Multimodala resurser för meningsskapande : En studie av lärarkognition i språkligt heterogena klassrum / Multimodal resources for meaning making : A study of teacher cognition in linguistically diverse classrooms

On the foundation of Multiliteracies presented by The New London Group (Cazden m.fl.1996) that calls for recognising students’ multilingualism and multimodality, this study seeks to explore what beliefs in-service teachers in linguistically diverse classrooms express about usage of multimodal resources for meaning making. This study strives in particular at understanding whether teachers view such usage as beneficial for multilingual students’ learn­ing. In addition, this longitudinal qualitative study inspired of both intervention studies and design-based studies seeks to understand the connections between teachers’ beliefs and professional develop­ment programs. My data consists of six teachers’ beliefs expressed in reflections and in their reported teaching during a year of professional develop­ment. Through content analysis, the results show that all teachers view usage of multimodal meaning making resources as giving extended learning opportunities. Five of the teachers also see extended participation through this usage. A significant result is that the teachers view multimodal meaning making as scaffolding, rather than recognizing multimodal resources as an insepar­­­able part of all communication. Accordingly, the implicit meaning making through multimodal resources for scaffolding understanding seems to be more implemented in their teaching design than explicit teaching of multimodal usage for functional communicative purpose. However, four of the teachers aims at building explicit awareness of multimodal choices and its effects through their teaching design. These results show inter­connections between the professional development to both content and form.