As someone who was part of the first wave of the changes made to the Language B curriculum for the IB Diploma in 2018, I got to experience a period of exciting changes.

The changes brought about an increase in both the focus on listening, as well as the diversity of voices and sources in my teaching.

It was therefore exciting to see how changes to language acquisition in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) would have an impact, with the new subject guide released earlier this year placing a similar emphases in these areas.

As well as restructuring the assessment criteria, with an increased focus on the four primary skills of language learning, there was an added focus on multimodality.

Using multimodal texts

Multimodal texts include a combination of text, images, animations or videos, and can be used as a means of expanding the definition of literacy. Using this type of text could also lead to a change in mindsets in how language learning can be used as a vehicle for developing our awareness as critical consumers of information.

But what does that mean for teachers and learners? How can multimodality enhance our understanding of the world?

For my first study of multimodality with my second year MYP students, we decided to take on this concept by looking at the ideas of unfairness, inequality and bias in news reporting.

Key ideas raised:

• My students and I worked on information retrieval in the form of the search for factual or structural information from different reports.
• We also examined the nature and different types of bias.
• We looked at how these biases manifest themselves through seemingly innocuous and objective news reporting.
• We made the connection between the words that were spoken and the accompanying images or footage, and how this connection managed to elicit a response that standalone written or aural text would not have done.
• We discussed what was not being said or shown (perhaps the most important discussion).
• We raised the question of how truth can be subjective through selective information and how our understanding of it is coloured by the media we consume both consciously and unconsciously.

It was on the whole an enlightening experience for the students, and a real wakeup call in terms of how they approach and engage with the information they receive every day.

Three tips when using multimodal texts when examining bias:

1. Brainstorm preconceptions  

Examine where students derive their ideas from and whether or not they are aware of how their perceptions are shaped.

The study of a multimodal text should not serve as a confirmation of assumptions, but instead an examination of how it can (and will) influence our ideas and our view of the world around us.

2. Texts do not need to be controversial to spark critical thinking

We studied news reports on everything from cat cafés to the Black Lives Matter protests, and in each text or mode there was a different assumption to be addressed.

Students would jump to conclusions or base their understanding on ideas they had formed prior to engaging with the text instead of evaluating what response was being elicited from them and why. It can even be more of a challenge to look for the subtler hints in texts we would normally dismiss as harmless or entirely objective.

3. Experience first, terminology later

Understanding multimodality and the connection between various modes is an exercise in mindfulness that requires an active experience prior to naming and framing. Therefore, a deductive method framed by carefully worded questions should come before conventions or rhetorical techniques are named and defined.

A focus on a simple yet effective thinking and discussion routine will allow the students to allow this analytical process to become second nature. 

While we may not have moved mountains in terms of shifting global mindsets, my students and I walked away from this first experience with a more finely tuned sense of our critical faculties,

This led to a heightened awareness of the filters through which we have been influenced to look at the world, and how our understanding has been altered as a result, in a way that goes beyond words and surface-level messaging.

In other words, we enhanced the understanding we all aspire to as users of and communicators through language.

Gudrun Bjorg Ingimundardottir is IB curriculum manager at a school in São Paulo, Brazil