Developing Multimodal Literacy Through Teaching the Critical Viewing of Films in Singapore

The changing nature of communication has accentuated the need to develop multimodal literacy in students. Although the conventional way of asking a series of questions to elicit students’ comprehension has helped build reading and comprehension skills, teachers could provide more support in the form of the language, pedagogical scaffolds, and technological tools to develop students’ critical viewing of multimodal texts. Working with teachers from a secondary school in Singapore, researchers from the Ministry of Education in Singapore trialed an instructional approach to teach the critical viewing of films. The approach is informed by systemic functional theory, multimodality, and media studies. The authors describe the instructional approach and the study conducted to develop multimodal literacy in adolescent students.