The Effectiveness Of Multimodal Composing Tasks In Achieving The Goal Of Ideological And Political Education In College English Courses

The Guideline for Ideological and Political Construction of Curriculum in Colleges and Universities emphasizes the importance of strengthening and improving political and ideological education for students.This guideline calls for all colleges and universities to integrate ideological and political education into the course teaching process to cultivate well-rounded individuals with strong morals and talent.However,incorporating ideological and political education into subject teaching and aligning it with the broader goal of "national rejuvenation" poses a significant challenge for teachers,including those teaching college-level English courses.Multimodal composing is the process in which students use digital tools to communicate and create by combining multiple semiotic modes such as text,image,sound,and music.It advocates the pedagogical concept of "learning by doing",allowing students to internalize values through practical application.Even though studies have shown the advantages of using multimodal composing to improve students’ multiliteracies,there is still a need to thoroughly evaluate whether this practice can effectively accomplish the dual objectives of ideological and political education and language acquisition in college-level English classes.Therefore,this study centers on the English for Cultural Transmission course,which aims to achieve dual objectives.To accomplish this,three sub-objectives were developed from the language perspective of English writing proficiency,the capacity perspective of cultural transmission,and the perspective of ideological and political education on patriotism.The study addressed two questions regarding the efficacy of multimodal composing tasks: 1)Is it possible to effectively use multimodal composing tasks to combine the goals of ideological and political education with teaching and learning English for Cultural Transmission? 2)What factors might influence the sub-objectives of the course—cultural communication,English writing,and patriotism?The present study was carried out among first-year students who were taking the16-week course of English for Cultural Transmission,which consists of 32 class hours in total.Two regular classes,each taught by a different teacher,were selected for the study.The assignment for the experiment class involved a collaborative multimodal composing task where students were required to create short bilingual videos on traditional Chinese culture.On the other hand,the control class was given standard reading and writing tasks that did not require multimodal expression.Fifty-two students from the experimental class and forty from the control class voluntarily participated in the study.After analyzing the teaching goals of ideological and political education in college-level English curricula,the present study utilized various data sources.These sources included writing tests,a set of questionnaires(the Patriotism Questionnaire,the Intercultural Communication Competence Questionnaire,the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning,the English Learning Motivations,the English Learning Engagement,and the English Learning Efficacy),and interviews.The data were collected twice,with the pretest in the second week at the beginning of the course and the post-test in the first week after the course ended.The interview,however,was exclusively held in the experimental class.The questionnaires were of high validity and reliability for data collection and analysis.Repeated-measures ANCOVA was employed with students’ evaluation of the teaching effectiveness of the two teachers as a covariate,and students’ performance in the three dimensions of writing,intercultural communication competence,and patriotism as dependent variables.The results showed a significant between-group effect in writing and intercultural communication competence,with a better performance in writing and intercultural communication competence observed in the experiment class than in the control class.The pretest and post-test improvements in patriotism were not significant in either class.However,the interview results appeared to show that the students in the experimental class had a greater sense of connection with their country and its cultural heritage.Finally,the Pearson correlation analysis was conducted between pre-and postmeasurements of the writing tasks,intercultural communication competence,patriotism,English learning strategies,motivation,self-efficacy,and engagement of students in the experimental class.A significant correlation was found between writing performance and English learning motivation.Furthermore,the interview results suggested that students held a positive attitude toward the multimodal composing task.To sum up,as a feasible learning task,multimodal composing,can promote the language teaching objectives of college English courses,and to a certain extent contribute to the realization of ideological and political objectives.Through quantitative analysis,this study confirmed the value of multimodal composing in achieving the dual objectives of teaching and learning in College English courses,as well as promoting ideological and political education.This provided English teachers with a dependable resource to refer to when incorporating these objectives into their courses.