Multimodality and Digital Literacy in the English Language Syllabi across Europe

This paper presents a discussion on the main issues and challenges brought about by the needs of digitalisation, such as the digital divide, in Europe. It focuses explicitly on the formal introduction of digital and multimodal literacy, or literacies, in European syllabi and curricula with the aim of expanding on current academic and professional programmes, that traditionally are based on the development of technical skills in learners, thus overlooking socio-semiotic and critical competence that is today more than needed in the labour market. To do so, we will first address the notion of multimodal and digital literacy tracing back its origins to traditional notions of literacy in the Western context, then we will review the European agenda on digital literacy after a brief overview of the position of Italy within the World Economic Forum (2014-2015) in terms of global competitiveness, quality of education, ICT use and other digital-related indexes. We will then focus on the educational domain by describing how joint syllabi and curricula in the European context can and indeed should be designed by taking into due account how collaborative learning can improve learning processes when it comes to incorporating English language classes in digital environments. The next sections will be respectively devoted to a more thorough discussion on the role of multimodal approaches to communication, especially in the context of foreign language teaching and learning, subsequently focusing on peer-learning practices. In the last section, we will give an example for the construction of a joint syllabus. We will end our discussion by arguing the case for an integrated approach that blends all the notions and components that are in our view useful for the development of syllabi that encourage the enhancement of transversal skills in the European context.