Enhancing the EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension through Multimodal Texts: Social Semiotic Analysis of ‘Getting Through’.

Abstract

language learners’ reading comprehension in the Algerian secondary schools; more precisely in Tizi_ Ouzou. First, this research attempted to investigate whether the visuals and the linguistic texts that are introduced into the reading sections of the Algerian secondary school textbook ‘Getting Through’ which is designed for second year learners complement the meaning of each other, and determine the types of the image-text relations. Moreover, this investigation tried to highlight the EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of the visuals included in the pre-reading texts in the reading sections, and investigate the impact of these multimodal texts on the EFL learners’ comprehension as well. For the sake of empirically investigating the issue, the qualitative methods approach is adopted. Indeed, this study combines between qualitative data collection tools and qualitative data analysis procedures .Thus, The data collection procedures comprise interviews for secondary school teachers of English and the reading texts included in “Getting Through” textbook. In order to analyse the data collected, we mainly relied on the Social Semiotic Multimodal toolkit and the qualitative content analysis. The results of this research revealed that the visual and the linguistic modes within the reading texts interact and complement the meanings of each other; in addition, the visual and the linguistic modes are combined in terms of ‘Exemplification’, ‘Augmentation’ and ‘Exposition’. Furthermore, the findings showed that teachers of English in Tizi_ Ouzou secondary schools have positive attitudes towards the use of the visuals included in the reading texts and they always explore them before reading the linguistic texts. Finally, this study revealed that the visual composition of ‘Getting Through’ textbook’s reading sections enhances and promotes the EFL learners’ reading comprehension.