Advancing English Language Multiliteracies Through Cybergogy in the Age of Society 5.0

Abstract

This study investigates the use of cybergogy into English language education to enhance multiliteracy skills among eighth-grade students in the context of Society 5.0.  This research, grounded in the multiliteracies framework and emerging literacy studies, examines how digitally mediated, learner-centered spaces facilitate multimodal meaning-making and connect students' out-of-school digital activities with conventional classroom literacies. A qualitative case study methodology was employed to gather data from one English teacher and eight students via classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and the examination of student multimodal outputs.  The findings indicate that cybergogy promotes significant learner autonomy, as students participate in exploratory interactions while utilizing platforms like Canva and mobile video editors.  Students exhibited a diverse array of multiliteracies, encompassing linguistic, visual, digital, critical, and collaborative literacies, while creating captions, audio narrations, posters, and short movies. Successful execution of cybergogy necessitated explicit instructional modeling, user-friendly and mobile-compatible tools, and adaptable multimodal task frameworks that enabled learners to engage based on their strengths.  Furthermore, cybergogy effectively connected students' digital skills acquired outside of school with the predominantly text-focused methodologies commonly employed in English classrooms, leading to increased engagement, less anxiety, and enhanced relevance. The findings indicate that cybergogy is an effective teaching strategy for cultivating English multiliteracies in digitally saturated society. The research emphasizes the necessity for pedagogical innovation, accessible technology infrastructure, and curriculum designs that genuinely incorporate multimodal and digital literacy practices.