Multimodality in the classroom presentation genre: Findings from a study of Turkish psychology undergraduate talks

Abstract

Despite its obvious importance to learning and assessment across the academy, the undergraduate classroom presentation has received less research attention than other academic genres, and little is known about how multiple modes of communication are deployed within it. To explore how the use of different modes varied between sections, and how these actions affected the speech of presenters, this research into student presentations given at a university in Turkey combined a move-step analysis of speech with a mixed-methods study of multimodality. The study's main results were as follows: first, that presentation sections were distinctively configured by arrays of multimodal action; second, that the effectiveness of speech in performing specific moves in the genre was moderated in several specific ways by actions in other modes; and third, that some moves were performed in part by non-verbal actions. These findings are briefly discussed with reference to their theoretical and pedagogical implications.