Abstract This study examined how a Finnish primary school teacher implemented and navigated different modalities within a multiliteracies framework when teaching English to young learners. Finland’s recent reforms introduced foreign language learning in the first grade of primary school and established multiliteracy as a cross-curricular competence, creating an authentic context for using different modalities in language education. Employing a qualitative case study design, the data comprised survey and interview responses, a teacher‑generated multimodal diary consisting of photographs and written reflections, as well as notes, sketchnotes, and video and audio recordings of English lessons. To reflect the multimodal nature of both teaching and data collection, the analysis employed Multimodal Content Analysis. The findings indicated that the teacher employed all eight modalities: spoken and written language, visual, audio, gestural, tactile and spatial representation, and representation of oneself. Through analysis, these modalities were interpreted within four themes: deliberately integrated modalities, peripherally engaged modalities, latently present modalities and multimodality as pedagogical strategy, which describe the way the teacher used modalities during language lessons. By illuminating the dynamic interplay of modalities in early language classrooms, this research contributes to the development of more coherent and responsive multiliteracies pedagogy in early foreign language education.
Puronaho et al. (Wed,) studied this question.