Multimodal Reading Comprehension

If as literacy educators we are to be successful brokers of our own destinies and those of our students in mat- ters of policy and practice, we have to communicate in clear and consistent language. Currently, the M word (multiliteracies) is often conflated with its so-called near synonyms—multimodal reading and writing, new literacies, digital literacies, and multiple literacies—an issue that needs rectifying.

This study aimed to determine the in-school and out-of-school reading and writing experiences of middle school students. This study used phenomenology from qualitative research methods. All 12 participants (8 female, 4 male) were middle school grade 6 students. Various data collection techniques were employed: a survey and a semi-structured interview about the use of Wattpad, a semi-structured interview about the Turkish language subject, a semi-structured interview about the relationship between in-school and out-of-school reading and writing experiences, a diary of the students' Wattpad reading list, a diary of the students' Wattpad writing list, and the texts written by the students on Wattpad. Data collection lasted 16 weeks. The data collected from the survey questionnaire were analyzed descriptively. The data from the semi-structured interviews and diaries were analyzed using content analysis. The results indicated that most of the participants had a negative perception of in-school reading. Similar conclusions were drawn from the results in-school writing because most of the participants felt restricted and under pressure during the in-school writing process. Wattpad was considered a venue where participants can express themselves comfortably. The participants shared positive experiences characterized by willingness, diversity, meaningfulness, and entertainment. By contrast, in-school reading evoked negative experiences, such as feeling obliged, bored, and restricted, and perceiving the activity as meaningless. Out-of-school writing experiences were determined to promote internal motivation, to develop self-expression of one's anxiety and enjoyment alike, and to develop digital writing skills in out-of-school writing experiences. Overall, no relationship was found between in-school and out-of-school reading and writing experiences.

Evaluación de tipos y combinaciones de presentaciones multimodales en la retención y la transferencia de vocabulario concreto en el aprendizaje de EFL Abstract Although multimodality has been addressed in the educational psychology arena, this study evaluates the effects of presentation modality in the retention and transfer of concrete vocabulary in students of English as a second language. The participants were 104 second year university students belonging to three groups. Group 1 (n=32) was exposed to vocabulary through on screen text and narration (Group TN); group 2 (n=42) was exposed to on screen text, narration and video (Group TNV); and group 3 (n=30) was presented vocabulary via on screen text, narration and still image (Group TNI). All three groups were given a retention test (RT), a transfer test (TT), and a questionnaire to evaluate the type of presentation (TPQ). Results indicate that in the RT there are statistically significant differences among groups (ANOVA), being the TNI group the one that retains more lexical items. In the TT, using the t-student, results show that there are significant differences between groups TNI and TN, being group TNI the one with the highest scores. Results from the TPQ suggest that still images helped more than text and video in vocabulary learning, that actions are better represented through videos than through still images, and that more attention is paid to narration in group TN than in groups TNV and TNI.