Concept Mapping for Enhancing Multimodal Communication in an EFL Classroom

Concept maps are widely used across disciplines as a graphical tool for organizing and representing knowledge. While the effectiveness of concept maps as a learning tool to organize subject knowledge is well-documented in the literature, there is scant research on concept maps as a visual tool to augment L2 learners’ multimodal communication skills. This study examined the impact of concept mapping as a learning and communication tool on the multimodal communicative competence of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. In this exploratory study, two groups of learners ( n = 40 each) engaged in integrated listening-speaking tasks with a top-down approach to concept mapping (observing expert concept maps) or a bottom-up one (creating concept maps); and students’ ability to communicate ideas with verbal reports and concept maps as the visual aid ( viz . multimodal communicative performance) was measured before and after the pedagogical intervention. The results provided evidence that concept mapping facilitates EFL learners’ multimodal communicative competence, in terms of visual literacy, verbal delivery and the verbal-visual coherence, regardless of the approach. Moreover, creating concept maps from scratch is particularly conducive to active cognitive processes of information selection and organizing, as well as the ability to synchronize visual and verbal modes of communication.