Digital Multimodal Composing Using Visme: EFL Students’ Perspectives

Abstract

Due to the importance of digital multimodal composing (DMC) in the current educational context, the researchers in this study implemented infographic tasks in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course at a Vietnamese university and examined the EFL students’ perceptions on individual and collaborative composing of infographics using Visme. The students’ responses to open-ended questions suggested that Visme is a convenient and suitable tool for the infographic tasks which enhanced their learning experience and fostered creativity and writing skills. The main perceived advantages of individual DMC tasks are the enhancement of learner autonomy, and information literacy skills; the challenges the students encountered while working individually included insufficiency of writing ideas and lack of peer support. In comparison, collaborative DMC enabled group members to provide mutual scaffolding, generate more ideas for writing contents, and develop their collaboration skills, but the students complained about difficulty in reaching consensus within groups as well as unequal individual contribution to group work. This research study provides insights for both DMC research and ESP writing pedagogy.