A review of theories and practices of multiliteracies in classroom: Issues and trends

Abstract

This paper aims to review the concepts of literacy, multiliteracies, and multimodality in educational settings and their relevance in classroom practice. Literacy has emerged in recent years as an essential concept in the classroom teaching and learning process. With literacy views beyond the conventional print medium, it is important for teachers, educators, and learners to be given a new understanding of multiliteracies pedagogies. This paper also reflects on the development of multiliteracies paradigms. Specifically, it discusses the relevance and potentials of multimodal teaching and learning in dealing with the multiliteracies school learners bring into the classrooms including digital literacies and online literacies. This paper adopted a systematic literature review approach exploring issues and trends related to multiliteracies in the classroom context. The findings indicate that past studies often consider both the multimodality of meaning-making and meaning-recreating as well as different multiliteracies skills learners bring to the classroom. The review presented here addresses multiliteracies pedagogy in classroom teaching that benefits teachers, educators, and learners. Recommendations are made for future multiliteracies studies to strengthen the pedagogical practices in the emerging digital classroom.