In his blog, Nik Peachey lists a number of benefits of using infographics in class:

• They are easy to find using sites such as Daily Infographic and Cool Infographics.
• The visual and statistic aspects help to convey meaning so they are a good source of unpatronizing material for lower levels.
• They help develop visual literacy and critical thinking.
• They can be exploited in a number of different ways.
• They can help prepare EAP students for their studies. For example, they can help IELTS students prepare for part one of the writing exam.

Another benefit of infographics is their multimodal nature, in that they combine image with text and as Early (2015) points out, a concept of multimodality starts with the idea that language is only one of the modes through which meaning is made. Other modes include image, gestures, music and so on.

Peachey provides a number of ideas for exploiting infographics:

1) Peer created questions:

Give a group of students an infographic and ask then to write quiz questions for another group. Depending on the level and/ or the detail of the infographic you could give each group of students a different infographic or use the same one.

2) Fact finding:

Get students to select a set number of what they believe to be the most important facts.

3) Checking sources/ corroborating information:

Ask students to check the validity of any statistical information presented in the infographic. This will help develop critical thinking.

4) Comparing to yourself:

If possible, get students to compare any personal information contained in the infographic with themselves and carry out a ‘find somebody who’ using the infographic.

5) Checking bias and motivation:

This involves students finding out who created the infographic and why they created it. This also helps develop critical thinking.

6) Personal response:

Ask students their opinions about the infographic. For example, what they find interesting, doubtful and so on.

7) Summary writing:

Ask students to write a summary of the infographic. They could first write notes and then use the notes as a guide.

8) Presentations:

Ask students to give a presentation based on the information contained within the infographic.

9) Create your own research:

Get students to create their own research questionnaire based around the same topic.

I have very kindly been given permission to use an infographic by David McCandless called Etiquettrix for this blog:

This infographic about social etiquette lends itself to the activity where students compare information to themselves. Students could also carry out their own research by thinking of a question about etiquette that isn’t contained in the infographic and conducting a class survey.  Afterwards, students could create their own infographic using piktochart, draw.io or visme.co

Peachy also suggests other ideas for students creating their own infographics. For example, students could create an infographic based on a text, a lexical set, or use timelines to represent grammatical structures.

Task

The task for week nine involved ‘leveraging’ a worksheet into a digital environment. I chose to port the article I’d used in a task-based reading lesson. I used Piktochart and as you can see the results are quite basic, but it was good to experiment with something new. No doubt most students would be far better at producing infographics than I am, but if I can create something without too much trouble, there is definitely scope for getting students to have a go in class.

Bibliography:

Early, M., et al. (2015) Multimodality: Out from the margins of English language teaching. TESOL Quarterly 49 (3)