As we face technological advancement, it allows us to unfold new knowledge to create more sense of the things around us. This also means that we find other ways to create meaning in something in order for us to know more about a specific matter. With that said, I am implying that meaning is not just limited to written and oral anymore. Rather, it can be through (1) written, (2) oral, (3) audio (4) visual, (5) spatial, (6) tactile, and (7) gestural. That is where multimodal literacy enters where we are able to discover more ways for “meaning-making.” Through multimodal literacy, we are able to progress from the traditional way of understanding a context as we can incorporate different ways to understand the meaning of something.

The strategy of using multimodal literacy can be a way to encourage the learners to become more engaged with literary exercises (Simanjuntak et. al, 2022), The study just proves that by the use of multimodal literacy, it can produce independent learners and will eventually lead them to become motivated in engaging with reading. Moreover, it was investigated that by the use of multimodal literacy it has improved the students' skills in writing and vocabulary (Hendrawaty et.al, 2024). The study of Hendrawaty and their colleagues manifests as to how multimodal literacy drastically helps for the students to reach academic success. Through these studies, it has provided an overview as to how multimodal literacy works in an academic realm.

In addition, multimodal literacy can play a significant role as to how students’ comprehend what they have read. Instead of just basing on the text alone, they can use other sensories to better understand the text. This strategy is not only beneficial for the students, it also allows teachers to enhance their way of teaching. Teachers can innovate a new way to help the students develop their literacy skills where they can use various media to incorporate to their lesson. As a result, this can lead the students to build knowledge on their own rather than just expecting their teachers to “spoonfeed” them in order to build understanding.

References:

Hendrawaty, N., Sakhiyya, Z., Wahyuni, S., & Yuliati, Y. (2024, August 8).

The multimodal approach in English language teaching: A systematic

review. Proceedings of Fine Arts, Literature, Language, and Education.

https://proceeding.unnes.ac.id/icoella/article/download/3712/3547/8651

Simanjuntak, M. M., Saputra, N., Afrianti, D., Mulyadi, J., & Herman. (2022).

Implementing multimodal literacy to improve students’ ability in literacy for

classroom practice. Sarcouncil Journal of Education and Sociology, 1(4) 

1–5. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6791087

https://images.app.goo.gl/8naxa2bTyzVqHVs7A