EFL learners’ critical multimodal reflections on the politics of English

Abstract

There has been increasing effort in English as a second and foreign language education to incorporate a critical perspective, either highlighting the politics of English in terms of native‐speakerism, standards, varieties, and accents or aiming to develop learners’ critical awareness of issues pertaining to race, class, and gender. There has also been growing interest in the potential of multimodal pedagogies for language learning. However, very little research has engaged language learners in exploring the politics of English in the context of race, class, and gender power relations from a multimodal perspective. Thus, this study investigates how learners of English as a foreign language, through a multimodal approach, reflect on the politics of English as relating to race, class, and/or gender. Examination of learners’ multimodal ensembles found that thinking multimodally rather than only linguistically may contribute to the consideration of an issue from a less dominant point of view, leading to critical reflection. In addition, multimodal ensembles may allow learners to express their critical engagement with an issue in ways that the linguistic mode might restrict. The pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed using examples from students’ multimodal projects, and possible directions for future research are proposed.