Access Without Lowering Expectations: What My Action Research Revealed About Multimodal Instruction for English Language Learners

English Language Learners face a unique challenge in the classroom: they are developing academic English while simultaneously being expected to engage with rigorous grade-level content. This does not mean they need less challenging work. Instead, they may need different pathways for accessing, processing, and demonstrating their understanding of that work.

This challenge led me to investigate multimodal instruction, which can combine written text, oral language, visuals, graphic organizers, video, audio, modeling, technology, and interactive experiences. My research suggested that these approaches can provide additional access to academic content, but also reinforced an important principle: simply adding more modes does not necessarily improve learning. Each representation must serve a meaningful instructional purpose.

My Research Question

My action research centered on one question:

What are teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of multimodal instructional strategies in supporting the academic achievement of English Language Learners?

The purpose was to better understand how educators perceive multimodal strategies in relation to ELLs' comprehension, engagement, participation, access to grade-level tasks, and academic achievement.

How I Conducted the Study

I used a descriptive action research design involving three educators with experience teaching English Language Learners at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

Participants completed an online teacher-perception survey consisting of three demographic questions, eight Likert-scale items, and four open-ended questions. The combination of quantitative and qualitative data allowed me to examine not only how participants rated multimodal instruction, but also what they identified as benefits, challenges, and needs related to implementation.

What the Quantitative Data Revealed

The quantitative findings were remarkably consistent. All three participants selected Strongly Agree for all eight survey statements, producing an overall mean of 5.00.

Teachers strongly agreed that visual supports promote understanding, multiple ways of interacting with content increase understanding, written and oral information support comprehension, technology helps students demonstrate learning, video/audio/multimedia increase access, multimodal strategies support grade-level tasks, visual signaling supports attention, and multimodal instruction positively affects achievement.

Figure 1. Mean ratings for eight teacher-perception survey items related to multimodal instruction for English Language Learners (N = 3). All participants selected Strongly Agree for each item, resulting in a mean of 5.00 across all eight items.

What the Qualitative Data Revealed

The open-ended responses added important context to the numerical results. Four themes emerged from the qualitative data:

Four Themes Emerged from the Qualitative Data

01 — Multiple Representations	02 — Multimodal Scaffolds
Comprehension + Vocabulary	Grade-Level Performance
Teachers emphasized using visuals and multiple forms of representation to make academic content and vocabulary more accessible.	Multimodal supports were viewed as helping ELLs access rigorous content and successfully engage with grade-level learning tasks.

03 — Effective Implementation	04 — Teacher Support
Time + Differentiation	Professional Learning + Resources
Effective implementation requires teachers to select and differentiate supports purposefully rather than simply adding more modes.	Teachers need appropriate resources, technology, and professional learning to implement multimodal instruction effectively.

Multiple Representations — Comprehension + Vocabulary

Teachers identified multiple representations as useful for supporting students' comprehension and vocabulary development.

Multimodal Scaffolds — Grade-Level Performance

Participants perceived multimodal scaffolds as helping ELLs access and engage with grade-level academic tasks.

Effective Implementation — Time + Differentiation

Teachers recognized that multimodal instruction requires time and intentional differentiation. Effective implementation involves selecting supports based on learner needs rather than simply adding more modes.

Teacher Support — Professional Learning + Resources

Professional learning and access to appropriate instructional resources emerged as important conditions for successful implementation.

Together, these findings reinforced an important conclusion for me:

Effective multimodal instruction depends on intentional design—not simply adding multiple modes.

From Research to Practice

The findings support an approach to instruction in which the academic expectation remains rigorous while the pathways to accessing it become more flexible.

For example, students might work toward the same grade-level objective while receiving purposeful supports such as visuals, vocabulary support, graphic organizers, written and oral directions, strategic video or audio, structured discussion, modeling, or technology.

The purpose of these supports is not to replace the intellectual work students need to do. Instead, they can help remove unnecessary barriers so students can participate in that work.

My research also reinforced the importance of gradually moving students toward independence. A scaffold should be provided when needed, monitored through evidence of learning, adjusted in response to student performance, and eventually faded when the learner no longer needs it.

What I Learned

The strongest takeaway from this action research is captured in one statement:

The solution is not less rigor. The solution is greater access.

At the same time, I have to be careful about what my findings actually demonstrate. My study included only three educators, and the data represent teacher perceptions rather than direct measures of student achievement. Therefore, I cannot conclude from this study that multimodal instruction caused improvements in ELL achievement.

Instead, the findings provide a valuable starting point for continued inquiry. Future research could include a larger participant group, student perspectives, classroom observations, and direct student-performance data to investigate how particular multimodal strategies influence learning.

For my own practice, however, this research has changed the questions I ask when designing instruction. Rather than asking whether I am using enough technology or enough different strategies, I want to ask:

What is the learning goal? What barrier is preventing access? What support addresses that barrier? And what evidence will tell me whether the support is working?

That is what purposeful multimodal instruction means to me.

Same rigorous goal. Multiple pathways to access it.