An Investigation of Multimodal Texts: The Case of English Presentation Slides

[[abstract]]在世界各地，人們廣泛地使用簡報，其實它也屬於數位文本的一種，而幾乎每位大學生都曾有設計簡報的經驗。就多模態識讀的觀點而言，簡報在本研究中，亦可視為多模態的數位文本。這項研究的目的為：探討大學生所採用的簡報結論策略以及簡報設計策略。據此，本研究將採用多模態文本分析，解讀學生的簡報內容與設計，以了解其多模態識讀能力的發展。 本研究對象為35位英文系的大學生，他們都曾有英語簡報的經驗。在本研究中，每位學生都必須進行兩次簡報：第一次為學期初，學生們是在沒有接受任何簡報設計訓練的前提下完成。第二次為學期中，學生們則是在接受相關訓練後，再次進行簡報。本研究資料主要是學生的簡報作品，另外，學生上台簡報的錄影檔，以及其簡報完成後的自我評鑑報告，則是本研究的次要參考資料。 研究結果顯示，學生在未接受簡報設計訓練前，僅有少於四分之一的學生採用了簡報結論策略，且其結論的內容與設計仍欠缺整體思考。所幸，在接受簡報設計訓練後，絕大部份學生的簡報結論與簡報設計皆有明顯改善。其中，最常用的簡報結論策略，依序為：總結提要、訴諸行動、心得分享。總而言之，本研究建議教師提供學生明確的指導及相關的訓練，以強化學生的簡報技巧（尤其是簡報結論及簡報設計等策略的運用），並進而提升學生的多模態識讀能力。[[abstract]]PowerPoint presentations are one kind of digital text that are widely used in many areas and almost every college student will need to make one as part of their schoolwork Adopting a multimodal literacy perspective PowerPoint presentations particularly presentation slides are viewed as multimodal texts in the present study The aims of the current study are to explore college students’ strategies for making a conclusion in PowerPoint presentations and to examine the strategies they employed in the design of their presentation slides A total of 35 junior students participated in the present study All the participants were English majors in the English Department of a university in Taiwan and they all had prior experience of designing and presenting multimodal texts in the form of PowerPoint presentations The participants were required to give two PowerPoint presentations with one at the beginning of the semester as a baseline performance and the other in the middle of the semester after they had received formal training in presentation skills and the design of slides The participants’ PowerPoint slides from both first and second presentations were used as the primary research data to understand of their concluding strategies and whether or not their multimodal literacy developed The students’ presentational videos and self-reflective writings were used as the secondary data to help the interpretations of the research findings The results showed that in the first presentation just under a quarter of the students made concluding slides although these often had weak content or even no clear conclusions Encouragingly the majority of students were able to create more effective presentations particularly conclusions after receiving explicit instruction The three most commonly used concluding strategies were summarizing calling for action and sharing feelings Moreover the analytical results of the focal students’ design of multimodal texts showed that they all significantly improved their work in terms of visual and textual content as well as overall cohesion when comparing their first and second sets of presentation slides It can thus be concluded that the explicit instruction was needed and that it was able to raise the students’ understanding of presentation design and the use of concluding strategies thus strengthening their multimodal literac