Fostering Students’ Multimodal Communicative Competence through Genre-Based Multimodal Text Analysis

The multiplicity of semiotic resources employed in communication, the rapid advancement of information, communication, and technology (ICT), and burgeoning interdisciplinary research into multimodality have led to a paradigmatic shift from a mono-modal to the multimodal perspective of communication. Conversely, actualising multimodal concepts in teaching and learning practises remains underexplored, notably in developing the students’ multimodal communicative competence (MCC). For this reason, this study endeavoured to probe genre-based multimodal text analysis in fostering the students’ MCC. Grounded on Action Research (AR), the present study facilitated students to cultivate their MCC through the activities of Genre-based multimodal text analysis (hereafter, GBMTA). Practically speaking, students performed the analysing practises in the course at an English Education Department of a state university in Tasikmalaya, West Java, Indonesia, namely Grammar in Multimodal Discourse (GiMD. Four Indonesian EFL students were recruited as the participants. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed with thematic analysis. The findings showed that the students could: (1) build their knowledge on multimodality, (2) engage with theoretical and practical learning activities, (3) assign analytical and reflective task-based learning activities, and (4) provide constructive feedback about their learning performances, and (5) raise awareness of the contributions of multimodality to prospective English teachers’ competences. The main implication of this study is the promotion of increased awareness of deploying multimodal aspects to English language teaching, learning, and investigative practises to attain optimum MCC. colours, mood semesters we were required to make a reflective journal, do mini-research, and analyse rehearsals.


INTRODUCTION
Multimodality has occupied a pivotal position in current literacy practises because of its impacts on how meanings are conveyed (Wang, 2018), including in activities involved in the teaching and learning of language. Thibault (2000) contended that multimodality refers to the utilisation of communication modes where miscellaneous semiotic resources (e.g., language, visual images, gestures, space, movement, audio, and audio-visual modes) are inter-semiotically co-deployed and cocontextualised to make meaning. Besides, since learning experiences tend to run multimodally, the composition of semiotic resources (multimodal resources) in teaching practises enables the teachers to apply distinctive pedagogical approaches (Victor, 2011). Also, the rapid growth of sophisticated technologies has significantly contributed to a fast-tracking change in multimodal representations of knowledge and contents (Plastina, 2013). Furthermore, Liu and Qu (2014) assumed that the mixture of diverse semiotic modes enables the audiences (e.g., students) to alter their perceptions of information. With this in mind, equipping students with multimodal communicative competencies remains essential in this current pedagogical period.
Multimodal communicative competence (MCC) is the capacity to comprehend the amalgamated possibility of assorted modes to make meaning, notably to communicate and create meanings in the texts (Royce, 2002). More specifically, it stipulates that foreign language students should be able to foster their metalanguage, facilitating them to remark on the co-deployment of semiotic resources within particular texts and associate their knowledge with the contexts of the situation and culture of such texts (Coccetta, 2018). In addition, the approaches to how a language correlates with other semiotic resources varying amid cultures have become representative teaching resources (Royce, 2006). Students were encouraged to make meaning not only through language but also through other semiotic resources such as images, sounds, spaces, gestures, and others. Hence, multimodality-based teaching practises allow teachers to raise the students' MCC as the ultimate goal of teaching and learning practises (Araneda & Fredes, 2021;Galante, 2015;Morell, 2018;Morell & Cesteros, 2018;Reyes-Torres & Raga, 2020). In response to this issue, a paradigmatic shift of communicative competence (CC) relying heavily on linguistic communication to MCC in language teaching practices is necessary.
A growing number of studies have examined multimodality in heterogeneous lenses. Liu and Qu (2014) explored the multimodality of EFL textbooks for Chinese college students. The findings revealed that: (1) EE (Experiencing English) and NCCE (New Century College English) indicated visually-verbally coherent multimodal texts and showed predominant facets for intersemiotic semantic relations, and (2) EE presented a higher level of interpersonal intersemiotic complementarity and multimodality enabling the implementation of contemporary educational notions (e.g., constructivism in EE and humanism in NCCE), and (3) each textbook represented disparities in terms of language difficulty and target students' English language competence. Additionally, Lirola (2016) investigated the main political posters created for the campaigns of the Irish political party, Fianna Fáil, represented in the Celtic Tiger (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008) and post-Celtic Tiger years (2009)(2010)(2011)(2012). She reported that politicians were depicted positively through their statuses and formal manifestations to convince people to vote for them and their political party.
Furthermore, Michelson and Valencia (2016) analysed meaning sources of study abroad (SA) experiences represented on an institutional website. The findings demonstrated that discourses of tourism appeared more dominantly than educational discourses. Also, the students' discursive practises were reflected on the institutional website. More recently, Parlindungan et al. (2018) delved into the representation of Indonesian cultural diversity in middle school English textbooks. They inferred that the 2013 English textbooks for Grades 7 and 8 pervaded unequal proportions of cultural values and practises. Furthermore, they recommended the benefits of subsuming the affluent Indonesian local cultures more concretely. These studies problematized how multimodal analytical tools were utilised to analyse cultural values, political movements, educational discourses, and ideologies represented in miscellaneous multimodal texts.
Though a plethora of valuable insights has been yielded by previous studies, relatively little is known about the practical implementation of multimodal approaches to language education, such as the Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) approach to mathematics, grammar, and literacy (O'Halloran, 2009), multimodal assessment of and for learning (Hung et al., 2013) and the teachers' use of gestures in the classroom (Lim, 2019). A dearth of studies scrutinises multimodal communicative competence (e.g., Coccetta, 2018;Royce, 2006); these studies, from an empirical standpoint, highlighted how multimodal concepts were manifested in educational practices (e.g., teaching, learning, and evaluating). In addition, they are relevant to the present investigation that focused on implementing GBMTA as a teaching technique for multimodal teaching and learning practises. More specifically, the research question of this study is: • How does GBMTA raise the students' multimodal communicative competence?

Multimodal Communicative Competence
Since its emergence 45 years ago, the notion of communicative competence (CC) has obtained extensive attention from several scholars (e.g., Canale, 1983;Canale & Swain, 1980;Celce-Murcia, 2008;Celce-Murcia et al., 1995;Hymes, 1972). Conversely, the concept accentuated the linguistic components of communication (Coccetta, 2018). As a result, emphasising the significance of involving multimodality in the current communication era is demanding. Kress (2000, p. 337) added that it is F. Abdullah,A. N. Hidayati,A. Andriani,D. Silvani,Ruslan,S. T. Tandiana & N. Lisnawati, "now impossible to make sense of texts, even of their linguistic parts alone, without having a clear idea of what these other features might be contributing to the meaning of a text". In other words, concentrating on a single-mode and ignoring others may inhibit the delivery of a message comprehensively (Royce, 2006). For this reason, MCC remains crucial. MCC, also known as multiliteracies (New Group London, 1996), is the ability of mixed communicative modes to make meaning (Royce, 2006). It demonstrates the capacity of meaning negotiation in communication (i.e., English) by deploying various semiotic resources (Coccetta, 2018). Therefore, the information and knowledge framed in multimodal texts and discourses need multimodal literacy to thoroughly explore meanings within such texts and discourses (Jewitt & Kress, 2003).
From the view of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), MCC designated several suppositions (Royce, 2006). Initially, multimodal communication involves a belief in negotiating, envisaging, and delivering meanings in a social context. In addition, it presupposes that situated cultural contexts generate the choice of social meanings. Likewise, since people select and apply a typical semiotic system to communicate, they communicate in miscellaneous visual and verbal modes. Thus, these suppositions can be valuable and supportive information to be implemented in pedagogical practises, mainly in language teaching and the learning process.

Genre-Based Multimodal Pedagogy
Historically, the genre is classified into three types discerned from their distinct perspectives, namely the New Rhetoric School approach to the genre, the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach to the genre, and the Systemic Functional Language (SFL) approach to the genre (Banegas, 2021;Banegas, & Consoli, 2021;Hyon, 1996). Viewed from the New Rhetoric School approach, genre accentuates socio-contextual aspects, attains thorough actions, and understands that such socio-contextual aspects change regularly (Paltridge, 1997). Meanwhile, the ESP (English for specific purposes) approach sees genre from its formal features rather than its specialised functions of texts and their enfolding social contexts (Flowerdew, 2022;Hyon, 1996). Swales (1990, p. 58), the most influential scholar on ESP-based genre, noted that "genre as 'communicative events' that are characterised both by their communicative purposes' and by various patterns of 'structure, style, content and intended audience'". From the SFL viewpoint, the term 'genre' appears as a result of burgeoning social contexts and correlated semiotic activities where students take part (Gebhard, et al., 2013;Martin, 2009). Dealing with this, Martin (2009, p. 10) outlined genre as "a staged goal-oriented social process". Nonetheless, the present study merely highlights genre from an SFL perspective to inform a functional portrayal of language displaying the language used in heterogeneous social contexts (Martin, 1992;Martin & Rose, 2007;Martin & Rose, 2008), such as text in context.
Regarding classroom employment, the genre-based approach (hereafter, GBA) was initially fabricated to help teachers design the curriculum and organise the instruction (Martin, 2009). Furthermore, Martin (2009) added that it could facilitate students in comprehending and producing genres from various specific fields and levels. In particular, this approach aims at advocating for students to acquire critical thinking skills on knowledge, and social semiotic practises that shape such knowledge. To meet these aims, GBA is operationalised into several stages, namely Building Knowledge of the Field (BKoF), Modelling of the Text (MoT), Joint Construction of the Text (JCoT), Independent Construction of the Text (ICoT), and Linking of Related Texts (LoRT) (Feez, 1998;Martin & Rose, 2008;Rothery, 1996). To illustrate, BKoF familiarises the students with an example of authentic texts and particular cultural contexts in which it commonly takes place. Then, in MoT, the students are guided to explore the structural and linguistic features of the model of the text.
Additionally, the students attempt to create an identical text in dissimilar settings with the teachers' support in JCoT. At this stage, the teachers' support is gradually reduced when the students can adapt themselves to the texts. Likewise, in ICoT, the students are assumed to be able to cultivate the texts autonomously and are prepared to be evaluated. Lastly, in LoRT, the students can investigate the learned texts' interrelations with other familiar texts (Feez, 1998;Martin & Rose, 2008;Ningsih, 2016;Rothery, 1996).
Nevertheless, since the current study deals with multimodal pedagogical issues, the nomenclature of GBA stages was modified to meet the required investigative context, such as building knowledge of genre-based multimodal text analysis, modelling of genre-based multimodal text analysis, joint genre-based multimodal text analysis, independent genre-based multimodal text analysis, and linking of related texts. More technically, in building knowledge of genre-based multimodal text analysis, the students are guided to comprehend multimodal texts and genre-based multimodal text analysis. Besides, modelling of genre-based multimodal text analysis introduces and familiarises the students with the features (semiotic resources) in multimodal texts and analytical frameworks of multimodal text analysis. In addition, joint genre-based multimodal text analysis scaffolds the students to analyse a multimodal text collaboratively. Furthermore, in independent genre-based multimodal text analysis, the students are bolstered to identify semiotic resources, select an appropriate analytical tool, prepare supportive literature and individually perform genre-based multimodal text analysis. As a final point, linking of related texts supports the students to scrutinise the correlations between their results of genre-based multimodal text analyses and others. Overall, these modified stages are framed in the GBMTA.

METHODS
Grounded on Action Research (hereafter, AR), this study centralised on exploring genre-based multimodal texts analysis in raising the students' multimodal communicative competence (MCC). AR refers to an empirical study attempting to invigorate the social contexts in which it stems from mutual collaboration and problem-solving (Bergroth et al., 2021;Burns & Westmacott, 2018;Lyngsnes, 2016). Additionally, Kemmis (2009) contended that the primary purpose of AR is to change practitioners' practises, their understanding of practises, and the conditions where they practice. Hence, these notions are relevant to the focus of the current study, namely how the practises of genre-based multimodal texts analysis fostered the students' MCC.
The cycle of AR in this investigative context encompassed four predominant stages, namely planning, acting, observing, and reflecting (Banegas, 2021;Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988). Planning refers to the process of recognizing a problem and F. Abdullah, A. N. Hidayati, A. Andriani, D. Silvani, Ruslan, S. T. Tandiana & N. Lisnawati, Fostering students' Multimodal Communicative Competence through genre-based multimodal text analysis | 637 formulating action to resolve such a problem or to improve a situation in a particular investigative setting. Acting deals with the regular process of implementing the practical intervention (action) based on the identified problem(s). Observing portrays the impacts of the applied action to be reflected and improved. Reflecting functions to evaluate the impacts of intervention (action) to determine the foundation of subsequent cycles.
In practice, the AR cycles are depicted in Table 1. This AR was conducted in an English Education Department of a state university in Tasikmalaya, West Java, Indonesia. The main reasons for choosing the data sources are (1) the existence of Grammar in Multimodal Discourse (hereafter, GiMD) as the course was the focus of the investigation, and (2) the accessibility of gaining the data because one of the researchers of the present study is a teacher in such a course, and (3) the aptness of research issues and required data.
Four junior students (two males and two females) majoring in English Education in one of the GiMD classes were purposely selected as the participants, ages 19-21 years old. They gave consent and were given freedom should they wish to withdraw from the research. They speak Sundanese as their first language (L1), Bahasa Indonesia as their second language (L2), and English as their foreign language (FL). There were several considerations in recruiting them. First, they took the GiMD course where the GBMTA was applied. Second, they were willing to participate in this study. Third, they indicated their high learning engagement while learning the GiMD course. Then, they were able to perform the GBMTA practises appropriately. They took part in 10 meetings during teaching and learning practises. Eventually, they had better collaborative personalities than their classmates during practising GBMTA.
To sum up, regarding the application of multimodal concepts to pedagogical practises mainly English language teaching, the present study employed GBMTA to raise the students' MCC anchored in a systemic functional linguistic landscape, especially GBA (Derewianka, 1990;Feez, 1998;Hyon, 1996;Rothery, 1996). More practically, the cycles of instructional activities are encompassed within five adapted stages of activity (Feez, 1998), as shown in Table 2.
This research intended to gain a blatant portrayal of the students' MCC to see how GBMTA raised their multimodal communicative competence. Therefore, data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The interview was guided by several topics for posing questions. Those topics encompassed their prior knowledge of multimodality, experiences of performing genre-based multimodal texts analysis, existing knowledge after learning multimodality, the paradigmatic shift of English language teaching and learning, comprehension of semiotic resources on multimodal texts, multimodal communicative competence, and implementation of genre-based multimodal text analysis. However, such topics did not restrict the dynamics of questions that may occur during interview sessions if unpredictable responses appear. The interview was video-recorded by one of the researchers with a camcorder (Samsung HMX F-90). All participants' names were changed to pseudonyms (Student #1, Student #2, and so forth) to maintain anonymity and uphold ethical issues. Table 1. Steps of a genre-based multimodal texts analysis (Boche & Henning, 2015;Feez, 1998;Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988).

Stages (Cycles) Details Stage 1 (Planning) Introduction
Introducing the students to multimodal texts and genre-based multimodal text analysis.
Facilitating them to comprehend three kinds of multimodal texts viz. educational posters, university websites, and English language teaching textbooks and multimodal analytical frameworks, such as multimodal discourse analysis on compositional meaning (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), Kress' model of multimodal social semiotic (MSS) communication (Kress, 2010) and semiotic approach (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) to analysing textual and non-textual representations of cultures.
Helping the students select multimodal analytical tools and analyse a multimodal text.
Stage 2 (Acting) Scaffolded Analysis of Multimodal texts Leading the students to analyse multimodal texts.
Scaffolding the students to perform genre-based multimodal texts analysis.
Directing them to explore various relevant information for supporting their interpretation of analysis results. Stage 3 (Acting) Practising multimodal texts analysis Asking the students to collaborate with their groups to analyse several multimodal texts, such as educational posters, university websites, and ELT textbooks.
Requesting the students to discuss and interpret their multimodal analysis results.
Demanding the students to write an essay containing their genrebased multimodal analysis results and interpretations.

Stage 4 (Observing) Presenting an essay on multimodal text analysis
Providing the students a chance to present their essays of genre-based multimodal texts analysis.
Observing and supporting the students' classroom presentations about presenting their essays of genre-based multimodal texts analysis.
Providing feedback to the students' classroom presentations about presenting their essays of genre-based multimodal texts analysis.

Stage 5 (Reflecting) Reflection
facilitating the students to reflect on their genre-based multimodal text analysis.
encouraging the students to reflect on their classroom presentations about their essays of genre-based multimodal text analysis.
Leading the students to reflect on their thorough learning activities on analysing multimodal texts.
Building knowledge of genre-based multimodal text analysis.
Guiding the students to comprehend multimodal texts and genre-based multimodal text analysis.

2.
Modelling of genre-based multimodal text analysis.
Introducing and familiarising the students with the features (semiotic resources) in multimodal texts and analytical frameworks of multimodal text analysis.
Scaffolding the students to analyse a multimodal text collaboratively.
Encouraging the students to identify semiotic resources, select an appropriate analytical tool, prepare supportive literature and individually perform genre-based multimodal text analysis. 5.
Linking of related texts.
Supporting the students to scrutinise the correlations between their results of genre-based multimodal text analyses and others.
This study used thematic analysis to analyse the data. Thematic analysis, according to Braun and Clarke (2006), is an analytical procedure that analyses, manages, depicts, and informs themes contained within a data set. Furthermore, King (2004) and Braun and Clarke (2006) affirmed that thematic analysis provided an adaptable strategy and plentiful, particular, and diverse data facilitating the researchers to refashion them to fit demanded empirical investigations. Similarly, Braun and Clarke (2006) claimed that it did not require the specific theoretical and technical insight of distinctive qualitative frameworks. Practically, the analysis encompasses six major stages, namely (1) familiarising with the data, (2) generating initial codes, (3) searching for themes, (4) reviewing themes, (5) defining and naming themes, and (6) producing the report (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Building Students' Knowledge of Multimodality
Basically, building knowledge on multimodality was a springboard for raising the students' MCC. Activating the students' schemata on multimodality facilitates them in establishing a fundamental foundation before performing multimodal texts analysis. As a matter of fact, the students taking Grammar in Multimodal Discourse (hereafter, GiMD) were equipped with both theoretical and practical learning experiences on multimodal issues. Pujianto et al. (2014) added that each activity in the Building Knowledge of the Field (BKOF) stage is performed to assist the students in brainstorming. Based on a theoretical viewpoint, the students were introduced to various multimodal teaching materials, such as gestures, colours, symbols, genre, and mood as represented in Excerpt #1:

Excerpt #1
Interviewer : What is GIMD (Grammar in multimodal discourse) learning like? Could you explain it in general? Student #1 : Essentially, in GIMD, we learned about the meaning of language. It can be seen not from the word. Oh, it turns out that the language only contains words. Just talking like that, but there are also other aspects of modalities that can be viewed from the language itself, from the colours, the symbols, and the mood coming out from the genre. Similar to the Foundation of Functional Grammar (FFG) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) learned in the previous semesters Besides, GiMD was a continuum of the previous courses, namely Foundation of Functional Grammar (hereafter, FFG) and Critical Discourse Analysis in English Language Teaching (hereafter, CDA in ELT). To illustrate, FFG is a course aiming at introducing the students to a meaning-based theory of grammar, specifically functional grammar under the umbrella of Systemic Functional Linguistics (hereafter, SFL). Furthermore, this course enables the students to (1) have a solid understanding of the key topics in functional grammar, (2) analyse texts as the foundation of functional grammar, and (3) relate the analysis to the concerns of critical discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis, (4) be aware of ideological contents of a text-based from the point of view of functional grammar, (5) value grammar as a tool for meaning-making and social participation, and (6) play roles as text users, text participants and text analysts (Abdullah, 2017). Regarding CDA in ELT, this course enables the students to (1) possess a holistic understanding of the key topics in CDA based on the four schools of thought, (2) possess the capacity to analyse texts based on seven schools of CDA, (3) be able to relate the analysis to the concerns of CDA in education, (4) engage students with a critical analysis of different curriculum and educational documents and practises, and (5) enhance critical awareness of how educational texts and practises portray particular conflicting discourses (Abdullah, 2019a). However, these courses merely focus on textually oriented analysis where language is considered the primary data.
Unlike FFG and CDA in ELT, GiMD emphasizes that the meaning-making process is based on non-linguistic dimensions (e.g., image, music, gesture, architecture, etc.) as semiotic resources integrated across sensory modalities (e.g. visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and kinaesthetic) represented in multimodal texts, discourses, and events (Abdullah, 2019b). Equally, Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) asserted that multimodal texts are the texts where meanings are manifested in assorted semiotic modes. Also, Oostendorp (2015, p. 42) verbalised "multimodality as an analytical tool providing ways to describe semiotic practises or representation in all their richness and complexity". With this in mind, the students are expected to shift their language learning paradigms from mono-modal to multimodal perspectives.
From a practical standpoint, the students were guided to gain valuable experience in putting the theories they had learned into practice. In this regard, students were encouraged to analyse multimodal texts (for example, educational posters, university websites, and English language teaching textbooks) provided by the teacher or chosen by themselves. Also, they were commenced with diverse multimodal analytical frameworks, such as multimodal discourse analysis on compositional meaning (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), Kress' model of multimodal social semiotic (MSS) communication (Kress, 2010), and semiotic approach to analysing textual and nontextual representations of cultures (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006).

Engaging the Students with Theoretical and Practical Learning Activities
Another attempt to raise the students' MCC was by engaging them with theoretical and practical learning activities. In this investigative context, one of the F. Abdullah,A. N. Hidayati,A. Andriani,D. Silvani,Ruslan,S. T. Tandiana & N. Lisnawati, researchers was the teacher of the GiMD course. Initially, they were requested to work collaboratively in a group consisting of five to six students for each group. Then, they were supplied with multimodal texts, such as educational websites, gestures, and space and movement. Also, they discussed such issues to obtain a wider and more profound comprehension of multimodality. In practice, they selected a topic for genre-based multimodal text analysis based on multimodal texts offered by the teacher (e.g., educational websites, gestures, and space and movement). Moreover, they decided to choose one of the multimodal analytical tools, such as multimodal discourse analysis on compositional meaning (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), Kress' model of multimodal social semiotic (MSS) communication (Kress, 2010), and the semiotic approach to analyse such multimodal texts (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). Once they have analysed and discussed the analysing results and interpretations, they disseminated them to their teacher and classmates, as seen in Excerpts #2 and #3: Excerpt #2 indicated that Student #3 learned various issues in the GiMD course, such as analysing educational websites, and their logos and symbols. Additionally, she learned gestures produced by a teacher while teaching English in the classroom. The teacher was displayed in a video projected by the LCD projector. Furthermore, she also elaborated that she learned spatial and kinaesthetic modes in the course. Unfortunately, she did not give more information about what and how she learned multimodality in the GiMD course.

Excerpt #3
Interviewer : Did you have a discussion or another similar activity? Student #4 : I think mini-research. Interviewer : All right, did you think that the learning method applied by the teacher was effective or not? Student #4 : Well, in my opinion, it's already effective, because it's complete. We learned both the theories and practices.
Referring to Excerpt #3, Student #4 informed that she perceived that the teaching process through genre-based multimodal texts analysis remains effective as reflected in her utterance, "Well, in my opinion, it's already effective, because it's complete. We learned both the theories and practises". In other words, linking theories to practises in learning activities provides an opportunity for the students to articulate their metacognitive knowledge and manifest it into strategic knowledge (Pintrich, 2002). On the one hand, he noted that metacognitive knowledge deals with general cognition and awareness of someone's cognition. It enables the students to plan, monitor, and regulate their learning and thinking.
On the other hand, strategic knowledge refers to "general strategies for learning, thinking and problem-solving" (Pintrich, 2002, p. 220). This type of knowledge encompasses a wide range of knowledge about students' strategies for comprehending what they hear, read, and conceptualise in classroom learning activities. In a nutshell, incorporating metacognitive and strategic knowledge into multimodal learning activities enables them to effectively achieve the targeted learning objectives.
Furthermore, engaging the students in theoretical and practical learning activities enables them to cultivate their analytical and critical thinking skills. In this regard, O'Halloran et al. (2015) postulate that the primary objective of the pedagogical approach in teaching and learning multimodal analysis is to foster the students' analytical and critical thinking skills and to build their self-assured, accountable, and vigorous characteristics in the light of producing, distributing and consuming the current knowledge and information.
Moreover, the New Group London (1996) proposes four underpinnings of a multimodal pedagogical approach, namely (1) 'situated practice' accentuating cultivating the students' meaning-making experiences with texts from authentic situations and contexts, (2) 'overt instruction' of a metalanguage of design building the systematic and explicit teaching of an analytical vocabulary for understanding the design processes and decisions entailed in systems and structures of meaning' (Jewitt, 2009), (3) 'critical framing' functioning to construe social contexts and purposes of meaning configurations, and (4) 'transformed practice' viewing students to implement their recently acquired skills and shapes them to be 'purposeful meaning-makers and designers of multimodal texts.

Assigning Analytical and Reflective Task-based Learning Activities
The next attempt assigns analytical and reflective task-based learning activities (Danielsson & Selander, 2016). In this attempt, the students were given several tasks while learning multimodal issues. Those tasks comprised multimodal analysis rehearsal, collaborative assignments, reflective journal writing, and project-based learning (hereafter, PjBL) or mini-research. This evidence is supported by Student #1 verbalising that "…we were required to make a reflective journal, do mini-research, and analyse rehearsals".

Excerpt #4
Interviewer : All right, hmm, did you have other additional tasks beyond your daily classroom learning activities? Student #1 : No, I didn't. However, we were required to make a reflective journal, do mini-research, and analyse rehearsals.
Essentially, multimodal analysis rehearsal and collaborative assignments are a few of the tasks or assignments aiming to enable the students to analyse, discuss and interpret their multimodal analysis results. In these tasks, the students collaborate with their groups and analyse particular multimodal texts (e.g., educational poster, university website, ELT textbook, etc.). These tasks encourage them to pinpoint the envisioned and actual inferential liaison among questions, concepts, descriptions, and other types of representation for the sake of generating beliefs, judgments, experiences, reasons, information, or opinion (Facione et al., 1995).
To support them in attaining convincing arguments and relatively proper interpretation of data analysis results, they were guided to explore various relevant information from credible resources, such as journals (e.g. Visual Communication, Journal of Pragmatics, Social Semiotics, RELC Journal,Discourse & Communication,F. Abdullah,A. N. Hidayati,A. Andriani,D. Silvani,Ruslan,S. T. Tandiana & N. Lisnawati, Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, etc.), books (e.g., Multimodal Transcription and Text Analysis (Baldry & Thibault, 2010), Enregistering Identity in Indonesian Television Serials: A Multimodal Analysis (Goebel, 2011), Multimodal Teaching and Learning: The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom (Kress et al., 2001;Matsumoto, 2015), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), Multimodal Studies: Exploring Issues and Domains (O'Halloran & Smith, 2011) and websites (http://multimodal-analysislab.org/) (O'Halloran et al., 2015). By doing so, the students' engagement could be enhanced through these task-based learning activities. Another task is reflective journal writing. Theoretically, Wellington (2000, p. 118) defined reflective journals as a kind of "annotated chronological record or a 'log' of experiences and events". In terms of the current study's context, it was intended to assist students in expressing what they were taught about genre-based multimodal text analysis that differed from what they already knew. Furthermore, it aimed to highlight their perspectives on the implementation process and comment on the application of theory to practice relating to the method. Moreover, it functioned to communicate the extent to which what they thought they knew was captured in their genre-based multimodal texts analysis. Also, it helped them state what could have been conducted to enhance their multimodal communicative competence. Likewise, it enabled them to convey the impacts of implementing genre-based multimodal text analysis. Eventually, it allowed them to designate the strengths and weaknesses of implementing genre-based multimodal text analysis. These are aligned with Moon's (2001) concept, contending that reflection includes experiences, events, specific descriptive feelings, personal viewpoints, and critical evaluation. Similarly, students' reflections on learning activities attest that they could intertwine their existing experiences with previous learning (Feuerstein et al., 2006). Therefore, reflective task-based learning activities advocated for the students to play their roles as text analysts or critical literacy practitioners (O'Halloran et al., 2015).
Additionally, Project-Based Learning (hereafter, PjBL) was another task assigned to the students as their final tasks or final projects before accomplishing the GiMD course. PjBL is a state-of-the-art technique for learning involving various and critical approaches to succeed in this current age. It empowered the students to manage their learning by exploring, collectively scrutinising, and fabricating projects based on their knowledge (Bell, 2010). Specifically, the students were guided to work collaboratively from meeting 14 to 16 to finalise their final tasks. In meeting 14, they were required to discover a research topic, outline investigative key points and prepare for data collection. Supplementary to such activities, they were tasked to design an outline of the research article and prepare data collection because of classroom time constraints. In meeting 15, they were called for reviewing the obtained data, consulting analytical practises, and composing a succinct research article. Similar to meeting 14, they were demanded to analyse the gained data and finish writing a research article as the subsequent assignment. Finally, in meeting 16, they must submit their final tasks in the form of a research article to the teacher. By doing so, PjBL, a flexible methodology, capacitates the students to promote multitudinous skills in an integrated, meaningful, and ongoing activity (Foss et al., 2008).

Providing Constructive Feedback to the Students' Learning Performances
One of the pivotal teaching practises to allow the students to reach improved learning performances was through corrective feedback (hereafter, CF) provision. Dealing with the student's classroom learning activities, such as classroom presentation, text-based analysis, and classroom discussion, the teacher commonly accorded CF to their learning performances. The feedback in this context functioned as a mirror reflecting their strengths and weaknesses while learning multimodality. Additionally, the students must promote constant learning development (Lyster et al., 2003). Technically, the teacher gave constructive feedback to the students by appreciating their strengths (e.g., oral presentation performances) and informed their weaknesses (e.g., inappropriate exemplification). As noted by Ajayi (2009), the indispensable literacy issue which should be highlighted by the teacher(s) is to generate students' pedagogical alternatives incorporating their perspectives, prior learning experiences, and identities. In other words, feedback should not only concern how the students correct their mistakes and enhance their learning performances but also how they can harmonise their perspectives, experiences, and identities. At the same time, the students elucidated that the teacher's scaffolding and feedback played a vital role in teaching and learning multimodal texts. This is represented in the following excerpt: Excerpt #5 Interviewer : Did you get feedback from the teacher once you had accomplished the tasks? Student #1 : Eh, we normally obtained feedback from the teacher in terms of reflection or appreciation after we finished presenting an issue in teaching materials. For instance, he said, "you have presented the materials well". On the other hand, he also informed us about our learning weaknesses. Furthermore, he re-explained the teaching materials to confirm the students' multimodal knowledge.
Given these facts, appropriate corrective feedback enables the students to diagnose their mistakes and discover proper solutions for their learning problems. Nonetheless, inappropriate use of CF may psychologically discourage them to communicate and engage in classroom learning activities.

Raising Awareness of the Contributions of Multimodality to Prospective English Teachers' Competences
Once the students joined the GiMD course and participated in miscellaneous learning activities, especially genre-based multimodal texts analysis (e.g., building knowledge of genre-based multimodal text analysis, modelling of genre-based multimodal text analysis, joint genre-based multimodal text analysis, independent genre-based multimodal text analysis, and linking of related texts), their understanding on multimodality enhanced significantly. For instance, before learning multimodality, they claimed that the prospective English teachers should individually master four major language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Rose, 2018). Nonetheless, after learning multimodality, their paradigms on how meaning is constructed and deployed have shifted from mono-modal to multimodal perspectives (Firmansyah, 2018) and pedagogy (Suherdi, 2015). This paradigmatic shift represents F. Abdullah, A. N. Hidayati, A. Andriani, D. Silvani, Ruslan, S. T. Tandiana & N. Lisnawati, Fostering students' Multimodal Communicative Competence through genre-based multimodal text analysis | 645 their awareness as prospective English teachers of the contributions of multimodality to prospective English teachers' competencies. Such a fact is delineated as follows: Excerpt #6 Interviewer : All right, you are one of the English prospective teachers in this faculty, aren't you? Student #3 : Hmm Interviewer : As a student in your faculty, what do you think about multimodality? Did it offer you valuable knowledge to facilitate you in developing your teacher's professionalism? Student #3 : I think yes. This course provided me with valuable knowledge. For example, I've just known that GiMD explores discursive practises related to meanings represented in movements, either teachers' or students' movements. In other words, such gestures and movements could affect learning activities, such as the teacher's gestures influencing students' learning performances.
Therefore, as prospective English teachers, they were expected to own not only linguistic competence (grammatical competence) but also sociocultural competence, strategic competence, actional competence, and discourse competence (Celce-Murcia et al., 1995), and multimodal communicative competence (Royce, 2002). In a similar vein, Fernández-Pacheco (2016) contended that the emphasis of the new pedagogy of multiliteracies lies on teaching how to comprehend and produce multimodal texts by combining miscellaneous modes including language and altering the students' role (prospective English teachers) as meaning makers to be meaning re-makers or modifiers.

CONCLUSION
This research has depicted how genre-based multimodal texts analysis (GBMTA) raised the students' multimodal communicative competence. Five major findings have emerged in this study, namely (1) building their knowledge on multimodality, (2) engaging with theoretical and practical learning activities, (3) assigning analytical and reflective task-based learning activities, and (4) providing constructive feedback to their learning performances, and (5) raising awareness of the contributions of multimodality to prospective English teachers' competences.
Viewed from its contributions, the present study offers contributions from theoretical, practical, and empirical lenses. Theoretically, this study supplies valuable contributions to the theoretical underpinnings of teaching multimodality, particularly in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context. Practically, the present study recommends essential information for the TESOL practitioners, linguists, and English language students about the pivotal roles of genre-based multimodal texts analysis to raise multimodal communicative competence. Empirically, this study extends the body of research on multimodality in language education, such as English language teaching practises.
Even though this study offers valuable findings, a final note on its limitations emerges. More specifically, such limitations encompass time constraints and a single data collection technique (semi-structured interview). For these reasons, future studies should employ longitudinal investigative attempts, and exert triangulated data collection techniques (e.g., observation, document analysis, or questionnaire administration).