Is there a paradigm shift happening in the world of TEFL and language teaching? in this podcast, Emma Pratt talks to Anna Whitcher and Kieran Donaghy, the dynamic partnership behind the Visual Arts Circle, a community of practice formed for language teachers interested in multimodal literacy, visual literacy and the visual arts. The Visual Arts Circle’s sixth annual Image Conference kicks off in October 2017 in Lisbon.
Is there a paradigm shift happening in the world of TEFL and language teaching? In this podcast, Emma Pratt talks to Anna Whitcher and Kieran Donaghy about Multimodal Literacy. Kieran and Anna are the dynamic partnership behind the Visual Arts Circle, a community of practice formed for language teachers to explore the visual arts and visual world in their practice as teachers.
Multimodal literacy refers to our ability to interpret and effectively use more than just oral and written language. We’re talking about the visual world. By this we mean signs. representations, symbols and visual references, that, when mixed with the aural world, time, media and context, create whole other languages.
We work with language and communication. That’s why. We ask the question, what does multimodal literacy mean to us in the language classroom presently and what they could mean? The circle’s key interest and objective is in exploring, researching, reflecting and finally providing approaches, techniques and materials that help other language teachers engage with the visual world meaningfully and with confidence in their classroom.
Jade Blue
Jade came to ELT from a background in theatre arts and now works in the UK and Germany as an English language teacher, Business English trainer, and teacher-trainer. Jade writes an ELT blog, has been published in Voices and has recently contributed to a Routledge publication on Reflective Practice in ELT.
Visual Arts Circle 