The young learner's textbook as a visual model of interaction

Abstract

This presentation examines how multimodal resources -images of school-age children- are deployed in EFL Young Learner´s textbooks. A number of aspects of interactive meaning such as perspective, social distance, lighting and color (among others) are addressed from the point of view of how they contribute to modeling patterns of communication and mediating language learning. The importance of developing visual awareness and multimodal competence is discussed.