New genres and new approaches: Teaching and assessing product pitches from a multimodal perspective in the ESP classroom

Abstract

One of the most innovative genres in today’s business communication is the product pitch (PP), mainly characterised by its multisemiotic nature (Daly & Davy, 2016), which makes it essential to take a multimodal approach to the analysis and teaching of this genre (Tamarit & Skorczynska, 2014; Valeiras-Jurado, 2017). However, despite the increasing importance of this oral genre in the business field, little research has been conducted on the teaching of PPs to business ESP students. The purpose of this paper is therefore to present an innovative pedagogical model consisting of a learner-led genre-based pedagogy based on a teaching-learning cycle that fosters critical thinking and multimodal awareness (Querol-Jullián & Fortanet-Gómez, 2019). Following the four stages of the cycle proposed, and with the constant scaffolding of the lecturer in the initial stages, a group of tertiary business students were requested to decode the multimodal ensembles of a YouTube PP to subsequently create their own PPs. These samples were assessed multimodally by the rest of the class (peer review) and by the teacher using an “all-mode-inclusive” rubric. This innovative pedagogical approach to a new genre increased students’ motivation and multimodal awareness, surpassing the traditionally exclusively language-bound teaching and assessment of ESP.