Abstract:

The infographic, as an emerging DMC genre, has been increasingly utilized in various domains, such as education, media, and healthcare. In this webinar, Dr. Li draws upon her own research and personal experiences to explore the multifaceted role of infographics within language classrooms. The webinar begins with the introduction to infographics, including a definition, various types, as well as the rationale behind their integration into language education.  The speaker then illustrates diverse applications and purposes of infographics within language learning environments and details two specific tasks she conducted in different contexts: 1) EFL medical students’ creation of infographics addressing health topics using Visme (Li & Pham, 2023); 2) TESOL graduate students’ production of infographics based on class readings using Canva (Li & Zhang, 2024). In particular, the speaker introduces the concept of visual metadiscourse and elucidates how composers utilize various visual devices to enhance the comprehensibility and engagement of the infographic posters in her study. Afterwards, Dr. Li discusses how to implement and assess infographic tasks in language classrooms, followed by Q&A. This webinar serves as a valuable opportunity for attendees to expand their understanding of infographics and gain insights into effective pedagogical practices for implementing infographics in their instructional contexts.

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Abstract:

Emerging digital tools have been associated with multimodal digital genres (e.g., digital storytelling, Wikipedia entries, blog entries) and have expanded our understanding of heritage and second language (HL/L2) writing. The written mode is no longer viewed in isolation; rather, it is now often seen as a complement to or as complemented by other semiotic resources (e.g., images, sound) that help HL/L2 learners communicate meaning. Despite the increasing presence of multimodal learning tasks in the HL/L2 classroom, instructors often have not modified how they provide feedback, continuing to focus on language development —replicating the feedback behaviors modeled by non-digital writing assignments—rather than on all the components of multimodal texts. When providing digital feedback, however, it is essential to consider all the semiotic resources included in the HL/L2 text. Determining how to provide feedback, therefore, involves recognizing the complexity of factors that affect feedback choice and use (e.g., what linguistic aspect to focus on, especially when students write in multilingual or translingual manners); the extent to which multimodal resources are integrated successfully; the purpose of the HL/L2 writing task; the type of digital genre; and the (local and/or global) audiences.

In this talk, Drs. Elola and Oskoz present theoretical approaches (e.g., social-semiotic theory and activity theory) that relate to digital feedback. The presentation will focus on providing a rationale for expanding the use of feedback to cover the linguistic and nonlinguistic components encountered in a multimodal text. Aware of the importance of the affordances of various digital tools, they will also address the potential for novel and sometimes complementary modes of feedback using different tools (e.g., oral and written feedback using Screencast-O-Matic). They will also present and discuss an example of a rubric that can guide the type of feedback that we, as instructors, can offer in digital multimodal texts. Providing (digital) feedback that considers the digital multimodal genres and tools that we have at our disposal allows us to address multiliterate and multilingual writers’ needs and to guide them to explore their voices in a dynamic digital world.

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Abstract:

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