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While we learn languages to communicate, language is not the only or even (at times) the primary mode of communication. These two simple understandings, which underlie the expanding interest of language educators and researchers in multimodality, and underpin shifts in our thinking about discourse, texts, and language pedagogies, are being reimagined to acknowledge the increasing prominence of nonlinguistic modes. This interest is broad-based, extends across international borders and linguistic communities, and entails much more than the simple addition of visual literacy to the crowded lists of skill sets demanded of English language learners. It is driven by more than two decades of research in education, in linguistics and semiotics, and in fields as diverse as Internet and communication studies; it has led those within the field of language education to more explicitly rethink how language is used in contemporary learning contexts and the world beyond. Our own interest in these issues predates the currency of the term multimodality, and is informed by our years as teachers and researchers across a range of geographic, institutional and cultural contexts; by our work with young children, adolescents, and adults; and by our work with learners privileged and those disadvantaged by contemporary socioeconomic and political conditions. We are very pleased, therefore, to be editing this special issue on multimodality.

This paper reports on an ethnographic research study with experienced K-12 teachers and paraprofessionals in Western Canada to understand (1) the language and literacy needs and challenges of students with refugee experiences; and (2) the pedagogical responses used to build trusting, collaborative relationships of power. Our theoretical framework draws on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model, which we align with a literacy ecology of communities perspective. Working with 15 participants in a school district with a long history of resettlement, we address the following questions: (1) What do teachers and paraprofessionals identify as the language and literacy learning needs and challenges for students with refugee experiences? and (2) What are the most appropriate and empowering pedagogical responses to meet curricular expectations and use language and literacy for social impact and identity representation? Using thematic analysis, we identify four interweaving themes: relationships, mindful pedagogies, well-being, and safety. We provide illustrative examples from ethnographic focus group discussions, triangulated with informal interviews and observations in relation to an integrated model of supports for students with refugee experiences. We conclude with four critical lessons learned about relationships, communication flows within and across nested ecological systems, flexibility and structure, and inspirational pedagogies.

In this study, we address the research question: “How might child-created billboards about HIV and AIDS help facilitate more open discussions between parents and children?\" The premise of our study is that there may be considerable potential for using multimodal forms of representation in makerspaces with young children to create more open dialogue with parents about culturally sensitive information. Drawing on multimodal literacies and visual methodologies, we designed a makerspace in a grade 5 classroom (with students aged 9–10) in a Ugandan residential primary school. Our makerspace included soliciting students’ knowledge about HIV and AIDS as part of a class discussion focused on billboards in the local community and providing art materials for students to explore their understandings of HIV and AIDS through the creation of billboards as public service announcements. Parents were engaged in the work as audience members during a public exhibition at the school. Data sources include the billboards as artifacts, observations within the makerspace, and interviews with parents and children following the public exhibition. The findings show that, for parents and children, the billboards enhanced communication; new understandings about HIV and AIDS were gained; and real-life concerns about HIV and AIDS were made more visible. Although these more open conversations may depend to some degree on family relationships more broadly, we see great potential for makerspaces to serve as a starting point for closing the HIV and AIDS information gap between children and parents.

The study focuses on a digital storytelling project conducted in a school district's transition program, in which adolescent refugee and immigrant English learners were invited to share aspects of their identities and social worlds through a range of modes. In this article, the authors look closely at one student's digital story through a multimodal analysis of three slides. The findings show how engaging with nonlinguistic modes provided enhanced opportunities for the student to explore and make visible complex and facets of his life and identity, particularly as they relate to difficult past experiences.

In this article, we describe how the funds of knowledge in a community in rural Northern Canada were actualized or leveraged in an early childhood classroom. We draw on a video recording of a First Nations elder demonstrating to the children (and early childhood educators) how to skin a marten, a historical cultural practice of the community. We argue that elders are an untapped source of knowledge that preschools and schools can call on to legitimize and bring to the forefront, Indigenous knowledge that has been ignored or undervalued by assimilationist and colonialist policies. We also argue that the elder’s demonstration is culturally congruent with First Nations traditions of sharing or passing on knowledge and that it is imperative that educators are aware of and implement culturally appropriate pedagogical practices. We conclude by sharing some ideas of how early childhood educators might facilitate through play, children’s taking up and appropriating cultural knowledge such as the elder shared in this case.

Language-based ways of learning have traditionally dominated literacy practices in classrooms, putting emergent bilingual children at a disadvantage. Here, Rajagopal and Kendrick argue for the need to value the diverse range of multimodal resources that children bring to literacy learning, including their identities, experiences, and communicative repertoires. The authors showcase the possibilities of understanding emergent bilinguals' literacy learning capacities through their drawings and conversations. By emphasizing their full communicative repertoires, they challenge the devaluation of identity that multilingual and marginalized students often experience in schools.

This case study investigated the relationship between policy and practice with regard to advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Ugandan teacher education. Our qualitative study, conducted in 2008, focused on the experiences of six language teacher educators in an urban Primary Teachers’ College (PTC). We also drew on insights from an interview with the then Ugandan Minister of ICT, Doctor Ham-Mukasa Mulira and the national ICT policy. Whilst the Minister expressed the hope that technology would transform Ugandan education, our findings suggest that the success of ICT initiatives depends largely on whether local conditions support such initiatives. Despite their enthusiasm for digital technology, the participants were challenged by the expense of Internet connectivity, inadequate training, power outages, and culturally irrelevant material. We suggest that ICT policy should address teacher educators’ use of digital technology across diverse sites, and that innovations such as the eGranary portable digital library might be particularly useful in poorly resourced educational institutions.