Developing EFL students’ multimodal literacy with the use of infographics

Abstract

Multimodal literacy has been advocated as an essential twenty-first century skill due to the increasing access to digital media. Although there have been pedagogical interventions aimed at developing multimodal literacy, few studies have done so in EFL contexts. The present study explores the effectiveness of infographics in improving reading comprehension skills of a final sample of it 46 EFL Spanish speaking university students. A pre-test and post-test approach was employed with an intervention and a control group. Comprehension was assessed following previous proposals that considered image and text-image questions. The results indicate a statistically significant enhancement in reading comprehension for students exposed to infographics-based teaching. Additionally, teachers’ perception, which was examined through teachers’ logs, indicate the material was effective although it might benefit from additional L1 support. These findings underscore the potential of infographics as an educational tool for EFL classrooms and contribute to innovative approaches for educators seeking to boost reading comprehension in EFL contexts. © The Author(s) 2025.