An investigation of EFL Teachers' challenges in Teaching Multimodal Reading comprehension: The case of Turkey

Enhancing reading comprehension, a crucial aspect of education, requires the implementation of multimodal teaching methods. However, while these methods offer some potential benefits, they pose challenges for EFL teachers.  The current phenomenological and qualitative study explored such challenges by examining the experiences of ten EFL teachers from diverse backgrounds in Istanbul, Turkey. Major obstacles emerged through semi-structured interviews and narrative frames, including limited resources, student misinterpretation, technological constraints, distraction management, sustainability of student engagement, multitasking demands, time constraints, technological cheating, socioeconomic factors, and designing appropriate assessments. The findings underscore the importance of comprehensive teacher training in integrating multimodal approaches into reading instruction. Continuous professional growth is also essential for effective support based on students’ needs and preferences. Moreover, it is crucial to create relevant and up-to-date teaching materials. Developing these materials and training teachers to use them effectively are both essential to addressing challenges and maximizing the benefits of multimodal reading instruction. The pedagogical implications were discussed.