Assessment in the Perspective of a Social Semiotic Theory of Multimodal Teaching and Learning

The world of meaning is multimodal. It always has been and now, for a variety of reasons, that awareness is once again moving onto centre stage. In education, a range of questions arises from this recent recognition. Among these, the two linked questions are becoming insistently urgent: ‘How do we assess learning expressed in multimodal texts, objects and processes?’ and ‘What theories are needed to deal with assessment in this environment?’ The framework proposed here is that of a social semiotic theory of multimodality. It provides a ‘take’ on meaning—and hence by implication on learning—and it provides a view on the characteristics and uses of modes in representation. It asserts that modes have different affordances; potentials, capacities as well as limitations for making meaning: a result jointly of the materiality of modes—sound, for instance, being different materially to movement or to colour—and often long histories of the shaping of these materials in specific societies.