Voices from University Classrooms on Effects of Multimodality on Polylingual EAL College Students’ Meaning Making

Abstract

This IRB-approved qualitative case study was grounded in Vygotsky’s (1978; 1987) socio-cultural constructivism theory and New London Group (1996) postulates of multiliteracies. The participants in this project were 12 domestic and international polylingual English as an Additional Language students at a public university in one of the north-eastern states in the United States of America. The data was collected via site and participant observations, analytical notes and memos, surveys, audio-recorded and transcribed interviews, and artifacts in the forms of the reading comprehension tests to two different texts. One of the texts was supported by an audio recording, another one had a video support with the sound track. All the data was coded using Saldaña’s (2012) thematic and value coding and triangulated in the process of analysis. The findings of this study indicated that all 12 research participants strongly relied on the means of multimodality while reading the texts and working with the comprehension test questions. All participants in this study found video mode as most helpful to them, followed by the auditory one in the process of their meaning making of the text, which they found complex. Major implication of this study is that multimodality needs to be embedded in the higher education curriculums in order to assist students, including but not limited to the polylingual EAL leaners with reading and meaning making.