A multimodal perspective on modality in the English language classroom
This thesis is a study of an engage, study, activate (ESA) lesson of teaching modals of present deduction. The lesson has been taken from a published English language teaching course book and is typical of the way modal forms are presented to teach epistemic modality in many commercially produced English language teaching course books. I argue that for cognitive, social, linguistic and procedural reasons the linguistic forms and structures presented in the lesson are not straightforwardly transferred to the activate stage of the lesson. Using insights from spoken language corpora I carry out a comparative analysis with the modal forms presented in the course book. I then explore the notion of âcontextâ and drawing on systemic functional grammar discuss how modal forms function in discourse to realise interpersonal relations. Moving my research to the English language classroom I collect ethnographic classroom data and using social semiotic multimodality as an analytical framework I explore learner interaction to uncover the communicative resources learners use to express epistemic modality in a discussion activity from the same lesson. My analysis reveals that the modal structures in the course book differ
Howard, Michael John
420 English & Old English
A multimodal perspective on modality in the English language classroom. This thesis is a study of an engage, study, activate (ESA) lesson of teaching modals of present deduction. The lesson has been taken from a published English language teaching course book and is typical of the way modal forms are presented to teach epistemic modality in many commercially produced English language teaching course books. I argue that for cognitive, social, linguistic and procedural reasons the linguistic forms and structures presented in the lesson are not straightforwardly transferred to the activate stage of the lesson. Using insights from spoken language corpora I carry out a comparative analysis with the modal forms presented in the course book. I then explore the notion of âcontextâ and drawing on systemic functional grammar discuss how modal forms function in discourse to realise interpersonal relations. Moving my research to the English language classroom I collect ethnographic classroom data and using social semiotic multimodality as an analytical framework I explore learner interaction to uncover the communicative resources learners use to express epistemic modality in a discussion activity from the same lesson. My analysis reveals that the modal structures in the course book differ
multimodal perspective modality_english language_classroom study_engage study activate lesson teach modal present deduction lesson take publish english_language teach course book typical way modal form present teach epistemic modality many commercially produce english_language teach course book argue cognitive social linguistic procedural reason linguistic_form structure present lesson straightforwardly transfer activate stage lesson using insight speak_language corpus carry comparative_analysis modal form present course book explore notion context draw systemic_functional grammar discus modal form_function discourse realise interpersonal relation moving english_language classroom collect ethnographic classroom data_use social_semiotic multimodality analytical_framework explore learner interaction uncover communicative resource learner use_express epistemic modality discussion activity lesson analysis_reveals modal structure course book differ