Digital technologies, literacies and multimodality

possibilities of teaching English orality in higher education

Abstract

This article discusses an investigation on orality (e.g., listening and speaking) we developed with undergraduates in Letras English Course at the Federal University of Pelotas. Our aim is to build an innovative pedagogy for oral practices based on recent theories about language in the digital age. The design and creation of the learning activities are grounded on the studies about literacies, contextual diversity, and multimodality, following the principles of Social Semiotics. From the perspective of the qualitative research paradigm, the analysis reveals that the pedagogy created by us contributes to the construction of knowledge about the fundamental aspects of contemporary language by the undergraduates. The data analyzed point out that the participants were able to transfer what they have learnt to the process of creating multimodal oral texts, focusing on different contexts and purposes, with the integration of digital technologies.