Background: There is an increasing demand in foreign language classrooms for pedagogies that link language learning with learners’ cognitive, emotional, social and digital lives. Language learning strategies, multimodal digital tools and psychodynamic perspectives have all been researched in isolation, but the integration of these into a single classroom model has not been explored. This study looks at whether a transdisciplinary instructional model which brings together explicit strategy instruction, multimodal digital composing and psychologically informed learner support will lead to improved strategy use, language performance, engagement and language anxiety for university students learning German.

Purpose: To investigate the effects of a 12-week transdisciplinary intervention (in comparison to conventional strategy instruction and regular instruction) on learners’ cognitive, metacognitive, social, affective and digital-multimodal strategy use; integrated language proficiency; engagement and foreign language anxiety.

Methods: A convergent mixed methods quasi-experimental design was employed. The sample consisted of 180 undergraduate students of German as a foreign language, who were assigned to three intact classes: a transdisciplinary multimodal group (n=62), a conventional strategies group (n=59) and a comparison group (n=59). The quantitative data comprised a strategy questionnaire, an integrated language test, engagement and anxiety scales and classroom observations. The qualitative data comprised 24 student interviews (semi-structured), student reflective journals and teacher field notes. Analyses used were ANCOVA, repeated measures analysis, correlation analysis and thematic analysis.

Results: The transdisciplinary group had the largest gains in language performance (M change = 20.7), followed by the conventional strategies group (M change = 11.5) and the comparison group (M change = 5.5). After controlling for pre-test scores the transdisciplinary group was significantly superior to both comparison conditions on all aspects of integrated language performance (strategy use, engagement and anxiety reduction). The greatest gains were in the areas of metacognitive and digital-multimodal strategies. Engagement was positively related to language gain (r = .68) and anxiety was negatively related to gain (r = −.54). The qualitative data identified four mechanisms: meaningful multimodal expression, metacognitive awareness, emotional safety and collaborative identity work.

Conclusion: The findings suggest that language learning strategies are most effective when they are part of an emotionally supportive, multimodal and digitally enhanced learning environment. The study provides a transferable framework for foreign language teachers who wish to bring together literature, languages, psychology and digital pedagogy.