Multimodal texts and English language teaching: the infographic as a literacy resource

Abstract

It is possible that multimodal genre texts have been more widely used in English classes, as they are elements present in students' daily life and contribute to their greater engagement in the proposed activities. These texts, being characterized as authentic representation of the language use, provide contact with the different textual formats. They circulate in the current communication media and can be used to promote literacy practices in EL (English Language) classes. The infographic texts, a modal ones that bring together multiple linguistic possibilities. They were chosen from the other genre texts as the object of the present research. And thus, this study sought to gather information about the possible contributions of multimodal texts (focusing on the infographic genre texts) for the teaching of English language. In order to, through this type of text, promote literacy practices capable of expanding the possibilities of interaction to students in the social environment through language. For this, a bibliographic research based on academic scientific publications was carried out on the teaching of EL (ALMEIDA FILHO, 1993; BROWN, 1994), multimodal texts (MARCUSCHI, 2010; ROJO, 2012) infographics (CAIRO, 2008; RIBEIRO, 2016), literacy (KLEIMAN, 1995; MATTOS, 2011) and Didactic Sequence (SD) (DOLZ, NOVERRAZ E SCHNEUWLY, 2004). The objective, then, of identifying the possible uses of the genre text in discourse in English classes. Developing intervention proposals for the subject from itself. Through all the study and the pedagogical suggestions presented, it was possible to confirm the infographic text as a type of multifaceted one can contribute significantly to the construction of several teaching strategies in EL. This research may be useful in leveraging other studies in this knowledge field of other researchers. And also, it’s important for in-training and in-service teachers who are looking through textual genres strategies to promote more meaningful and effective foreign language teaching.