Engaging students through multimodal learning environments: an Indonesian context

A critical issue facing the English language teaching in the Asian context particularly in Indonesia is that the teaching and learning methods used are still far from being sufficient and effective to help students improve their language skill at the expected rate. The present study represented the results of a pilot study investigating the effects of multimodal learning environment on students’ learning outcomes related to students’ writing performance. To find out the answers of the research problem, 60 students taking English for Specific Purposes at State Islamic University of Malang – Indonesia participated in this study. They were randomly selected and assigned into the experimental group and the control group. The experimental group was exposed to multimodal environments, whereas the control group was not. The research instruments included a pre-test, a post-test, and a scoring rubric. The results indicated that the students in the experimental group had better writing performance. Hence, this will provide contribution in reference to the current methods, which mainly emphasize on the usage of innovative and creative pedagogy in the classroom. In addition, this also supports the progress of the teaching and learning of English, particularly the teaching and learning of writing in the Asian context