Doing Multilingualism

Aesthetic, Multimodal and Multilingual Encounters in the Language Classroom

Sammendrag

This video essay explores some ways in which sensorial experiences can enhance affective and cognitive engagement with language and literature in learning situations. It takes into consideration the fact that multilingualism is currently regarded as a resource for language learning and identity development at school. It also attends to the fact that encounters with a diversity of texts and modes is considered an important way to promote literary literacy while developing language skills. The video proposes that material that puts forward the interplay between verbal and visual text and between multiple languages has the potential to invite exploration, foster affective engagement and inspire multimodal and multilingual creative responses.

Without directing towards specific uses of these materials, the video explores some characteristics of selected spreads from the picturebooks Storysongs/Chantefables (2014); Are You an Echo? The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko (2016); Pablo Neruda Poet of the People/Poeta del Pueblo (2011) and Book of Questions/Libro de Las Preguntas (2022) and presents them as aesthetic pathways to integrate multilingualism in the classroom. At the same time, I hope to show how video essays themselves can work as aesthetic, multimodal and multilingual responses to literature that may encourage learners to showcase their creativity and linguistic repertoire, and as an inspiring form of research dissemination in the humanities.