2.1. Multimodal communication and a social interaction approach to language learning

New technological advances have given rise to alternative forms of communicating from a distance, for example, breaking the geographical, time, and transportation constrains that people from different locations would normally have for interaction. Such advances served as platform when it came down to facing the distancing regulations that the pandemic brought about for society in general and for education in particular which rushed us to a sudden migration to online education. As all communication, virtual-mediated interactions rely on an enormous array of semiotic resources and communicative modes for meaning making (^{Norris, 2004}; ^{Pan & Block, 2011}). However, given the historical circumstances, it is of our particular interest to inquire about learning as an effect of communication when communication is being mediated by such technological advances.

That is to say that people are immersed in social dynamics where they come in contact with others in many different ways and at various levels and exchange ideas, stories, histories, cultures, identities, knowledge and discourses. Such an exchange happens in the interplay of an infinite number of semiotic resources and modes which, in turn, make possible the negotiation of meaning, the construction of knowledge, and the creation and interpretation of realities (^{Escobar-Almégica, 2020}; ^{Escobar-Almeciga & Brutt-Griffler, 2022}; ^{Fairclough, 2011}; ^{Norris, 2004}). In this sense, communication is at the heart of human life as it forms and transforms personal and collective views, beliefs and idiosyncrasies that frame and re-frame realities in different domains of social interaction (^{Escobar-Alméciga, 2020}).

More precisely, communication holds a direct and reciprocal relationship with learning where learning comes as a result of the communicative possibilities afforded to students in and by a particular communicative environment. Edifying communicative possibilities, in turn, are possible when a respectful, supportive, and inclusive classroom climate is created and students are empowered to resort to their own historical, intellectual, social, cultural and emotional-semiotic-resources to act in pursuit of their own learning (^{Escobar-Almégica, 2020}; ^{Fairclough, 2011}; ^{Gee, 2011}; ^{Kress, 2011}). While classroom interaction has been extensively researched in EFL educational contexts (^{Asbah, 2015}; ^{Gardner, 2019}; ^{Zhang & Gao, 2020}), how these interactions happened in the particular public health emergency where instruction was technology-mediated is still a research opportunity that could potentially contribute to the evolution of virtual education in general and virtual EFL instruction in particular.

2.2. Investment and agency in EFL learning

Learning a foreign language takes more than just learning the grammar; it also entails learning about the culture to use the language effectively in various situations (^{Norton, 2015}). Language learners need to acquire culturally representative and symbolic resources that allow them to negotiate meaning, exert communicative action, and navigate the social systems they live in to develop such pragmatic competence (^{Bourdieu, 1991}; ^{Huamán Rosales, 2021}; ^{Hymes, 1967}, 1974, 1979; ^{Norton, 2013}). Learners actively participate in the pursuit of social goods, the development of relationships, and the accomplishment of academic goals as invested individuals motivated by their own agency or desire to act on their own behalf and achieve their goals (^{Knight et al., 2017}; ^{Norton, 2013}). In this sense, language learners work to participate in social exchange that unavoidably shape their discourses and identities in their own unique ways (^{Gee, 2011}; ^{Newmann, 1989}, 1992; ^{Norton, 2013}; ^{Saeed & Zyngier, 2012}).

However, student involvement and agency in this endeavor are greatly influenced by the teacher’s discourse. Students’ capacity to act independently and learn effectively can either be facilitated or hindered by the teacher’s words and deeds, as well as the discourses, attitudes, and behaviors encouraged in the classroom (^{Aukerman et al., 2017}; ^{Escobar-Alméciga, 2020}, 2022; ^{EscobarAlméciga & Brutt-Griffler, 2022}). To promote student investment, instruction should prioritize the creation of safe, welcoming, and engaging communicative environments in which students feel free and empowered to express their ideas, emotions, and identities (^{Bourdieu, 1991}; ^{Brown, 2014}; ^{Darvin & Norton, 2015}; ^{Escobar-Alméciga & Brutt-Griffler, 2022}). Such environments should encourage students to implement their sociocultural, emotional, intellectual, and historical resources to act and interact in the contexts they find themselves in.

Both students and teachers can collectively pursue the ideal social classroom conditions for successful language learning and the development of the learners’ communicative competence by creating a sense of entitlement to use their own semiotic resources freely, naturally, and purposefully (^{Canale & Swain, 1980}; ^{Hymes, 1972}; ^{Littlewood, 1981}; ^{Savignon, 1987}). That is to say, for students to succeed academically and be able to effectively communicate in a variety of social contexts, they need to be socially invested and exert agency in pursuit of their learning and social objectives.

3.1. Data Analysis

The analysis in this research sought to recognize and understand the ways in which the participants configured, formed, and transformed the negotiation of meaning in social interactions and the extent to which this was conducive to student investment and agency in their learning process. Bearing this in mind, the analysis of data was carried out in two stages. A first stage was devoted to examining the interactions and a second stage was devoted to analyzing the contents of the interview and the focal groups to corroborate our assertions.

For the first analysis cycle, we took ^{Norris’ (2004}) list of communicative modes as a priory code to examine the way in which these modes happened or failed to happen in class communication. The following table illustrates these initial codes. (Table 1)

In this regard, ^{Norris (2004}) asserts that the collective processes of meaning making in interaction relies on-beyond speech-a multiplicity of modes. As such, this first analysis sought to examine the semiotic resources that the class participants employed and the modes in which they deployed them in their interactions (^{Escobar-Alméciga, 2020}; ^{Escobar-Alméciga & Brutt-Griffler, 2022}). It also accounts for the prosodic elements of spoken language like emphasis, pauses, and silences using the method of narrow transcription proposed by ^{Norris (2004}) as follows (Table 2):

Finally, we also resorted to picture transcription (^{Norris, 2004}) to account for interplay of semiotic resources and communicative modes during interactions as shown in the following Figure 1:

Figure 1 Example picture transcript 1 

The subsequent level of analysis relied on open coding to identify investment and agency-related themes as illustrated in the following Table 3.

In a final analytical level, we looked into the patterns across the data and grouped them into three greater meaningful categorical themes: (1) discussing the influence of multimodal communication in students’ involvement in virtual lessons; (2) signs that students’ engagement was conducive to investment in EFL learning, and (3) agency evidenced in students’ participation and commitment to constructing knowledge.

4.1. Discussing the influence of multimodal communication in students’ involvement in virtual lessons

Students engage with class contents and with each other in ways that, more often than not, go unnoticed in the traditional class dynamics (^{Escobar-Alméciga, 2020}). Semiotic resources and communicative modes, like gaze, gestures, proxemics, performance, body posture, and body orientation, could come to represent what ^{Fairclough (2011}) calls ‘a sign’ (^{Escobar-Alméciga & Brutt-Griffler, 2022}). That is, a learner’s action that unveils her or his semiotic work concerning communicative action in interaction. A glimpse into the ways in which s/he pursues participation and learning-often via modes other than speech-which, in turn, could potentially reveal the level to which the student is invested in what the class has to offer. Adding an even greater level of complexity, communication in VLE is mediated by technology and this restricts the semiotic possibilities that a learner could potentially have at his or her disposal in interaction and learning. Hence, inquiring about the ways in which semiotic resources and communicative modes are formed, transformed, and deployed in communication in a VLE would also exhibit signs of engagement or the lack thereof contributing to pedagogical decisions pro multimodal communicative environments within VLE. Promoting the students’ multimodal participation in VLE does not merely facilitate knowledge construction; it also acknowledges, values, and incorporates what the students bring to the classroom dynamics. It recognizes the diversity in student’s backgrounds and the infinite ways of knowing and accounting for knowledge that may, otherwise, go unnoticed.

In the particular case of the sixth-grade group, the teacher permanently prompted the students to participate in the discussions and to speak. In doing so, the teacher created a social climate in which the students were able to express their views via alternative communicative modes and semiotic resources when speech just proved inadequate in their meaning-making and meaning negotiation processes. This was especially evident when the students opened their cameras to participate, and we were able to see their body movements. It was then that the interplay of communicative modes in the collective interventions exhibited signs of the co-construction of concepts, words, and language use in general. The next excerpt exemplifies the instances in which, collectively, students co-constructed knowledge using a multiplicity of semiotic resources and modes. (Table 4)

In the excerpt above, meaning negotiation was driven by the teacher’s request to draw a witch (line 1) which created a valuable learning opportunity for the sixth-grade group. The task of drawing a witch required the students to have semiotic representations of the concept behind the word. Such sociocultural images surfaced the conversation in intervention 2, 4 and 6 as the students began to offer differentiating features of a witch (i.e., nose, hat, and smile). The teacher was not interested in correcting the students’ production, rather, when a student could not think of a word (intervention 9), she fueled the conversation through questions that prompted a student’s gesture-based response and this, in turn, was conducive to the introduction of the word ‘frizzy hair’ (intervention 13). The sequence of questions and answers mainly between the teacher and Andrés is a sign of this student’s engagement and the role that body movement has in communication. The following picture sequence in Figure 2 illustrates the interplay of semiotic resources and communicative modes involved in the interaction.

Figure 2 Picture-transcript 2 

This picture illustrates the modes that the participants used in meaning negotiation in the quest for learning. In the first sequence, students were drawing in response to the teacher’s proposed task. Then, in sequences 2 and 3, students were sharing their ideas via speech and metaphoric gestures-hand movements that represent abstract ideas (^{Norris, 2004}). Subsequently, in sequence 4, Andrés employed Norris’ (2004) dietic gestures to represent the notion of frizzy hair. The use of additional modes of communication in this interaction enabled the teacher to support the student’s intervention offering him lexical alternatives. In sequence 5, the student repeated and provided examples using the same gesture, only this time; the teacher provided a word that accurately represented the student’s intended meaning. As such, the aforementioned actions facilitated the introduction of new vocabulary and contributed to the creation of a welcoming learning climate where the students were encouraged to resort to their own semiotic resources to participate. This particular interaction also unveiled the student’s investment toward the classroom conversation.

We can say that multimodal interactions offered ample possibilities for interpreting, understanding, exchanging, and negotiating meaning and most importantly, multimodal classroom communication promoted alternative ways of constructing knowledge and accounting for it. As such, the possibility afforded to students of communicating ideas using a multiplicity of semiotic resources and communicative modes enhanced understanding and stimulated student engagement in the classroom dynamics, which, in turn, increased opportunities for learning (^{Brown, 2014}; ^{Satar, 2015}). This is particularly true in interactions mediated by technology where the properties of conversations are diminished by the means mediating them. As such, it is important to design virtual learning environments where multimodal communication can assist the construction of knowledge (^{Bezemer & Kress, 2015}).

4.2. Signs that students’ engagement was conducive to investment in EFL learning

The never-ending formation and transformation of individual and collective identities take place, mainly, in interactions where people exchange, negotiate, and struggle over symbolic places in society and take on social roles that are collectively constructed and/or reconciled through discourse (Escobar-Alméciga, 2013; ^{Fairclough, 2011}; ^{Gee, 2011}; ^{Huamán Rosales, 2021}; ^{Norton, 2015}). A VLE, however, limits the extent to which the students can make use of their entire repertoire of semiotic resources and modes like proxemics, layout, gaze, etcetera., in discursive action. To compensate, the teacher promoted a welcoming, communicative, safe, and inclusive environment, and presented contents in a way that empowered students to exert communicative action in their own particular ways and in the quest for learning-agency-while endeavoring their participation and membership in the group (^{Krishnan & Pathan, 2013}; ^{Norton, 2013}; ^{Newmann, 1989}, 1992; ^{Saeed & Zyngier, 2012}). The following excerpt illustrates the aforementioned points. (Table 5 y Table 6)

In the excerpts 2 and 3 above, students’ perception about their own engagement was directly associated with, first, the teacher’s use of diverse pedagogical strategies and instructional activities; second, with the opportunity afforded to students to work with others; third, with the possibility of addressing culture and history in their language acquisition processes, and finally, with class dynamics that are conducive to active and multimodal participation. The previously mentioned aspects were said to have an impact on the level of comfort students experienced and the degree to which they were empowered to participate and to exert agency in the quest for their own learning. As such, invested students are more likely to find ways to act on their own benefit with new and broader discursive mechanisms and to resort to symbolic and material resources to acquire cultural capital (^{Escobar-Alméciga & Brutt-Griffler, 2022}; ^{Gee, 2011}; ^{Norton, 2015}).

In sum, to promote EFL learners’ investment, agency, and learning, it is important to design a VLE that promotes multimodal communication, collaborative work, and a socioculturalsensitive classroom climate. In doing so, teachers would create a communicative environment that allows students’ learning and investment to prosper exchanging and constructing knowledge while developing discursive competences (^{Krishnan & Pathan, 2013}; ^{Gee, 2011}; ^{Newmann, 1989}, 1992; ^{Norton & Toohey, 2011}; ^{Priestley et al., 2012}; ^{Saeed & Zyngier, 2012}). That is to say, the possibilities afforded or denied to students to resort to their own semiotic resources to exert communicative action in a VLE has direct implications for identity-related processes and for learning.

4.3. Agency evidenced in students’ participation and commitment to constructing knowledge

Teachers play a central role in the creation of communicative environments, the facilitation of communication, and the exchange, the negotiation, and appropriation of knowledge in classroom interaction (^{Escobar-Alméciga, 2020}; Escobar-Alméciga & Brutt-Griffler, 2022; Van der Heijden et al., 2018). In the specific case of the sixth-semester group, the teacher created an interactive, welcoming, and safe VLE where students had many opportunities to get involved, exchange ideas, negotiate their identities, and defend their beliefs which was, undoubtedly, conducive to the collective construction of knowledge in the communicative situations therein. The communicative action that students were able to exert in their class did not only foster the learning of contents, but it also transformed the participants’ perspectives, ideas, identities, and knowledge (^{Aukerman et al., 2017}). This is a clear example of the reciprocal relationship that exists between the agency that teachers exercise through their instructional designs and implementations and the possibilities afforded to students to act in pursuit of their learning and their social place in the classroom community (^{Brown, 2014}; ^{Lane et al., 2003}). Consistently, the next excerpt illustrates such reciprocity. (Table 7)

The excerpt above illustrates ways in which the teacher’s actions brought about meaningful changes to classroom instruction and interaction. Andres, for instance, highlights the fact that technological resources come to be, in and of themselves, a source of motivation. He values the opportunity he had to see these resources being used in their pedagogical applicability in the course of his virtual English class. In a similar manner, Daisy reflects upon the role that the teacher played in forming and transforming such resources in pursuit of the teaching and learning processes and objectives. Daisy asserts that, in this class dynamics, she did not only learn language-related contents, but she also acquired useful elements for her future pedagogical career taking the teacher’s actions as model. As such, the teacher is an influence that transcends the class time and space offering academic and professional lessons for life (^{Lane et al., 2003}).

In sum, teachers are agents of change who strive for the formation and transformation of their students by presenting them with valuable elements through meaningful experiences. We can say that the actions and strategies that the teacher implemented in the class configured communication, participation, and collaboration within the learning environment. This, in turn, offered interactive, safe, and welcoming spaces for the exchange of ideas, identities, cultures, and knowledge.