Comparing the characteristics of EFL students’ multimodal composing and traditional monomodal writing: The case of a reading-to-write task

Abstract

Although digital multimodal composing (DMC) is receiving increasing attention in language classrooms, the extent to which it contributes to students’ writing practices is controversial. In order to understand the affordances of DMC compared to traditional monomodal writing in school contexts, it is pertinent to compare DMC and traditional writing using academic integrated-skills tasks. The current study aims to investigate the relationship between the quality of Korean high school students’ multimodal composing and that of the same students’ traditional monomodal writing, as well as content and language alignment. Thirty-one Korean high school students carried out a summary-reflection task through DMC and traditional monomodal writing. After reading a short fable by Aesop, students summarized and reflected on the text. While students used only one mode in traditional writing (i.e. English text), they utilized multiple modes in DMC (e.g. pictures, movies). Students’ task outcomes were scored using analytic rubrics, and texts were coded in terms of the content and linguistic features students retrieved from the text (i.e. alignment) and their degree of reflection. The results showed that there were no statistically significant differences in the quality, content and language alignment, or amount of reflection in writing outcomes between students’ DMC and traditional monomodal writing.