composition activities. The objectives of the pedagogical implementation were:
37
To provide a space for pre-service teachers to experience the composition of

multimodal texts as complementary to the composition of written papers.
To develop language, learning and literacy skills in EFL.
To promote the pre-service teachers reflection in regard to multimodal literacy.
The pedagogical intervention took nine weeks in total, distributed along the fifteen weeks
of the course. In total, the PSTs composed three multimodal texts. The first multimodal
composition activity took place during the fifth week of the semester. By that time, the PSTs had
already worked on a short written paper, and were already familiarized with the way the course
worked. The second multimodal composition activity happened during the tenth week of the
semester. The third and final multimodal composition activity was carried out during the
fifteenth, and last week of the course. The following figure shows the integration of the
multimodal composition activities into the syllabus of the writing course:
38
Figure 3. Integration of the pedagogical intervention
As shown in the figure, during the second, fourth, and sixth units of the course, the PSTs
created a multimodal text (represented by red icons). In these units, the PSTs went through the
stages focus on the topic and focus on reading. However, during the third stage, focus on writing,
instead of writing a paper, they were asked to compose a multimodal text connected to the theme
39
presented in each unit. In each one of the three multimodal composition activities, the PSTs were
assigned an integrated-skills task, and offered four options to create a multimodal text. They
could choose between:
Creating a comic.
Creating an audio recording.
Creating a poster.
Recording a video.
The chart below, presents the timetable for the three multimodal composition activities,
and describes with more detail, the sequence of activities that the PSTs had to carry out in each
one:
Table 1 Timetable of the pedagogical implementation
Weeks
Unit /
Theme
Activities
Description
First multimodal composition activity

Week 3
Week 4
Focus on the topic
The PSTs participate in a discussion forum, where

they are asked to comment on a picture that is
intended to represent the idea of the struggle for
success.
Focus on reading
The PSTs read two texts titled: Gotta dance and

Kids learn poise through dance. They are asked
to carry out a set of exercises where they have to
read for main ideas, read for details and make
inferences.
Multimodal
composition activity
The PSTs carry out an integrated skills task in

which they have to read a passage and listen to an
excerpt about the problem of shyness. Then, they
prepare a composition through a pre-writing activity
to organize their ideas, and they choose and
compose one of the four optional multimodal texts.
The PSTs share their compositions with the class
and comment on each others work.
Unit 2:
Success
Week 5
Second multimodal composition activity

Week 8
Unit 4:
Business
Focus on the topic

they are asked to discuss the advantages of
having their own businesses.
40
Week 9
Week 10
Focus on reading
The PSTs read two texts titled: Howard Schultzs

Formula for Starbucks and Swiping at industry.
They are asked to carry out a set of exercises
where they have to integrate the two readings.
Multimodal

excerpt about employee morale. Then, they
prepare a composition through a pre-writing activity
to organize their ideas, and they choose and
compose one of the four optional multimodal texts.
The PSTs share their compositions with the class
and comment on each others work.
Third multimodal composition activity

Week 13
Week 14
Focus on the topic

they are asked to compare the standards of living
in developed countries and developing countries.
Focus on reading
The PSTs read two texts titled: Can extreme

poverty be eliminated? and Making ends meet.
They are asked to carry out a set of exercises
where they have to read for details.
Multimodal

excerpt about the causes of extreme poverty.
Then, they prepare a composition through a prewriting activity to organize their ideas, and they
choose and compose one of the four optional
multimodal texts. The PSTs share their
compositions with the class and comment on each
others work.
Unit 6:
Poverty
Week 15
In order to carry out their multimodal composition activities, the pre-service teachers are
given an integrated-skills task, which I adapted from the resources that are available in the online
component of the course book. These tasks usually require PSTs to read a short text passage, and
listen to an excerpt about the same topic. PSTs are then asked to compose a text that integrates
ideas from both sources. The rationale behind using integrated-skills tasks is that they are an
example of multimodal texts. By using this kind of activities, I expect that the PSTs get familiar
with the possibility of conveying meaning by using different modes of representation; in this
41
case, audio and written text. The figure below shows an example of an integrated-skills task that
requires the PSTs to create a comic:
Figure 4. Integrated-skills task for the creation of a comic
The task also provides an example of a pre-writing strategy (graphic organizer), with the purpose
of reinforcing the need for planning before writing any kind of text. The figure below shows
another integrated-skills task. This time the task requires the PSTs to create a poster:
42
Figure 5. Integrated-skills task for the creation of a poster
For each one of the four optional multimodal composition tasks, the PSTs were directed
to an online tool to facilitate the creation of each text. I created a tutorial for accessing and using
each tool, and provided examples of possible outcomes. The criteria for the selection of each
online tool were that it had to be as easy to use as possible. I wanted the PSTs to experience
multimodal composition without the complications of advanced tools that would require
extensive practice or training. For the comic activity, PSTs were given instructions on the use of
the website www.toondoo.com, which allowed them to create a comic easily and quickly, and
did not require complex training nor involved difficult procedures. For the poster activity, PSTs
were able to use the website www.glogster.com, that allowed them to create their posters with
little effort. Similarly, PSTs were guided to carry out the rest of the multimodal activities,
through tools that minimized the effort and difficulty, and maximized the possibilities for
43
meaning creation. Thus, PSTs who participated in the audio recording activity, were directed to
the website www.audioboom.com, and video recordings were made through a shared YouTube
(www.youtube.com) account.
Learning Outcomes
Even though the objectives of the pedagogical implementation pointed towards having
pre-service EFL teachers experience the composition of multimodal texts, there were additional
learning outcomes that derived from the intervention. Particularly, there were learning outcomes
regarding the development of language, learning, and writing skills. Also, there was evidence
that the pre-service teachers acquired writing strategies.
In regard to the PSTs language skills, the PSTs written texts and multimodal texts
showed the incorporation of the language items that were emphasized in each unit. Also, through
the processes of drafting and revising, I could observe that, in many cases, the mistakes that
PSTs made in the texts written at the beginning of the course, did not occur, or were less frequent
in their writing by the end of the pedagogical experience. I also observed that the PSTs who
opted for creating audio recordings or videos, tried to incorporate the language that was
presented in each unit, and that was initially intended for written production only.
Besides, there was strong evidence of the incorporation of pre-writing strategies into the
PSTs writing practices. The PSTs got used to using different ways for planning their writing,
such as brainstorming, listing, using graphic organizers or free-writing. The PSTs even
evidenced the incorporation of these strategies, for the composition of multimodal texts. This last
finding is reviewed in more detail during the presentation of the findings of this study.
44
Finally, I observed that the PSTs were able to develop logical organizational patterns in
their writing. This learning outcome was supported to a large extent, by the incorporation of prewriting strategies, as I mentioned before. There were big differences between some of the PSTs
initial and final drafts, in terms of text macro-structure. I believe this is an important learning
outcome, since, from what I have observed in different courses, students tend to focus more on
the structure of their writing at the sentence level, and not so much at the paragraph and page
levels.
Overall, the PSTs were able to improve their writing after participating in this
pedagogical implementation. The strategies and language presented throughout the course
informed the PSTs writing, not only of traditional written texts, but also of multimodal texts,
and allowed them to engage in literacy practices that were not common for most of them.
In this chapter, I explained the procedures and activities that constituted the pedagogical
intervention that I implemented, and that allowed me to collect useful data to be analyzed. In the
next section, I will explain the procedures and method I followed to analyze these data, and the
findings that I derived from such analysis.
45
Chapter V
Data Analysis and Findings
In this chapter, I present the results that emerged from the analysis of data collected
during the pedagogical implementation that was described in the previous chapter of the present
work. The study was led by two research questions that I include below:
What literacy practices do pre-service EFL teachers engage in when composing
multimodal texts in a distance education writing course?
What insights about the pre-service EFL teachers views on multimodal literacy teaching
can be gained from their experiences with multimodal texts?
First, I will describe the procedures I followed for managing data. Then, I will explain the
data analysis method that I used for making sense of such data. Lastly, I will provide a thorough
account on the themes that emerged after following the data analysis procedures, and the
connection of such themes with the research questions and objectives that I posed in this study.
Data management
I used three different data gathering methods that produced three bodies of qualitative
data. The first source of information was the online artifacts that resulted from the participants
multimodal composition activities. These artifacts were the videos, comics, audio recordings,
and posters that the pre-service teachers created throughout the course. This information was
stored in each one of the online services that were proposed in each activity. Concretely, the data
was stored in the user accounts that were created in Toondoo, Audioboom, Glogster, and
46
YouTube. This represented an advantage for data management in the sense that I did not have to
download artifacts as individual files. However, I had to create a reference list with a description
of each resource, and the corresponding hyperlink for retrieving each artifact for analysis when
necessary.
The second body of data was constituted by the pre-service teachers responses in a
questionnaire that was applied at the end of the pedagogical experience. This questionnaire was
administered through the online service Google Forms, which is a service that allows the
application of forms online. The participants responses were stored in a spreadsheet that I then
downloaded and stored in file folders in my personal computer for analysis.
The third type of data came from the semi-structured interviews that were applied during
the implementation. The participants responses were recorded and saved, and then, during the
analysis, were transcribed into Microsoft Word files, and stored.
Data analysis procedures
For the analysis of data, I followed the steps proposed by Creswell (2012), who suggests
six stages of an inductive process for the analysis of qualitative data. These stages are: data
collection, preparation of data for analysis, reading through data, coding data, coding for
descriptions, and coding for themes.
Based on this framework, I first collected the data in the form of pictures, audio, video
and text files. Then, I prepared the data, which implied the transcriptions of audio files
(interviews), the organization of text files (questionnaire responses), and the organization of
audio visual online artifacts, for easy retrieval and analysis. I then proceeded to read through the
data, with the purpose of obtaining a general sense of the material. This process allowed me to
47
identify some preliminary themes that I then contrasted to the results of more specific coding.
The fourth step was to code the data, which involved locating text segments along the
data and assigning codes to label them. The object of the coding process is to make sense out of
text data, divide it into text or image segments, label the segments with codes, examine codes for
overlap and redundancy, and collapse these codes into broad themes. Thus, this is an inductive
process of narrowing data into a few themes (Creswell, 2012).
Before continuing with the description of the other two steps in Creswells data analysis
approach, I have to point out that coding was very useful to account for the written data that
emerged from the transcriptions of interviews, the participants responses in the online
questionnaire, the written segments in comics and posters, and the transcriptions of audio files
(audio recordings). However, I faced the difficulty of also having videos and images among the
data that I collected. I did not go through the transcription of videos, because it would have
implied focusing on speech only, and ignoring the visual elements, which can also bring about
important data for this study. In order to cope with this situation, I drew upon the multiliteracies
design framework (New London Group, 1996) that was used by Ranker (2007) in one of the
studies that I had consulted during my review of literature.
Ranker (2007) used the concept of Design (see literature review) to analyze semiotic
material. His analysis was divided into the identification of Available Designs or resources for
making meaning that a writer uses when composing multimodal texts; the conceptualization of
writing as Designing meaning; and the identification of the outcome of the writing process, The
Redesigned, that is never a repetition or reorganization of the initial available designs. Based on
this framework, when analyzing videos and images, I focused on identifying multiple Designs, in
the form of ideas, images, characters, themes, motifs, or layout conventions.
48
Going back to Creswells procedures for data analysis, once I achieved a reasonable
amount of codes, I started coding the texts for descriptions and themes to be used in this research
report. Creswell (2012) clarifies that the stages for analyzing data are iterative (p. 238), which
meant that I could cycle back and forth between data collection and analysis. This process led me
to identify commonalities between the codes, that then resulted in associations by themes or
categories and subcategories.
The last step in the analysis was to organize the emerging themes into a coherent display,
that showed how the results accounted for the research questions and objectives that I posed in
this study. In the following section I present those themes to explain my findings.
Findings
The figure below represents the main themes that emerged after going through the
analysis of the data that was gathered in this study. I positioned the research questions to make
evident the connection between the purposes of the study, the emerging themes, and the subcategories:
49
Figure 6. Display of findings
The first objective that led this study aimed at describing the literacy practices that a
group of pre-service EFL teachers engaged in when composing multimodal texts in a distance
education writing course. In this regard, the analysis of data allowed me to conclude that, apart
from the multimodal literacies that were promoted in the pedagogical implementation, the preservice EFL teachers who participated in this study engaged in culturally situated literacy
practices as they used available meaning-making resources to create new meanings.
In the following paragraphs, I am going to provide an account of different instances that
took place during the pedagogical implementation and showed how pre-service teachers
incorporated elements of culture when composing multimodal texts. Then, I will elaborate on my
findings in relation to the meaning-making resources used by the participants of the study.
50
Culturally situated literacy practices

When describing the instructional design that oriented the pedagogical intervention that
took place in this study, I explained how my vision of learning is informed by my understandings
of the theory of social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978; Duffy & Cunningham, 1996), which
embraces the idea that cognitive functions originate in, and must therefore be explained as
products of social interactions. In a similar trend, there are many scholars who argue for a view
of literacy as social practice. In this regard, Barton and Hamilton (2000) claim that literacy is
best understood as a set of social practices that can be inferred from events which are mediated
by written texts. According to the authors, literacy practices are patterned by social institutions
and power relationships, and some literacies are more dominant, visible and influential than
others.
The social nature of literacy was evidenced during the pedagogical implementation, as
the pre-service teachers drew upon cultural elements to create meanings when engaging in
multimodal composition. For instance, in a task in which PSTs were asked to create a text that
explained or portrayed kind-hearted lies Ana posted the following cartoon:
51
Figure 7. Anas cartoon on kind-hearted lies
This example shows how the author describes in a comical way, a situation of mistrust
and argument involving a couple. In a later interview, Ana claimed that this type of situations
was commonly seen, or talked about among her friends and acquaintances. Ana is then
responding to the task by portraying a situation that exemplifies what she identifies as an
archetypal cultural phenomenon.
In the same task, Carlos addressed a very similar situation:
52
Figure 8. Carlos cartoon on kind-hearted lies
Once again, couple relationships and arguments seem to be a common cultural element
when trying to exemplify kind-hearted lies. This time, Carlos is drawing on a typical joke,
about a particular lie that is considered common among couples. The authors in these two
examples are drawing on elements that are culturally close to them, to communicate their
opinions about a given topic.
Another cultural element that was portrayed in the pre-service teachers multimodal
compositions was that of family and gender roles. One of the multimodal composition tasks
required the PSTs to discuss the problem of shyness and lack of social skills and its possible
solutions. With this prompt in mind, Mario created an audio recording in which he talked about
the advantages and disadvantages of being shy. In this regard, he said:
if you are too shy, it can be a problem because you need to know people to get a good
job. But its not always a problem. My girlfriend is shy, and thats good.
[AudioBoom Transcript 1, Mar 15, 2014]
53
This comment reflects Marios understanding about family and gender roles. Shyness is
seen as an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on the gender and the family relationship.
Thus, for the author, introversion is a positive feature of his girlfriend, but a negative feature
when referred to himself. Addressing personal positions about controversial cultural issues, such
as gender and family roles, as in this case, is in my opinion, an affordance of audio recording. I
believe it would have been harder for the Mario to make such claims in written form.
In some cases, the PSTs included references to popular culture in their compositions, as it
is shown in the following frame, taken from one of Daniel comics:
Figure 9. References to popular culture
Here, Daniel is referring to a scandal that involved a former president of the United States
years ago. However, an explanation of the situation is not explicitly given in the text. In this way,
Daniel is including cultural elements that he expects the audience to know. The inclusion of
popular culture into the classroom is an opportunity for learners to bring their own knowledge
into play, and disrupt the dominance of the knowledge brought by the teacher. In this regard,
Buckingham (1998) claims that popular culture can be seen as an authentic part of students
54
experience, and hence as something that teachers should seek to validate. This necessarily entails
a change in the dominant power relations in the classroom where the students are now the
experts, and the teachers knowledge is no longer privileged (p.9).
The multimodal production of the PSTs also served as a vehicle to portray their cultural
identities. In a task in which the PSTs were asked to elaborate on the causes of extreme poverty,
Luisa decided to create a presentation where she commented on her perspectives as she displayed
a set of images representing poverty.
Figure 10. Luisa's take on poverty
In her speech, Luisa commented on the ways in which herself, as a school teacher, may
contribute to diminishing poverty in her region, and emphasized on the social responsibility of
teachers in todays society. In connection with this point, she said:
We (teachers) are responsible to help our students and educate them so they can get
proper life conditions in the future. That is something that I try to do everyday, but
unfortunately, there are many teachers who dont consider this.
[VoiceThread Transcript 1, Mar 15, 2014]
55
Here, Luisa is portraying her identity as a teacher who is aware of how determining her
role can be to society. The nature of identity has been discussed thoroughly in social studies as a
dynamic entity that can be negotiated, transformed and achieved (Bernstein, 2000). In this
regard, Wenger (1998) claims that identity is constructed in relationships with others, extending
from the past and stretching into the future. Identities are a permanent construction of who we
are and who we might become as a result of our participation with others in the experience of
life. Then, it can be said that Luisas oral composition is part of the ongoing construction of her
own identity as a teacher.
Using available meaning-making resources to create new meanings
As explained in the description of data analysis procedures, I analyzed the audiovisual
elements in multimodal texts from the perspective of Designs of Meaning (New London Group,
1996) (see literature review p.11). This approach allowed me to identify some Available Designs,
or meaning-making resources that the pre-service EFL teachers drew upon in order to create their
multimodal texts. These available designs were different depending on the type of multimodal
text that the pre-service teachers created. The analysis showed that the pre-service EFL teachers
used a variety of design conventions, and discourses that borrowed elements from different areas
of meaning creation.
With reference to the creation of comics, simplicity and economy were variables that the
pre-service teachers considered as they created meaning. This was determined to a large extent
by the layout options that are available in the online creation tool (ToonDoo).
56
Figure 11. Layout options for creating comics
This condition required the PSTs to think about the most effective and economical ways
to display the meanings that they wanted to display. On this subject, Gloria commented during
an interview:
A veces es difcil poder poner en trminos simples todo lo que se quiere decir sobre el
tema propuesto. [] tanto los personajes como los mensajes ocupan espacio, por lo que
hay que ser muy prctico en lo que se escribe.
[Interview Transcript 3, Mar 29, 2014]
As a matter of fact, the necessity to summarize information and distribute the visual
elements of a comic in a logical way, was one of the most common difficulties posed by preservice teachers as evidenced in the semi-structured interviews and questionnaire.
Authors also had to make decisions about narrative by determining the number and
distribution of panels in their comics. Most of them opted for horizontal layouts with up to three
57
panels, following the narrative structure of storytelling: beginning, middle, and end. In other
cases, a single large panel was used, so that readers had to figure out the sequence of events.
Figure 12. Narrative structure of comics
In all cases, the convention was that the comics had to be read from left to right. When
vertical layouts were used, they were supposed to be read from the top to the bottom. Although
these conventions seem straightforward and obvious, it is important to note that in some cultures,
the reading direction changes. For instance, Japanese manga comics are supposed to be red from
right to left. This is an example of how the pre-service teachers drew on their pre-existing
knowledge about comics which is the result of their own experiences with this type of content.
Other meaning-making resources that the authors of comics used were speech balloons,
and visual cues to support written meaning. By using the different options to shape and style
speech balloons that the online tool offered, the PSTs brought additional meanings into their
compositions. They also did so, by using an option in the online tool to modify the posture and
emotion of characters. The figure below shows how Sandra used these Available Designs to
convey further meaning in one of her cartoons:
58
Figure 13. Visual cues to support written meaning
As it can be observed, in the first panel, Sandra uses a different type of speech balloon
burst balloon- to show that the character is screaming her dialogue. This is complemented with
an expression of anger in her face. In the second and third panels, the postures and facial
expressions of the characters doubt, surprise, distress- support the written messages that are
their dialogues. In the third panel, the author uses a type of balloon that indicates thought, instead
of speech. Sandra is evidencing her knowledge about a type of grammar of comics or set of
conventions that she may have learned through her previous experience with comics. Thus, these
are examples of Available Designs that she is using as resources to create meanings.
Among the different options that were given for the creation of multimodal texts,
recording a video was the least chosen. However, the few videos that the PSTs created showed
how they drew on other types of resources, such as gestures, and edition, that are particular to
this type of media. Although the videos that the PSTs produced in the multimodal composition
activities usually had the format of a close-up shot of them speaking to the camera about a
particular topic, there were cases in which the PSTs included additional elements to make their
points clearer.
59
Figure 14. Video edition and gestures
For instance, in a video in which she was discussing the problem of shyness and its
possible solutions, Gloria used a set of animated characters that appeared on top of her video and
served as a way to illustrate what she was talking about at different moments in the video. Figure
14 (left) shows a frame of Glorias video, when she was talking about marriage. In a later
interview she commented:
Utilic una programa que viene incluido con la webcam de mi computador [] se pueden
agregar muequitos en los videos y me pareci chvere incluirlos para dar ejemplos de
los que estaba hablando [] para hacer el video menos montono.
[Interview Transcript 2, Mar 22, 2014]
Even having limited experience and knowledge about making videos, Gloria devised a
way to use what was at hand to contribute to the meanings that she intended to communicate.
Similarly, Ana opted for using an application that showed her video as if she was addressing an
audience in an auditorium (figure 14, middle). Besides, she edited her video including a
slideshow of photographs to illustrate the points she made. There were transitions between the
close-up shots of herself as she was speaking, and each photograph. Ana then reported that she
had had some previous experience with video editing software. This experience came from a
project she had carried out in a subject from a previous semester.
60
Finally, Paula decided to set up a scene that resembled a teaching context. In her video
(figure 14, right) she placed a whiteboard to her left, that included a summary of the topics she
addressed during her short speech. Something that caught my attention about Paulas video was
the extensive use of gestures and facial expressions as ways of non-verbal communication.
Gestures are defined as intentional movements of hands, arms, shoulders and head, occurring
within communicative acts, whose lexical access is shared both by the speaker and the receiver
(Rossini, 2012, p. 23). These movements were co-occurring with speech and contributed to the
audiences understanding in some manner. There were gestures that were very straightforward,
such as pointing to particular items written on the whiteboard, but Paula also used subtler
gestures that were used to support the timing and pacing of her speech, and to highlight or
emphasize important words, among others.
Recognizing the meaning potential and affordances of multimodal texts
During the writing course, the pre-service teachers carried out different activities that
culminated with the composition of both written papers and multimodal texts. This combination
permitted them to experience the incorporation of multimodal composition into a language skills
course from the point of view of language learners. Nonetheless, the pre-service teachers were
also able to examine and reflect upon their experiences from their perspectives as literacy
teachers. With this in mind, the second objective that led this study was to yield insights
regarding the pre-service EFL teachers views on multimodal literacy teaching from their
experiences with multimodal texts.
The analysis of data derived from a questionnaire, and a set of semi-structured interviews
(see appendices B and C) revealed that the pre-service EFL teachers recognized the meaning
61
potential and the affordances of multimodal texts in educational contexts. Such recognition
became more evident at the latest stages of the pedagogical intervention given that, with each
multimodal composition activity, the pre-service teachers had more elements to establish
informed positions and provide opinions about the possibilities that promoting multimodal
literacy practices in their classrooms may bring about.
In this regard, during his second interview, Daniel claimed the following, when asked
whether he considered that the multimodal activity he had carried out would be useful for a
language learner:
Despus de haberlo hecho yo mismo, creo que la actividad (comic) puede ser muy til
para los estudiantes de bachillerato. La herramienta que utilizamos es bastante sencilla, y
tiene muchas opciones que no utilic. Seguramente para ellos sera mucho mas fcil hacer
comics cortos e incluso historias mas completas, ya que estn acostumbrados a usar estas
herramientas en lnea [] Creo que la representacin visual de los dilogos les puede
ayudar a comprender mejor, por ejemplo, la elaboracin de preguntas y respuestas en
ingls.
[Interview Transcript 7, May 3, 2014]
Similarly, Pablo commented the following about the use of video recording in a literacy
classroom:
Cada vez es mas fcil hacer videos desde el computador, e incluso desde celulares. Si se
le pide al estudiante que prepare un video en el que [] tenga que entrevistar a alguien
en ingls, o que describa un lugar representativo de la ciudad, eso puede servir para que el
62
lenguaje que se utilice tenga mayor recordacin y que las actividades sean mas
significativas.
On the possible advantages of using online posters in an EFL class, Ana commented:
La pgina que utilizamos es fcil de entender, y no se requiere muchos conocimientos
tcnicos [] los maestros siempre hemos usado posters para ensearle a los estudiantes a
sintetizar informacin [] y a tomar la informacin mas importante. La diferencia es que
aqu pueden incluir videos, links e imgenes fcilmente, y a los chicos esto les puede
parecer mas interesante.
However, Ana also acknowledged some difficulties that teachers may encounter when
trying to include the tool she used (Glogster) in their classes, as well as other tools that are
available online:
Seguramente, hay muchos contextos [] que estos proyectos no se pueden implementar
por falta de recursos. Hay colegios que no tienen una buena sala de sistemas, o si la
tienen, los chicos solo la pueden utilizar por muy poco tiempo. Esto no permite que se
puedan aprovechar estas herramientas tan interesantes al mximo.
Through their responses, I found that the participants recognition of the potential and
affordances of multimodal texts was connected with the acknowledgment that teaching is
intrinsically a multimodal experience. Also, the analysis revealed that the pre-service teachers
viewed collaboration and teamwork as two elements that are necessary for an effective
63
implementation of multimodal literacy teaching in their classes. Below, I will provide a more
detailed description of these findings, along with the examples from data that support them.
Teaching is a multimodal experience
As it was shown in previous paragraphs, the pre-service teachers were able to examine
and reflect upon their experiences from their perspectives as literacy teachers. This was
evidenced in their responses to the interviews that took place after each multimodal composition
activity, as well as the questionnaire that they answered at the end of the course. Besides, the
peer-checking sessions that took place two months after the course were particularly helpful to
provide information about the PSTs ideas on multimodal literacy teaching. In these peerchecking sessions, I shared with the participants my interpretations of the data that they had
provided through their artifacts, and responses. Thus, the peer-checking sessions served two
purposes. First, they allowed me to account for the studys trustworthiness, as I verified whether
my interpretations of data were accurate enough. Second, the sessions provided an additional
space for discussion and reflection that helped the participants think about their own practices
during the pedagogical intervention, and strengthen their opinions in relation to the use of
multimodal texts in the classroom.
It was during these peer-checking sessions that I observed how the pre-service EFL
teachers started to acknowledge teaching as a multimodal experience. When I shared with them
my analysis of the multimodal texts that they had created during the course, the participants
became aware of the different meaning-making resources that are considered when discussing
text from a multimodal perspective, such as gestures, visuals, speech, audio, and written text. As
a result, the pre-service EFL teachers began to recognize that these resources are not different
from the ones they themselves use in their teaching practices, and they referred to those practices
64
from a multimodal perspective. The following excerpt corresponds to the peer-checking session
that I had with Sandra, which took place after the end of the course:
[] la implementacin de estos recursos multimodales es importante en el medio [] los
maestros de por si utilizamos muchos recursos visuales en nuestras clases [] como el
tablero, carteles, y videos [] tambin comunicamos cosas con nuestros gestos y el
movimiento de las manos [] a veces cosas de las que no somos consientes. [] y si
hay muchos conocimientos que los estudiantes aprenden en formas diferentes al texto
escrito.
[Peer-checking session Transcript 9, Aug 21, 2014]
On a similar note, Pablo commented:
[] como docentes es importante saber la importancia de utilizar varios recursos para
fomentar el aprendizaje [] lo audiovisual, cuando es utilizado correctamente, puede ser
una muy buena herramienta en nuestras clases. [] a veces nos preocupamos mas en los
contenidos y no tanto en las formas de dar esos contenidos. Tambin estn los diferentes
estilos de aprendizaje de los estudiantes. Algunos puede ser mas visuales y otros
necesitan leer y escribir lo que se dicta [] es necesario tener variedad en la forma en
que se dan contenidos .
The comments above are examples of how the pre-service teachers, after experiencing
multimodal composition themselves, started to see their own teaching practices as experiences
that involve the use of a wide variety of meaning-making resources that play an important role in
their students learning. This position was very different from what they showed at the beginning
65
of the pedagogical implementation, when the term multimodal literacy seemed new and
probably fancy to them.
Multimodal literacy teaching: a collaborative effort
With their increased awareness of literacy teaching and learning, the pre-service EFL
teachers also started to acknowledge the different difficulties that they may encounter when
implementing multimodal composition activities to complement their literacy teaching. One of
the obstacles the pre-service teachers often referred to in the interviews and questionnaire was
the lack of technical knowledge and computer skills to design and implement multimodal
activities mediated by ICT. However, in most cases, the pre-service teachers saw teamwork and
collaboration as a way to overcome problematic situations in this regard. During the peerchecking sessions, the pre-service teachers referred to the different ways in which they addressed
this problem. For instance, Luisa commented the following about her experience during one of
the video activities:
[] despus de grabar el video, le ped ayuda a un compaero que sabe del tema para
que quedara mas claro [] a veces utilizar estas herramientas se dificulta porque
requieren conocimiento tcnico [] tampoco es necesario saber hacerlo todo, pero si
saber en quien contar cuando se presentan dificultades.
Colleagues and friends were usually mentioned as people to rely on when having
technical difficulties in the creation of multimodal texts. Interestingly though, many of the
66
participants valued the role of the students and their knowledge when making decisions about
including multimodal writing in their EFL classrooms. In this respect, Daniel commented:
[] son los estudiantes los que terminan ensendole a uno. En esto del uso de la
tecnologa ellos son los profesores. [] uno puede decirle al estudiante que contribuya
con nuevas herramientas y recursos en lnea [] para beneficio de la clase.
Daniels comment refers to a perceived digital divide that positions the students as
the knowledgeable ones when dealing with technology and digital resources. The preservice teachers usually commented on their concerns about using digital tools and
materials, since they did not see themselves as having enough knowledge and abilities to
select, design and use materials mediated by technology. On the contrary, they usually
saw students as being more informed about the latest tools and resources. This difference,
rather than representing a problem, was generally seen by the pre-service teachers as an
opportunity to get the students involved in the design of materials and activities for the
teaching of literacy.
67
Chapter VI
Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications
This study was framed around two main objectives. The first one was to describe the
literacy practices of a group of pre-service EFL teachers as they composed multimodal texts in a
distance education writing course. The second objective aimed to yield insights about the preservice EFL teachers views on multimodal literacy teaching from their experiences with
multimodal texts.
In regard to the first objective, there was evidence that the pre-service EFL teachers
engaged in culturally situated literacy practices. Also, there were indications that they employed
a variety of meaning-making resources in order to create new meanings.
During the multimodal composition activities that were proposed in this study, preservice EFL teachers incorporated a wide variety of cultural elements into their literacy practices.
These cultural elements included ways of behaving in unpleasant situations, family and gender
roles, references to popular culture, traditions, and the portrayal of cultural identities. By using
visuals, sounds, and video to complement the written text, the PSTs were afforded further
opportunities to include cultural elements, as compared to the composition of written papers.
Besides, the analysis of multimodal texts from the perspective of Designs of Meaning
(New London Group, 1996) allowed me to identify the Available Designs, or meaning-making
resources that the pre-service EFL teachers drew upon in order to create their multimodal texts.
When creating comics, the pre-service teachers drew on Available Designs regarding economy
and simplicity, the organization of panels, the use of speech balloons, and the use of visual cues
68
to support written meaning. When creating videos, the authors drew on gestures, and edition.
When creating audio files, the authors drew on intonation and pace. Finally, when creating
posters, the pre-service teachers drew on Available Designs regarding visual emphasis, and
balance.
With reference to the second objective, the pre-service EFL teachers recognized the
meaning potential and the affordances of multimodal texts in the educational context. Such
recognition implied acknowledging that teaching is intrinsically a multimodal experience. Also,
the pre-service teachers view collaboration and teamwork as two elements that are necessary for
an effective implementation of multimodal literacy teaching in their classes.
Incorporating multimodal composition activities in an EFL writing course carried
pedagogical implications for me as a teacher educator, the PSTs who participated in the
experience, and the institution where it took place. The experience may also bring contributions
to the EFL academic community in Colombia.
I personally found the experience to be very enriching, since it gave me new insights
about literacy teaching and learning. The PSTs response to the multimodal composition
activities was always constructive, and the research outcomes of this study reaffirmed my view
that that integration of multimodal writing into the curriculum of a language learning program, or
a teacher education program, can positively affect the pre-service teachers literacy and teaching
practices, and help them make informed decisions about their own teaching.
This pedagogical experience was also beneficial for the pre-service teachers. By the end
of the implementation, their written texts and multimodal texts showed the incorporation of the
language items that were emphasized during the course. Also, there was strong evidence of the
69
incorporation of pre-writing strategies, such as brainstorming, listing, and graphic organizers,

into the participants writing practices, both traditional, and multimodal.
Regarding the implications for the institution, I had the chance to share my experiences
as a teacher-researcher, with the faculty at the undergraduate TEFL program. I am hopeful that
this experience will provide them with new insights about literacy teaching. Also, considering
the positive outcomes of this study, a shorter version of the pedagogical implementation has been
permanently integrated into the syllabus of the writing course.
To conclude, I hope that my colleagues, and the EFL community in general, can use the
reflections, procedures, and findings that were described in this work, as a point of reference for
the improvement of literacy teaching practices and to enhance our understandings on the
connections between literacy and digital technologies.
70
Limitations
There were some limitations in this study that potentially affected the quality of the
pedagogical implementation, as well as the research process itself. In relation to the pedagogical
intervention, the limitations were the ones that are normally experienced by teachers and students
whenever Information and Communication Technologies are brought into the classroom.
Particularly, some participants reported having had problems when creating their videos and
audio recording. When using YouTube, sometimes the videos were not saved, so the PSTs had to
start over. Something similar happened a few times, according to the participants, when they
were trying to record their speeches in the online tool AudioBoom. The problems on my side
were that, in a few cases, the videos or audio files that the participants recorded were not
completely intelligible, due to problems with their webcams or microphones, or because of
unfavorable conditions in the place where they were recorded.
In terms of data analysis, it is necessary to acknowledge that the analysis of audio visual
texts represented a challenge for me as a researcher, since I had not had previous experiences
with this type of exploration and besides, the specialized literature that I found about this
particular type of analysis was framed within the field of semiotics, which is not my area of
expertise. A thorough analysis of audiovisual elements requires detailed knowledge on the study
of sign processes, meaning making, and communication.
71
72
Further research
With the experience and knowledge that I gained from this research study, I am
convinced that there is a wide variety of possibilities for continuing doing research in the fields
of distance education, teacher education and multimodal literacy practices. As it was explained
in the theoretical framework, the intersection between distance education and teacher education
offers a growing necessity for understanding the connection between these two domains of
practice. Besides, the positive outcomes that resulted from this work suggest that the promotion
of multimodal literacy practices among pre-service teachers can offer new possibilities for doing
research on this area. The directions of future studies may include:
Investigating multimodal literacy practices that are now commonly seen in social
networking, such as the use of memes, digital storytelling, Vine videos, and
microblogging, along with their possible pedagogical implications for teacher
education, literacy learning, and language learning.
Studies that emphasize on in-depth multimodal analysis of audiovisual texts

produced by EFL teachers or EFL learners in a particular context.
Action research studies that evaluate pedagogical implementations that include

multimodal composition activities, oriented to both teachers professional
development, and curriculum development.
Studies that inquire into multimodal literacy practices from a critical perspective.
How these practices can be connected to frameworks for emancipation and
empowerment.
73
Studies that inquire into the literacy practices that are particular to distance
education students and the potential of these literacy practices to enhance preservice teachers teaching practices.
74
References
Adler-Kassner, L. & Wardle, E. (2015). Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts in Writing
Studies. Logan: Utah State.
Ajayi, L. (2009) English as a Second Language Learners' Exploration of Multimodal Texts in a
Junior High School. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Vol. 52, No. 7 (Apr., 2009),
pp. 585-595.
Baynham, M. (1995). Literacy practices: investigating literacy in social contexts. London:
Longman.
Barton, D., & Hamilton, M. (2000). Literacy practices. In D. Barton, M. Hamilton, & R. Ivanic
(Eds.), Situated literacies: Reading and Writing in Context (pp. 7-15). New York:
Routledge.
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research,
Critique. (Revised edition). Lanham: Rowman & Little field publishers.
Buckingham, D. (Ed.). (1998). Teaching Popular Culture: Beyond Radical Pedagogy. London,
GBR: UCL Press.
Burbules, N., (1998). Rhetorics of the web: Hyperreading and critical literacy. In I. Snyder
(Ed.), Page to screen. Taking literacy into the electronic era. Sydney: Routledge.
Bruce, D. (2009). Writing with visual images: Examining the video composition processes of
high school students. Research in the Teaching of English, 43, 426-450.
75
Creswell, J. W. (2012) Educational Research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative

and qualitative research. Boston: Pearson Education.
Danaher, P. & Umar, A (2010). Contemporary Research on Open and Distance Learning in
Teacher Education. In Danaher, P. & Umar, A (Eds). Teacher Education through Open
Distance Learning. Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning.
Daniel, Sir J. (2010). Preface. In Danaher, P. & Umar, A (Eds). Teacher Education through
Open Distance Learning. Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning.
DeWalt, Kathleen M. & DeWalt, Billie R. (2002). Participant observation: a guide for
fieldworkers. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
DiSessa, A. (2000). Changing minds: Computers, learning and literacy. Massachusetts: Institute
of technology press.
Duffy, T. M. & Cunningham, D. J. (1996) Constructivism: Implications for the design and
delivery of instruction. In: Jonassen D. H. (Ed) Handbook of Research for Educational
Communications and Technology (pp.170- 198). New York: Simon & Shuster Macmillan.
Early, M. & Marshall, S. (2008). Adolescent ESL Students' Interpretation and Appreciation of
Literary Texts: A Case Study of Multimodality. The Canadian Modern Language Review /
La revue canadienne des langues vivantes 64.3: 377-397.
Ellis, R. R. (2012). Language Teaching Research and Pedagogy. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John
Wiley & Sons.
Eshet, Y. (2002). Digital Literacy: A new Terminology Framework and Its Application to the
Design of Meaningful Technology-Based Learning Environments. World Conference on
76
Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications. Retrieved January 19,

2013, from ERIC database.
Espitia, M & Clavijo, A. (2011). Virtual Forums: A Pedagogical Tool for Collaboration and
Learning in Teacher Education. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, Julio-Diciembre,
29-42.
Evans, E.J. (2005) Autonomous Literacy or Social Practice? Students Constructions of
Technology Literacy. Journal of Literacy and Technology. Volume 5, No. 1
Farias, M., & Obilinovic, K. (2011). Building Communities of Interest and Practice through
Critical Exchanges among Chilean and Colombian Novice Language Teachers.
Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal. Retrieved September 12, 2012 from
<http://revistas.udistrital.edu.co/ojs/index.php/calj/article/view/154/245>
Gee, J. P. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: ideology in discourses. Philadelphia:
Routledge.
Griffee, D. (2012). An Introduction to Second Language Research Methods: Design and Data.
Berkeley: TESL-EJ Publications
Hall, D. and Knox, J. (2009). Issues in the Education of TESOL Teachers by Distance
Education. Distance Education 30(1): 6385.
Hughes, J., King, A., Perkins, P., & Fuke, V. (2011). Adolescents and Autographics: Reading
and Writing Coming-of-Age Graphic Novels. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,
54(8), 601612. Retrieved September 12, 2011 from http://hwwilsonweb.com/
Jewitt, C., & Kress, G. (Eds.). (2003). Multimodal literacy. New York: Peter Lang.
77
Johns, A. (1997). Text, role and context. Developing academic literacies. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kaplan, N. (1995), E-literacies: Politics, hypertext, and other cultural formations in the age of
print. Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine March 1, 1995 2(3), 3.
Kress, G. (1998). Visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically mediated
communication: the potentials of new forms of text. In I. Snyder (Ed.), Page to screen.
Taking literacy into the electronic era. Sydney. Routledge.
Kress, G. (2000). Multimodality: Challenges to thinking about language. TESOL Quarterly, 34,
337340.
Lanham, R. (1995). Digital literacy. Scientific American 273(3), 253255.
Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2003). New Literacies: Changing Knowledge and Classroom
Learning. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Lowrey, W. (2004). More control, but not clarity in non-linear web stories. Newspaper Research
Journal. (vol. 25, 2). Retrieved January 19, 2011, from ERIC database.
Merriam, S. (1988). Case Study Research. Library of Congress. USA.
MEN (1999). Lineamientos Curriculares Idiomas extranjeros. Retrieved from
http://menweb.mineducacion.gov.co/lineamientos/.
Mora, R.A., Martnez, J.D., Alzate-Prez, L., Gmez-Yepes, R., Zapata-Monsalve, L.M. (2012).
Rethinking webquests in second language teacher education: The case of one colombian
university. Cutting-Edge Technologies in Higher Education, 6 (PARTA), pp. 291-319.
78
New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard
Educational Review, 66, 6092.
Nunan, D. (1992). Research methods in language learning. Cambridge. Cambridge Language
teaching library. Cambridge University Press.
Oxford, R. (2001). Integrated Skills in the ESL/EFL Classroom. In: ESL Magazine 6: 1.
Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Purcell-Gates, V., Jacobson, E., & Degener, S. (2004) Print Literacy Development : Uniting
Cognitive and Social Practice Theories. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press,
2004.
Ranker, J. (2007) Designing Meaning with Multiple Media Sources: A Case Study of an EightYear-Old Student's Writing Processes. Research in the Teaching of English. Vol. 41, No. 4,
pp. 402-434. National Council of Teachers of English. Retrieved September 12, 2011 from
<http://www.jstor.org>
Rossini, N. (2012). Reinterpreting Gesture as Language. Amsterdam, NLD: IOS Press.
Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Snyder, I. (1999). Literacy and technology studies: past, present, future. Australian Educational
Researcher, Volume 27, number 2. Retrieved January 19, 2011, from ERIC database.
Snyder, I. (2001). A new communication order: Researching literacy practices in the network
society. Language and Education, Volume 15, number 2.
Shin, D., & Cimasko, T. (2008). Multimodal Composition in a College ESL Class: New Tools,
Traditional Norms. Computers and Composition, 25(4), 376-395. Retrieved September 12,
2011, from <http://www.proquest.co.uk/en-UK/>
79
Smythe, S., & Neufeld, P. (2010). Podcast Time: Negotiating Digital Literacies and
Communities of Learning in a Middle Years ELL Classroom. Journal of Adolescent &
Adult Literacy, 53(6), 488496. Retrieved September 12, 2011 from
<http://hwwilsonweb.com/>
Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of Qualitative Research; Grounded Theory, procedures
and techniques. London: Sage Publications.
Street, B. V. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tudor, I. (2001). The Dynamics of the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Turner, K. (2011). Rap Universal: Using Multimodal Media Production to Develop ICT
Literacies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(8), 613623. Retrieved September
12, 2011 from http://hwwilsonweb.com/
UNESCO (2008). Overcoming Inequality: Why Governance Matters. Education for All Global
Monitoring Summary. Paris: UNESCO.
USTA (2004a). Poltica Curricular. Bogot: Universidad Santo Toms
USTA (2004b). Proyecto Educativo Institucional PEI. Bogot: Universidad Santo Toms.
USTA (2010). Educacin Abierta y a Distancia. Bogot: Universidad Santo Toms.
USTA (2010). Modelo Educativo Pedaggico. Bogot: Universidad Santo Toms.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978), Mind in Society. The Development of Higher Psychological Processes.
Edited by M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner & E. Souberman Harvard University
Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
80
Warschauer, M. (1997). A sociocultural approach to literacy and its significance for CALL. In
Murphy. K & Sanders R. (Eds.), Nexus: The convergence of research & teaching through
new information technologies. Durham: University of North Carolina.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
81
Appendices
Appendix A
Data gathering methods alignment chart.
82
Appendix B
Semi-structured interview protocol sample
83
Appendix C
Questionnaire with open ended items (online form)
84
85
Appendix D
Consent form

López Bustos Dixon 2015

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

López Bustos Dixon 2015

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Running head: EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

Dixon Lpez Bustos

Universidad Distrital Francisco Jos de Caldas

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

Dixon Lpez Bustos

A thesis submitted as a requirement to obtain the degree of

Universidad Distrital Francisco Jos de Caldas

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

Acuerdo 19 de 1988 del Consejo Superior Universitario

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

Role of the Researcher .................................................................................................................. 28

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

Further research ............................................................................................................................ 72

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

EXPLORING PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES

do with understanding different ways of knowledge representation and meaning-making. Even

Statement of the problem

Figure 1. Common production tasks in EFL

Multimodality and Multimodal Literacy

Teacher education and distance education

Provide cost-effective pre-service and in-service teacher education;

Support school-based pre-service and continuing professional development programs for

ensure quick dissemination of information to large numbers of teachers about curriculum

language pedagogy from a perspective that values communication, collaboration and

guidelines and interview guides.

they are asked to participate in (see appendix D Consent form).

They understand the benefits they may get as a result of participating.

Figure 2. Structure of a theme-based unit

To provide a space for pre-service teachers to experience the composition of

To develop language, learning and literacy skills in EFL.

To promote the pre-service teachers reflection in regard to multimodal literacy.

Figure 3. Integration of the pedagogical intervention

Creating an audio recording.

Table 1 Timetable of the pedagogical implementation

First multimodal composition activity

Focus on the topic

The PSTs participate in a discussion forum, where

The PSTs read two texts titled: Gotta dance and

The PSTs carry out an integrated skills task in

Second multimodal composition activity

Focus on the topic

The PSTs participate in a discussion forum, where

The PSTs read two texts titled: Howard Schultzs

The PSTs carry out an integrated skills task in

Third multimodal composition activity

Focus on the topic

The PSTs participate in a discussion forum, where

The PSTs read two texts titled: Can extreme

The PSTs carry out an integrated skills task in

Figure 4. Integrated-skills task for the creation of a comic

Figure 5. Integrated-skills task for the creation of a poster

Figure 6. Display of findings

Culturally situated literacy practices

Figure 7. Anas cartoon on kind-hearted lies

Figure 8. Carlos cartoon on kind-hearted lies

Figure 9. References to popular culture

Figure 10. Luisa's take on poverty

Figure 11. Layout options for creating comics