Can digital multimodal composition facilitate content learning in a CLIL context? Insights from students’ composing processes in a legal English course

Abstract

This study explores the role of digital multimodal composing (DMC) in facilitating disciplinary content learning within a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) context, focusing on a legal English course for tertiary-level English majors. While prior research on DMC has primarily emphasized language teaching, limited attention has been given to its potential for supporting subject knowledge acquisition in content-based courses. Drawing on data from students’ composing processes, learning outcomes, and post-learning reflections, the study examines when and how DMC influences content learning. The findings reveal that content engagement varies across the DMC process. The early stages, such as topic selection and planning, involve intensive disciplinary learning, while the scripting stage requires students to synthesize, rephrase, and communicate specialized knowledge for a lay audience, fostering both content retention and language acquisition. In contrast, the later stages—shooting, editing, and finalizing—shift the focus to multimodal composing with limited explicit content learning. The study also demonstrates that DMC projects enhance subject knowledge by promoting conceptual integration, extension, and discovery, while enabling students to apply, recontextualize, and engage with disciplinary literacy in authentic scenarios. The study suggests that DMC, with appropriate scaffolding, is an effective tool for integrating content and language learning in higher education CLIL contexts.