Abstract

Multimodality can be successful in engaging and persuading learners. Teachers who seek ways to use different modes seen in children’s play – image, movement, music, position of people and objects in the space, spoken or sung words – can enrich learning. Multimodal analysis of videos of play might lead to a better realisation of each child’s conceptual understanding, and validate the power of intercultural dynamics as a form of agency that enhances learning and creativity.

Bio

Michelle Tomlinson is an Adjunct Research Associate at Griffith University, Australia. Her interest in Social Semiotics involved studying video analysis with Gunther Kress at IOE , London, and Theo van Leeuwen (Sydney University of Technology). Using multimodal text analysis that is freed from the dominance of the written and spoken word, she focuses on gesture, music and visual spaces as crucial to literacy and storytelling, Her transcriptions of these modes inform intercultural learning.