"I drew first then I wrote": nine-year old students' apprehensions of sociosemiotic resources and conceptions of assessment when creating multimodal texts

The aim of this interview study is to analyze what modalities the nine-year old students in public school prefer to use in their meaning making in multimodal text productions which will be evaluated by their teacher. 

 

Theoretically, the study is based on linguistic sociocultural, sociosemiotic and second language research.

 

The included interviews with nine-year old students (n=15) focus on what sociosemiotic resources the students’ have used in their multimodal texts each about the theme Stone Age.

 

The analyses show that most of the students - regardless of linguistic background - express that they prefer using images instead of written text for text production. If they are able to choose, one third prefers to use the computer and one third prefers to express them by making a drama or a movie. Most of the students have difficulties in verbalizing their thoughts on assessment and do not understand how or in what way the teacher will evaluate their text productions, even if the teacher has formulated what is being asked for from the students.