Seftika, Zulfa Sakhiyya, Januarius Mujiyanto, Abdurrachman Faridi, Widhiyanto
The article discusses the students’ perceptions of the benefits and challenges of using multimodality, such as the linguistic, visual, and gestural aspects of speaking. Grounded within the framework of multimodality as a social semiotic approach (Kress et al., 2014), the study employed a qualitative case study method. Forty students of the English Education Department at one of the universities in Lampung, Indonesia participated in the study. The data was derived from twelve semi-structured interviews. To maintain data validity, we invited two validators to review and provide input on the interview protocol and utilized back translation to ensure the instrument’s validity and the participants’ interview comprehension. Then, the interview data were thematically analyzed. The findings indicated that multimodality (linguistic, visual, and gestural aspects) helps students understand through the various modes combined in oral communication to improve vocabulary, reduce nervousness, make presentations confidently, convey messages orally, and improve speaking skills. Visual elements were considered more challenging to use when speaking, however most students agreed that multimodality helped them practice speaking. In theory, students have never learned about multimodality in learning English speaking. Still, in practice, they had used verbal and non-verbal modes of speaking, especially in online learning, where in the current study they were assigned to produce speaking videos as the output of the speaking course. Their speaking project used technological media, including multimodality elements such as linguistic, visual, and gestural aspects. It is argued that it would be better if students intentionally learned multimodality theories and praxis as these would further assist them in learning to speak in English. © 2025, Asociacion Mexicana de Maestros de Ingles MEXTESOL A.C. All rights reserved.
Universitas Negeri Semarang, Jawa Tengah, Semarang, Indonesia
