Multimodal storytelling as moments of critical literacy and multimodal composing in the ESL preschool classroom

Abstract

This qualitative study seeks to describe how multimodal storytelling can be utilized as a method to engage ESL Pre-K students at a private bilingual school in Medellin, Colombia in critical literacy practices and multimodal composing. The teacher researcher used multimodal storytelling to present stories that were used as bridges to connect students with the real world and bring cultural and social issues discussions into the classroom. Here lies the importance of working critical literacy to problematize stories and empower students to use the language to promote a change in the world. Four five-year-old children participated in this study. The instruments used to collect data were class audio records, class video records, children’s artifacts, and the teacher’s journal. The aim of this study is to identify specific teacher’s actions that create spaces for critical literacy, and to explore children’s literacy production when involved in multimodal storytelling and critical literacy. The findings of this study reveal that the teacher effectively established a connection between critical literacy and the ESL Pre-K program, designed strategic lesson plans, and assumed the role of facilitator, mediator, and guide. In addition, the findings show that the children used multimodality to retell stories, produced multimodal cooperative composition, represented reality in their texts, produced multimodal composing as critical literacy actions, established a relation between the stories and the real world, and began to believe that they can write. This research is a referent for other educators interested in literacy, critical literacy and multimodality in early ages. Future research could include different settings, as public preschool education or EFL and ELL preschools.