This document discusses the importance of visual literacy and visual thinking in learning. It defines visual literacy as the ability to interpret and understand visual images. Teachers need to recognize the significant role of visual thinking in learning, as people think and learn in different ways, and the modern world relies heavily on visual communication. The document explores strategies for creating a learning environment that supports visual thinking, such as using images, graphics, and multimedia authoring. It discusses how visuals can help with comprehension, engagement, and as advance organizers to structure information. Developing visual literacy is important for both students and teachers.

1. VISUAL LITERACY
Module 2. ELE 155

2. AIM: Explore what visual literacy
means
• Think about, draw on research, and relate to
your own experience of using visuals
• Discuss why literacy and language teachers, and
teacher educators, need to recognise the role of
visual thinking in learning in a multimodal world
• Consider whether your learning and teaching
approaches need to support visual thinking
• Explore strategies for creating a learning
environment in which visual thinking can play a
deep and significant role in the learning process.

3. visual literacy
• “the ability to read, interpret, and understand
information presented in pictorial or graphic
images”
• “the ability to turn information of all types
into pictures, graphics, or forms that help
communicate the information” Wileman
(1993)
• Like.No.Other

7. Hello. My name’s
Forrest, Forrest Gump.
You want a
chococlate?
The name’s Bond,
James Bond.

8. Identify images for each speaker
• "DO YOU FIND ME SADISTIC? YOU KNOW, I BET I
COULD FRY AN EGG ON YOUR HEAD RIGHT NOW,
IF I WANTED TO.“
• "I'M 36 YEARS OLD, I LOVE MY FAMILY, I LOVE
BASEBALL, AND I'M ABOUT TO BECOME A
FARMER. BUT UNTIL I HEARD THE VOICE, I'D
NEVER DONE A CRAZY THING IN MY WHOLE
LIFE.”
• “AS FAR BACK AS I CAN REMEMBER, I ALWAYS
WANTED TO BE A GANGSTER.”

9. • Verbal
• Verbal and single mode pictures
• Multimodal
• Multimodal hypertextual
https://www.eslpartyland.com/news/slanted.htm#axzz1lfY748RO
http://www.esl-lab.com/flowershop/flowershoprd1.htm
http://www.pearsoned.ca/school/science11/biology11/sugartransport.
html
http://www.birds-eye-view.alaska.edu/
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/volcanic-lightning
http://www.animatedengines.com/otto.html
http://www.roythezebra.com/guided-reading-stories/guided-reading-
part-1.html

10. Rationale
• Visual literacy precedes verbal literacy in
human development
• Seeing comes before words. The child looks
and recognizes. This leads to thought needed
to speak, read or write. Words are the images
of things
• Without images thinking is impossible

11. Need for visual literacy
• Visual images fast becoming the most
predominant form of communication
• Interpreting visual language play an important
part in learning about world in general
• Some people are visual thinkers
• Necessary workplace skill
• Increase in multimedia authoring

12. Multimedia Authoring
• images, sounds and movement as raw material
for construction of messages
• analyze AND produce clear, appropriate
communication in a medium in which text may
still be central, but images, sounds and
movement (as well as interactivity) are
increasingly common.
• Need to know what is IN a picture, in what
context it is used, how is it placed, to serve what
purpose

13. Words vs Images
• A language based pedagogy is no longer sufficient
for newer literacy practices
• With writing, words rely on the ‘logic of speech’
involving time and sequence, whereas the ‘logic
of the image’ involves the presentation of space
and simultaneity.
• schools foster the ‘logic of writing’ whereas
contemporary children’s life experiences are
grounded in the ‘logic of the image’ and the ‘logic
of the screen’.

14. Multimedia principles
• Dual coding principle
• Split attention principle
• Modality principle
• Redundancy principle

15. visuals as advance organisers
In the comprehensible input – interaction – comprehensible output
• Introduction
• Outlining
• Arranging
• Sequencing
• Abstract
• Structure
• Restatement
• Simplification
• Elaboration
• Clarification
• Definitional support
• Redundancy (Plass, & Jones, 2005)

16. Visual Language - Introduction
We all read visual language, whether
accompanied by written or spoken words

17. One picture equals a 100 words

18. Pre-school children brought up in an
environment where visual language
plays an important part.
• Direct to images before they can speak
• Read pictures before they read words
• Draw pictures before they write

19. Everyday Communication
Three strands of language - oral, written, and
visual, essential for receiving and transmitting
information
Everyday face-to-face communication, where
the spoken language cannot be separated
from the visual language of gestures, eye
contact, and facial expression.

20. Print where visuals convey meanings
not necessarily presented as written
text

21. Visual Thinkers
Thinking as fundamental to learning.
But not all people think in the same way. Some people think only
visually, some only verbally (i.e. in words) and some do both (Cooper,
2006).
West (1997) defines visual thinking as:
“... that form of thought in which images are generated or recalled in
the mind and are manipulated ... associated with other forms (as with
a metaphor), rotated ... or otherwise transformed gradually from one
image into another. These images may be visual representations of
material things or they may be non-physical abstract concepts ...”
• Test on man and woman walking

22. Why should we take account of visual
thinking?
“Any successful theory of pedagogy must be based on views
about how the human mind works in society and in
classrooms…” Kress (2000)
Visual & verbal thinking involve:
• taking in and generating information and ideas
• processing information, and
• storing and retrieving information
For a successful, creative and meaningful learning experience,
the learner needs a learning environment that supports all
these aspects of how they think.

23. Workplace Skills
Internet texts are strongly visual
Visual images can
help read and understand texts
support reading and help make meaning of text
Readers should learn to
explore various forms of verbal and visual communication analyse
the interaction between words and images
think critically about the meanings and effects produced.
Focus on how to use images available to build reading skills.

24. Character study

25. Visual literacy
The ability to decode, interpret, create, question, challenge
and evaluate texts that communicate with visual images as
well as, or rather than, words.
Visually literate people can read the intended meaning in a
visual text, interpret the purpose and intended meaning, and
evaluate the form, structure and features of the text.
It is important for teachers to be well informed and confident
so that they teach effectively and enjoy exploring visual
language.
Many countries have included the study of visual language as
an integral part of the study of the English language.

26. How Visuals Help
Pictures may serve to help
• (a) establish the setting, (b) define/develop
the characters, (c) extend/develop the plot,
(d) provide a different viewpoint, (e)
contribute to the text’s coherence, and (f)
reinforce the text.
Levin’s five functions that help in text processing
• decorational, representational, organizational,
interpretational and transformational.

27. Graphic Organisers

31. Instruction writing

32. Berry Creek Falls
Veteran Berry Creek Falls hikers recommend a counter-
clockwise loop starting on the Sunset Trail, turning left
on to the Berry Creek Falls Trail, taking another left
onto the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail, which returns to the
trailhead.

33. The Olomana Hike
This is one of the top hikes in Oahu if you are
looking for a challenging hike with unbelievable
views. It is only about 1.5 miles to the first peak
but there is more than 1,000 feet of elevation
gain and some parts have dropoffs on both sides
of the trail. Ropes have been added in a few
places to prevent you from slipping.

37. • Here are the three worst things that you can do on a date. First, you could
tell jokes that aren’t funny and laugh really hard to yourself. This will make
you look bad. Worse though, you could offend your date. One bad “joke”
may cause your date to lash out at you, hence ruining the engagement.
But the worst thing that you can do is to appear slovenly. By not
showering and properly grooming, you may repulse your date, and this is
the worst thing that you can do.
• The dodo bird used to roam in large flocks across America. Interestingly,
the dodo wasn’t startled by gun shot. Because of this, frontiersmen would
kill entire flocks in one sitting. Unable to sustain these attacks, the dodo
was hunted to extinction.
• Linux and Windows are both operating systems. Computers use them to
run programs. Linux is totally free and open source, so users can improve
or otherwise modify the source code. Windows is proprietary, so it costs
money to use and users are prohibited from altering the source code.
However, Linux can be…
Color coding, highlighting

38. Exploring Visual Language
Teachers
• learn how visual language works
• acquire terminology
Gain means of identifying, describing, discussing,
analysing, and evaluating visual language, and
thereby gain a better understanding of visual
language texts.
Just as close reading of written texts promotes
understanding in depth, so close study of visual
texts provides important insights.

39. Visual technologies
Use of ICT can have a great impact upon reading and learning
standards.
Variety of ICT opportunities that can be used:
• video/DVD
• digital images
• ICT texts/web-based texts
• photographs/images
• outlines, picture glossaries, etc.
BECTA Research (2011)

40. How can using pictures help second
language learners succeed in school?
• For second language learners, meaningful
interaction and plenty of conversation are
essential. Visual materials can promote
dialogues that stimulate thinking.
• General education and special education
teachers can initiate language-rich
opportunities in all contexts.

41. Benefits for levels ELLs
• Silent period: learner relies mostly on listening and nonverbal
means for learning.
1. Can use pictures to communicate their thoughts as well as represent
their comprehension.
2. Need time to develop enough confidence and language skill before
using language to participate fully in classrooms.
3. Visuals help to demonstrate what they know through non-verbal
means and to build successful learning experiences. Also teachers can
make their instructions more explicit and comprehensible.
• More proficient ELLs: learn to speak simple sentences
1. Strongly aware of their mistakes in language.
2. Visuals provide students with ample opportunities for them to talk
about a common topic across textual formats.
3. Also makes content more explicit cont.

42. Benefits for levels ELLs
• Most proficient stage: willing to participate in
all aspects of classroom activities
1. Help students to engage in content learning in
more creative and critical ways.
2. Visual materials should become anchoring
tools to help them access meanings and
demonstrate what they know.
3. Build strategies based on visuals to self-
regulate their learning process.

43. Benefits for persons with
developmental disabilities
• Workplace Success: Reading and writing supports
communication, enhances access to information,
and allows individuals to perform personal and
work-related tasks with increased independence.
• Personal development: literacy skills for the
expression of needs, wants, information, feelings
and ideas.
• Enhancing communication, interpersonal
interactions, access to employment
opportunities, increased independence in terms
of daily living skills and access to leisure activities.

44. ADVANTAGES
trigger student interest
meaningful contextualisation
prompts for talk
vocabulary work, drills, writing, etc.
promote self-confidence among ELL students
promote alternative ways of participating
allow opportunities for more interactions
suit the needs of ELL students with various levels of language proficiency
activate background knowledge
focus on higher-order thinking and problem-solving
establish a purpose for learners
provide a structure for reading
provide additional context for accessing information
promote study skills

45. Exploring Visual Language: a
Framework
“Close read" of visual language text
During guided, shared, and independent reading of visual
language, ask:
• What is the visual text about?
• What visual language features are used? What effects do
these features have on the reader?
• What clues do the visual language features give the reader?
• How do the visual, written, and oral texts interrelate and
support each other?
• Is this visual language meant to represent reality? How
"true" is a text.
• What is the main focus of attention of each illustration?

46. Teaching using visuals
STW
Help students focus on illustrations by asking
What do I See? What do I Think? and What do I
Wonder? This strategy enables students to fully
experience the message in picture books.
Developed by Janet C. Richards and Nancy A.
Anderson
STW promotes critical thinking, encourages
thoughtful prediction, and stimulates curiosity.

47. Venus of Willendorf (28,000 to 25,000 BC) Barbie dolls (1960)

50. • Performing arts, music, visual arts,
• Critical thinking, creativity, cultural awareness

51. Thank you, now
Get Down to Work