The multimodalities of globalization: Teaching a YouTube video in an EAP classroom

This article examines the ways in which a multimodal text-a YouTube video on globalization and business-was mediated in two English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classrooms, and how these mediations shaped the instructor's and her students' meaning-making in specific ways. I first explore the complex multimodal discourses involved with this particular video and present my own reading of it. In addressing the instructor's and students' engagements with this video, I adopt a mediated discourse analysis approach to examine their classroom discourses that interact with the social circulation of a globalization discourse featured in this multimodal text. A conversation with the participating instructor, who articulates several issues including concerns about the possible politicization of her classroom if certain approaches to texts are used, is also presented and used to examine her subsequent approach with her students in the second class. I discuss the ways in which social actors take up discourses differently, and conclude by exploring the possible classroom practices that can address an increasingly multimodal curriculum.