Communication and learning in the second language classroom: A multimodal analysis

Learning in a classroom setting is inevitability mediated and shaped by diverse communicative dynamics. Therefore, studying classroom interactional encounters has a great potential to expand the understanding of what students learn and how they learn. While several studies have analyzed classroom interaction, predominantly from sociolinguistic approaches (often through verbo-centric views on communication), few have studied ESL/EFL classroom interaction from a social semiotic and holistic perspective where all communication modes (e.g. gestures, gaze, spatiality, speech, etc.) are equally important to make meaning. This presentation aims at reporting a study that sought to determine how classroom multimodal communicative patterns of an EFL high school teacher-mediated language learning opportunities. For data collection, observations and stimulated recall interviews were used. Drawing on a social semiotic approach, the modes and semiotic resources used during the teacher-students interaction were analyzed within a Multimodal Interaction Analysis Framework. The data analysis suggests that the teacher, along with his students, co-created learning opportunities, namely related to grammar and lexis, by combining different modes and semiotic resources that distributed unevenly, and by displaying different intersemiotic relationships and modal densities.