Visuals and Text
This post is a joint effort of the work myself, Chris and Stuart have put in for our presentation. We were to choose a photo from 3 different coursebooks and based on our reading and opinions influenced by our experience, evaluate how effectively those are used. Before we began we got together and discussed about when and why we use photographs and what we thought about their role in language learning and teaching. These were our answers:
ALEKS: To large extent I use visuals as a prompt for discussion or simply to decorate a worksheets I make. Being very visual myself I find it hard to look at a poorly edited page covered with text only. I do believe ‘picture is worth a thousand words’ and including those in my lesson is simply trying to meet learner’s expectations. Days of grammar translation method are long gone and though we were not familiar with Duchastel’s taxonomy at first, most of us intuitively think of a coursebook with plenty of images as instantly appealing.
CHRIS: Humour; by adding humour to a text through a photo I think it brightens it up, engages student interest and may hopefully create a memory association for learners to relate to whatever it is they’re learning that day that they can later recall in the future.
STUART: I use visuals as they can create interest and spark conversation. They evoke background knowledge /memory (Stott´s scemata theory) without necessarily being required to “do” anything with them. A text can be a daunting prospect to an ESOL learner, as understanding the written word requires a variety of skills, such as gist reading, skimming and scanning, deducing meaning from the context, and dictionary proficiency. None of these skills are required with an image. Images have the power to inspire confidence in the learner as they represent what may be beyond the student ability to verbalise.
Having been given a multitude of reading throughout this course, my view of the need for visuals has been further compounded. The distinct lack of visuals in academic reading has hindered my understanding of many texts. I have realised that visuals can also be used as an effective mode of punctuation, underlining, pausing, compounding, ilustrating, and highlighting concepts, which can be revisited quickly and more easily than in a dense text, broken up by the occasional paragraph.
Chris:
Reading about multi-modality made us aware that there are lots of communicative resources that meaning is put across with e.g. images, gestures and expressions, movement, music, speech, sound effects, and so the communicative meaning of a message is not just encompassed by words on their own. Through all these resources there is a cultural embeddedness, and a text may validate student’s culture or identity (Early,M et.al, 2015). So, what implications does this have on our evaluation of photos in course books?
Firstly, although multi-modal texts deepen comprehension, they can perform different functions across cultural groups and moreover, be perceived differently which means ‘such resources are not a neutral path to meaning’. (Early,M et.al, 2015, p452) In other words, not only should we be looking to see if a photo is culturally appropriate, we should also be looking to see if it communicates the same intended message to different cultures.
Stuart:
‘Dual Coding’ is a term coined by Paivio in 1971 ( in Walker & White 2013 ), in his theory of cognition. It refers to the way in which an individual learns and can improve their learning, using visual imagery and verbal association. The idea concerns itself with the way in which information is processed. Paivio posits that images and words are stored in different places or channels in the human brain. When required to recall an idea such as “dog” the individual is able to use either, the image or the word or both at the same time. Storing ideas such as these in different places in the brain, under different “headings” strengthens the memory and aids in learning.
The image above illustrates the duel coding concept in reverse. Looking at a photograph of a dog, with the word cat next to it, jars with our understanding of the two stimuli fleetingly, before we call upon, pragmatic coding for example and realise it is, indeed a joke.
Aleks:
Hill investigated the role of visuals in 3 fairly popular coursebooks: InsideOut, Face2Face & Outcomes. His greatest revelation was that majority of images (about 50%) used in coursebooks served no purpose other than decorative. He considered it to be ‘a great waste of effort on the part of the publisher and a great waste of opportunity for the language learner and teacher’ (Hill, D. 1998). We argued that decoration should not be seen as a wasted opportunity, as he also agreed, it is learner’s expectation of a coursebook to include photographs. What’s more, the idea of creative use of photos, such as one explored by Corder in late 60s, should be embraced and students encouraged to ‘ talk with the picture’ rather than simply describing it. Hill’s study found that current use of images in published material was limited to low-level language skills such as labelling, ordering or basic description. The author insisted such activities were promoting the less-desired ‘talking about the picture’ approach. We pointed out that, given our attitude towards coursebooks as a flexible contingency plan we can fall back on should we choose to, that we would be more inclined to adapt or even invent other more creative uses for photographs without being given a clear link to provided tasks.
Aleks:
The criteria for how we were going to evaluate the photos was based on Duchastel’s taxonomy of visuals, and using that, we were to decide how effective those are, whether it translates appropriately across cultures, whether it links to the target language and whether there are any improvements to be made. In the spirit of presentation we assigned a photo to each category. Though we disagreed on which photos best represent each bullet we all immediately associated a concept with an image of some kind.
Chris:
Real Life Upper Intermediate, Student’s Book page 32
The purpose of this picture is to support the purpose of the section that it forms part of; ‘Real time’, to present “functional language in real situations and typical speaking exam tasks in realistic contexts” (Teachers Handbook, p6). Therefore, the photo intends to help create a believable situation with which the students can associate the functional language they are learning.
Unfortunately, this is exactly where it fails because the photo itself is obviously staged and doesn’t look real at all. After looking through the book and counting 120 photos in total, around 60 of them are obviously staged agency photos, and that does not reflect the message of ‘realness’ that the book is trying to promote. The front cover of the student’s book is the most ironic example of all with the large title ‘Real Life’ being illustrated with three models and their fake smiles. However, in terms of cultural appropriateness, we think the photo is adequate; it concerns the topic of ‘rap’ which is an international phenomenon, and in terms of communicating the same meaning to different cultures, although we cannot say for certain, we don’t think it causes any obvious problems.
On the other hand, this is an upper-intermediate book and the only reference to the photo for language practice is in question no.1 which is very low-level, acting more as a lead-in than an activity. If its purpose is to be an easy lead-in then that is fine, but if we were the teacher we would most likely leave no.1 out and go straight to no.2; the questions asked in no.1 don’t even need to be answered by the photo as there is a caption beneath the photo explaining exactly what’s going on. Therefore, the photo’s related questions for us seem a little patronising and unnecessary.
This relates back to Hill’s comments about how photos are not used to their full potential; they take up a lot of space but aren’t used so much for the language learning process (Hill, 2013). In this case, the photo does its job in setting the context and we don’t think it is actually meant to do more than just set the scene and add some colour and decoration, but there is nonetheless a lot of wasted potential. We think for it to be improved, it needn’t be a photo at all. For example, an artistic drawing of the characters involved may have been more effective to transmit more humour and emotion, thus making it more emotive and memorable for the reader. A skilled drawing may have connected better with the reader’s imagination than a staged photograph does, and played more on the idea of image association and dual-coding. Furthermore, to act as a more effective lead-in that encourages more creative language to be produced, something more challenging and less half-hearted would have been more appropriate, such as ‘looking at the photo and working with your partner, create some speech bubbles of what you think they may be saying to each other.’
Stuart:
I chose Total English Upper Intermediate. Using Duchastel´s taxonomy of visuals, this new unit page, as with all text book visuals in my opinion, ticks both the affective and attentive boxes. The photos are the first stimuli when turning to the unit and are broad enough in their representation of the subject matter to elicit some understanding of the topic. Exercise 1 uses the photos specifically as a lead in, requiring the learner to engage with the topic by expressing his/her opinions. The images have been used to provide stimulus for the lead in, which without them, would be redundant.
I think the main reason for the photos is didactic in its purpose. “Success” is the target concept, a difficult word to define, as its meaning is entirely subjective. Using commonly agreed notions of success, goes some way to achieving this explanation. However, the images used are a rather westernised view of success. Although football is known throughout the world, these photos assume the learner will agree that success can be defined as winning. Three of the images are of famous people, assuming the learner will have prior knowledge of the personality represented. These seemingly trivial criticisms, could lead to a feeling of alienation or exclusion on the part of the learner and therefore reducing the effectiveness of the lesson as a whole.
I believe the photos could have been exploited on a much deeper level. Learners should have be asked to add their own visuals to this group of four, representing their own view of success, ie: family, love, personal improvement, acquiring a job etc. This way, the plethora of options in representing the concept of success, would be addressed and the balance redresssed.
Aleks:
According to Duchastel’s taxonomy of visuals I could only see the role of the photos as affective and attentive. This group of photos draws learners’ attention to the top of the page and allows them to associate pictures with a topic of travel, holiday or architecture. Initially the context appears rather broad/open to interpretations as suggested above, but, to my frustration, it then focuses on two named destinations. Such tactic has limited effectiveness as not all students, myself as a non-native teacher included, will be familiar with those landmarks. The task is to assign each photo to a place and also asks the student to choose between the two. Having a wider range of locations, rather than just two, would lend itself better to speculation, as oppose to assume knowledge on the subject which is quite important to the initial selection. Using specific locations alienates individuals or even groups and can have the adverse effects to its original purpose. However, such photos could easily be put to a better use by encouraging the learner to imagine and invent stories around the image. ‘Talking with the picture’ could also be achieved by asking the students to create a guided tour supported by their choice of pictures. Similarly, rather than focusing on low-level language skills such as matching based on some speculation, those pictured could have been better used by asking students to imagine sounds, smells or even create dialogues people may have had in those locations. Although we have come up with many improvements, we still value this book highly and, after our background reading, would now feel better equipped to exploit any photos in any coursebooks to its potential.
Due to time restrictions we didn’t get to ask our colleagues about their thoughts on photographs so below are questions we intended to raise. Comments most welcome…
Aleks:
The first question is to ask ourselves at what point decoration becomes a waste of potential space in the course book; we felt it justifiably has its uses, but too much of it and it leaves a lot of unfulfilled potential, so it would be interesting to discuss at what point can we strike the perfect balance. As mentioned in Early (2015) generation we teach are most likely to be very much used to visuals in all forms of communication they engage in so, naturally, we’d like to meet their expectations by including those in our materials, even if purely to decorate a page. Would you agree with us?
Chris:
The second question comes from the idea that rather than setting specific exercises in the book for teachers to use with photos, perhaps course books should take it upon themselves to publish easily adaptable photos that teachers are able to exploit as they see fit. That way, it leaves a certain freedom to the teacher to adapt the images according to his/her specific context. For further investigation and discussion, it would be interesting to try and theorise what kinds of photos would be most suitable, and what kinds of training teachers should have in order to be competent at using photos at their full potential for classroom learning. Any ideas?
References
Early, M., et al. (2015) Multimodality: out from the margins of English language teaching. TESOL Quarterly 49 (3): pp. 447-460
Hill, D. A. (2013) The visual element in EFL coursebooks. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed) Developing Materials for Language Teaching. (2nd edn) London: Bloomsbury. pp. 157-166
Walker, A. & White, G. (2013) Technology Enhanced Language Learning: Connecting theory and practice. Oxford University Press.
