Embodying Language Learning: L2 French Rehearsal, Repair, and Community

• In Event: Fostering Learning, Agency, and Empowered Identities Through Dialogic and Multimodal Language Pedagogies

Abstract

In this study, we analyze American university students’ embodied modes (gestures and facial expressions) when designing video recordings in L2 French. Situated in multimodality (Kress, 2003, 2010) and embodiment (Shapiro, 2014), this study presents a qualitative multimodal analysis (Jewitt, 2009) of the embodied modes of L2 French university students (n=207) across 446 FlipGrid video discussion posts. Findings illustrate how students’ embodied modes contribute to metalinguistic awareness accompanied by spoken practices like rehearsal and repair. Further, results indicate how learners traverse L2 designing processes through embodied outward connections to peer audiences and critical issues like racism and language policy. This study contributes to multimodal composing research in L2 contexts by illuminating the previously underrepresented embodied modes in multilingual designing processes.

Authors

• Natalie Amgott, University of Arizona

• Julia Gorham, Unaffiliated