Scrutinizing Teachers' Practice of Multimodality Use in Elementary English Classroom

The Council of Educational Standard, Curriculum, and Assessment 2024 emphasizes the importance of multimodality in English learning to help students develop communicative English skills as an essential life skill for their future. In elementary school context, English teachers are expected to support students’ learning by incorporating various modes such as linguistic, visual, auditory, gestural, spatial, and tactile approaches. This qualitative study explored the multimodality use in elementary English classes by involving two English teachers from two different schools in Bangkalan, Madura, East Java. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, classroom observation, and document analysis, and were then analyzed using the interactive data analysis method by Miles and Huberman. The findings revealed that both teachers integrated multimodality in their classes, primarily through linguistic modes (e.g. textbooks and worksheet) and visual modes (e.g. images, videos, and Powerpoint slides). However, the reliance on linguistic modes, particularly textbooks, was prominent. The predominant reason was the need to learn required materials within the limited time allocation.