Multimodality, Mass Migration and English Language Teaching

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the use of multimodality in English language teaching. The corpus consists of a set of activities based on a series of pictures related to the seizure of two trucks carrying US-bound migrants in 2011. Two different groups, comprised of pre-service and in-service English language teachers, took part in the research. The first part of the activity involved loose interpretations of the pictures and a discussion about migration nowadays. Afterwards, other activities were carried out based on Luke and Freebody's four-resources model (1990). Some preliminary analyses lead us to conclude that the reading of images is very much culturally sensitive and that multimodal ways of meaning making are becoming more powerful in the globalized, digital era, turning them into an important means for English teaching nowadays. Keywords: multimodality; ELT; migration; the four-resources model resumo: O objetivo deste trabalho é discutir o uso da multimodalidade no ensino de inglês. O corpus da pesquisa se constitui de atividades baseadas numa série de imagens relacionadas à apreensão de dois caminhões carregando imigrantes para os Estados Unidos em 2011. Participaram da pesquisa dois diferentes grupos com professores em formação inicial e continuada. A primeira parte da atividade incluiu interpretações livres das imagens e uma discussão sobre migração na atualidade. Posteriormente, foram realizadas outras atividades com base no four resources model de Luke e Freebody (1990). Análises preliminares mostram que a leitura de imagens é muito mais sensível ao contexto e que a construção de senti-* vanderleiz@yahoo.com 1 A previous version of this paper was presented at the Western States Rhetoric and Literacy Conference in Winnipeg, Canada, on 19 October 2012. The research for this article was made possible, in part, through support provided by CNPq (process # 401394/2010-7). I thank Dr. Simone Batista da Silva of Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro for her comments on an earlier version of this paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the first manuscript for their helpful comments.