Multimodal composing in a French L2 class during short-term study abroad: Willingness to communicate and creative expression

Digital multimodal composing (DMC) and study abroad have each been valued for their potential to facilitate second language (L2) development, yet their intersection remains underexplored, particularly regarding willingness to communicate (WTC). Drawing on Norton’s (2000, 2013) investment theory and MacIntyre et al.’s (1998) WTC framework, this study investigated how Instagram-based digital storytelling about host families shaped WTC and creative expression among five intermediate American French learners during a four-week study abroad program in France. The study addressed two research questions: (1) how host family interactions shaped through multimodal storytelling influenced WTC, and (2) how multimodal affordances (visual, audio, and textual) scaffolded learners’ creative expression and WTC development. Data included semi-structured interviews, weekly reflection journals, stimulated recall sessions, and Instagram artifacts. Two distinct patterns emerged according to learners’ investment levels. For high-anxiety, lower-investment learners, multimodal affordances served primarily compensatory functions, distributing communicative load across modes when linguistic resources proved insufficient. For high-investment learners, these same affordances functioned as sophisticated tools for cultural interpretation, enabling increasingly complex creative expression and sustained WTC development. These findings suggest implications for task design in short-term study abroad programs, particularly regarding how structured digital storytelling tasks may support authentic host family engagement and communicative risk-taking.