Assistant Professor Victor Lim Fei publishes a journal article and book chapter on multiliteracy and multimodality, as well as presents at a talk and a podcast

Asst Prof Victor Lim Fei, from NIE’s English Language and Literature Academic Group (ELL AG), published a journal article titled “A design-based research approach toward building teachers’ capacity to teach multiliteracies in Singapore” in the Asia-Pacific Education Researcher. The article discussed how a design-based research (DBR) approach can contribute to practical outcomes in building the participating teachers’ confidence and competence in their pedagogical practices, develop scalable lesson resources for other teachers to use and adapt, and distil design principles that can inform the teaching of multiliteracies across contexts.

He also published a book chapter titled “Design considerations for digital learning during the COVID-19 pandemic” in the Book of Discourse, Modes, Media and Meaning in an Era of Pandemic. The chapter discussed teachers’ use of semiotic technologies to design the learning experience for students and explore the different ways of meaning making in digital learning. The chapter aims to answer these questions – 1) how knowledge can be represented; 2) how pedagogic relations are expressed; and 3) how learning is organised through the affordances of semiotic technologies. Three types of semiotic technologies were explored – the ubiquitous video lectures, digital games for learning and social media, specifically in its appropriation as a learning platform. While digital technology are commonly used in classroom instruction, this chapter aims to reflect on the different ways of meaning-making that semiotic technologies offer in online learning experiences. The design of online learning experiences has come under the spotlight because of the national lockdowns in response to the pandemic.

Asst Prof Victor was also invited to speak at a talk organised by the Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics, where he gave a presentation titled “Multimodality in the Post-pandemic Language Classroom”. He discussed the opportunities and challenges of multimodality in the language classroom by drawing on findings from his design-based research project to develop instructional approaches and lesson packages for the teaching and learning of multiliteracies in both the secondary and primary school English Language classrooms in Singapore, and how the pandemic brought about the paradigm shifts towards the use of digital technologies.

He also appeared on Education in Motion (EiM) Global's podcast where they talked about multiliteracies and multimodality, shifting views on the role of teachers, student agency and agency in an Asian context and areas of research that Asst Prof Victor is moving onto, ranging from digital play to embodied meaning making. You can listen to the full podcast here.