College Students’ Multiliteracies: Based On Students’ Classroom English Multimodal Presentations

“Multiliteracies”, a new-coined term to distinguish it from traditional literacy, refers to a wider view of literature and the ability of understanding and creating multimodal context. Multiliteracies includes e-proficiency, the ability to design multimodal discourse, to construct content, and realize cohesion. College students’ muliliteracies has become necessary capacities demanded by our society. All these can be systematically and comprehensively shown in students’ multimodal presentations.Taking a university’s College English students’ multimodal discourse as analysis material, the paper intends to find some truth about College English students’ multiliteracies, to examine their overall awareness, and to level their abilities. What’s more, the study tries to locate college students’ common problems and affecting factors. As a whole, this study is a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, with observational method, survey method, and product analysis borrowed. By offering specific information of college students’ current level of multiliteracies, the study intends to call for more effective multimodal English classes.The overall analysis of students’ multilodal texts and presentations shows that students tend to choose certain genres and modes. Prompting genre and visualizing genre are mostly borrowed in students’ multimodal texts. Sound, words, bullet points, intonation, pause, stress, images, colours, and template are frequently-used modes. It is found that there is an imbalance between students’ multiliteracies awareness and abilities. These two develop scissors difference. Students have developed a strong awareness of multiliteracies. However, their multiliteracy abilities are in urgent need of further improvement. The study divides students’ multiliteracies into three levels, “successful” “less successful” and “struggling”. Except for e-proficiency and cohesion, there exist conspicuous differences between various levels. Problems of “less successful” students, who are of the overwhelming majority, are most representative. Problems include a relatively low level of multimodal interaction, a lack of awareness of re-design, an overuse of some modes, a failure to realize content accuracy, and a low level of cohesion. Moreover, it is indicated that students’ multiliteracies are affected by not only language proficiency, but also their information filtering ability, and teacher’s overt instruction, etc.