Multimodal Approaches to Instructing Multilingual Learners of Less-commonly Taught Languages: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

• In Event: Advancing Justice in Multilingual Education in the United States: Access, Belonging, and Translanguaging

Abstract

This study explores situated, multimodal pedagogies in less-commonly taught language (LCTL) classrooms. Drawing on classroom observations and video-stimulated recall interviews with two instructors, (i.e., in a Korean immersion school and in a Hawaiian language classroom). The research examines how teachers utilize gestures and songs to engage multilingual learners. Findings reveal a transpositioning stance, where learners and teachers negotiated meaning across linguistic and embodied boundaries through interpretative phenomenological analysis. In the Korean classroom, the teacher attempts to utilize their full linguistic repertoire for meaning-making, while in the Hawaiian classroom, Indigenous knowledge linked language to environmental protection. This study responds to calls for more pedagogical research in LCTLs, highlighting translanguaging and multimodality as methodological approaches for inclusion, co-learning, and social justice.

Authors

• Noelle Hye Seung Roubinek, University of Minnesota

• Alexander Fukin Tang, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa