About the Book
Designing Learning for Multimodal Literacy addresses the need to design learning for multimodal literacy in a world that is increasingly saturated with print and digital media.
In the current age, communication and interactions on social media are seldom made with language alone but are often accompanied with emojis, images, and videos, making meanings multimodally. Young people, including children, are also increasingly active in making videos of themselves, their ideas, and their experiences as part of their out-of-school literacy activities. In particular, for language teachers, the present shifts in our world require that teachers re-examine what they teach and how they can meaningfully and effectively teach the students in their classes today. At 8 years old, Alden created his own rap music video and shared it with the world. He wrote his own lyrics and set it against the music he remixed and meshed from a music download site. Alden is in your classroom today. As his teacher, what would you teach him? How would you engage him? Alden, and children like him, is the inspiration for why the authors have written this book. The changing times and changing learners place a demand on educators to continually reflect on what and how teachers are teaching their students – to ensure that learning in school remains relevant, relatable, and prepares them for the world of the future. Lim’s book outlines how teachers can design learning for multimodal literacy. It is a result of a collaboration between an educational researcher and a curriculum developer, and offers practical resources for practitioners but also design principles and considerations based on practice with a range of students to inform and inspire academics and postgraduate students.
It is poised to contribute to the global conversation and interest on how educators can reflect on the zeitgeist of the digital age and design learning for multimodal literacy.
Table of Contents:
1. Learning in the Digital Age 2. Designing for Multimodal Literacy Learning 3. Multimodal Literacy Learning with Print Texts 4. Multimodal Literacy Learning with Digital Texts 5. Teaching Digital Multimodal Composing 6. Integrating Language and Multimodality 7. Growing Designers of Learning 8. Advancing Multimodal Literacy Learning
About the Author :
Fei Victor Lim is Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is interested in how and what we should teach learners in today’s digital age. As an educator and education researcher, he researches and teaches on multiliteracies, multimodal discourse analyses, and digital learning. He is an editor of Multimodality and Society and an associate editor of Asia Pacific Journal of Education and Designs for Learning. He is also author of the book Designing Learning with Embodied Teaching: Perspectives from Multimodality published in the Routledge Studies in Multimodality in 2021. He was previously Lead Specialist III and Deputy Director, Technologies for Learning, at the Singapore Ministry of Education, where he has experience in translational research, policy formulation, and programme development, with a focus on how educational technology can improve teaching and learning. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3046-1011
Lydia Tan-Chia retired as Lead Specialist II after 35 years of proudly serving the Singapore Ministry of Education in the areas of curriculum design, curriculum development, curriculum implementation, and the design of assessment for English Language as a subject in every school and year level. She had the propitious opportunity of collaborating with the co-author as a research fellow in his research on Multimodal Literacy which has since become an area of compelling interest and growing fascination. In the course of the collaboration, she saw how the research schools worked with the concept and practice and brought it to life in their classrooms, weaving the teaching of multiliteracies with thought and integrity into their English curriculum.
Review :
"In this pathbreaking book, the authors bring together two crucial agendas for contemporary education. "Multimodal literacy" addresses changed realities of our contemporary media of representation and communication, from the everyday life texts of social media, to multimodal academic knowledge. They connect this to the challenge of "designing learning", a process in which teachers actively create and nurture learning environments in dialogue with their students. In both these foci—meaning making and pedagogy—the book breaks new conceptual ground, while at the same time vividly locating its insights in the rich learning experiences of real teachers and their students."
Bill Cope, Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
"Teachers and researchers will find this book illuminating and affirming in its portrayal of collaborative negotiation of the theory, research and practice nexus as well as its stimulating and multi-faceted agenda for such ongoing research in multimodal literacy pedagogy."
Len Unsworth, Professor in English and Literacies Education, Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia
"The book bridges the gap between theory and practice in multimodal pedagogy. The chapters provide rich insights on how to translate theories of multimodality into teaching design, and how researchers can work with teachers to develop deeper understanding of their daily practices in classrooms."---
Yiqiong Zhang, Professor in Applied Linguistics, Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China
"The book advances the teaching of multimodal literacy as it connects theory and practice to shed light onto the design of multimodal learning experiences. Easily comprehensible and insightful, it serves as an illustrative guide for educational researchers and teacher practitioners who are interested in integrating viewing and representing into their lessons"---
Styliani Karatza, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Greece
"The volume has done excellent work in calling attention to multimodal literacy, thus paving the way towards educational justice through making explicit and available multimodal meaning-making practices to all students."
Xiaoqin Wu, Lecturer of English Academic Writing and Systemic-Functional Linguistics, Southwest University and Yuting Liu, Southwest University.
“In this pathbreaking book, the authors bring together two crucial agendas for contemporary education. “Multimodal literacy” addresses changed realities of our contemporary media of representation and communication, from the everyday life texts of social media, to multimodal academic knowledge. They connect this to the challenge of “designing learning”, a process in which teachers actively create and nurture learning environments in dialogue with their students. In both these foci—meaning making and pedagogy—the book breaks new conceptual ground, while at the same time vividly locating its insights in the rich learning experiences of real teachers and their students.”
William Cope, Professor, Educational Policy, Organization & Leadership, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, United States of America
“The book advances the teaching of multimodal literacy as it connects theory and practice to shed light onto the design of multimodal learning experiences. Easily comprehensible and insightful, it serves as an illustrative guide for educational researchers and teacher practitioners who are interested in integrating viewing and representing into their lessons.”
Styliani Karatza, Lecturer, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Greece
"Scholars in the field will find a thorough and resonant review of relevant discussions regarding multimodal literacy and design learning. Teachers would be inspired with ideas on how to design multimodal literacy experiences. In response to the growing global interest in evolving literacy, this book provides an insightful resource and a practical guidance for educators so as to equip our students with the skills they need to thrive in the digital age."
Liu Dan, Lecturer, Southeast University, Book Review in Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy
“One of the book’s notable strengths is its bridge between theoretical depth and practical application. The authors draw on social semiotics and scholarly theories to ground their discussions in well-established academic frameworks. These theoretical foundations are paired with practical resources and design principles that make the book relevant for language educators and researchers”
Woravit Seneechai & Rayns Keneth Ampon, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand, Book Review in rEFLections
"This book is illuminating in what it takes to remain relevant and responsive to the literacy demands of a fast-changing world... The work is grounded in sound theoretical underpinnings with valuable pedagogical implications for the EL classroom. Included in the book is access to the online research report and instructional materials, insightful vignettes, chapter summaries and a comprehensive references list of seminal and more recent studies in this region - a boon to both academic researchers and practitioners."
Caroline Ho, Lead Specialist, English Language Institute of Singapore, Ministry of Education, Singapore, ELIS Book Recommendations
Highlighted as One of the Five Key Books on Multimodality in Video
Inmaculada Fortanet-Gomez, Professor in English Studies, Universitat Jaume I, Spain
