THE USE OF VISUAL AIDS IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM [307349]

THE USE OF VISUAL AIDS IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Teaching grammar 28

Table 2: Results’ measuring scale 85

Table 3: Questionnaire 87

Table 4: Applied measuring scale 90

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Ella 30

Figure 2: Marie 31

Figure 3: [anonimizat] 32

Figure 4: Celine Dion’s mansion 33

Figure 5: Celine Dion singing in Las Vegas 33

Figure 6: Girl talking on the phone 34

Figure 7: Shopping for clothes 35

Figure 8: Walking the dogs 36

Figure 9: Eating ice cream 36

Figure 10: Picnic 36

Figure 11: It is forbidden … 37

Figure 12: Baby lion 41

Figure 13: Kitchen vocabulary (1) 42

Figure 14: Kitchen vocabulary (2) 43

Figure 15: Verbs of movement 44

Figure 16: Diving 45

Figure 17: Morning routine 46

Figure 18: Descriptions 48

Figure 19: Supermarket prices 49

Figure 20: At the cash register 49

Figure 21: Click and collect 50

Figure 22: Checking the bill 50

Figure 23: Amusement park 52

Figure 24: Out and about 57

Figure 25: Town land for sale 59

Figure 26: Town leisure center 59

Figure 27: Town retirement home 59

Figure 28: Town hotel 60

Figure 29: Him and her 61

Figure 30: A day at the beach 64

Figure 31: Three Billy Goats Gruff Short Story Summary 69

Figure 32: Fairyland 3, Unit 3c – It’s my job, p. 26 101

Figure 33: Fairyland 3, Unit 3c – It’s my job, p. 27 102

Figure 34: The postman 110

Figure 35: Policeman 111

Figure 36: The fireman 112

Figure 37: The mailman 113

LIST OF ACTIVITIES

Activity 1 30

Activity 2 30

Activity 3 31

Activity 4 34

Activity 5 35

Activity 6 37

Activity 7 41

Activity 8 42

Activity 9 43

Activity 10 47

Activity 11 49

Activity 12 51

Activity 13 57

Activity 14 58

Activity 15 60

Activity 16 63

Activity 17 67

ARGUMENT

The purpose of the current paper is to contribute to the extensive literature on the topic of multisensory teaching/learning and provide further evidence in the support of the use of visual aids in the foreign language classroom. [anonimizat], while also ensuring a higher task engagement level and enthusiasm in the classroom. [anonimizat], assessed by various means ([anonimizat], and questionnaire) [anonimizat], and students’ level of task engagement and enthusiasm.

[anonimizat]’ attention and interest.

[anonimizat] a piece of the puzzle of using visual aids in the classroom. We believe that the various information included throughout the paper provides useful support to our working hypotheses.

[anonimizat] 21[anonimizat]. [anonimizat], are discussed in the second part of the chapter.

The second chapter covers the main areas and skills to be taught in the foreign language class, with an emphasis on the use of visual aids as teaching support. We included plenty of examples and suggestions to exemplify the versatility provided by visual aids and the creativity involved in the process of designing/responding to a class with the help of visual aids.

The third chapter discusses methodological issues with the purpose of framing our research and deciding on the most significant elements that we shall include in the practical research, based on the theoretical knowledge provided by the extended literature in the field of language learning research.

The final chapter of the paper includes the details of the experiment conducted, with an extensive discussion of the results and the implications of these results on the work of foreign language teachers. This practical chapter also includes aspects regarding the working hypotheses, the research objectives and methodology selected, the time, place and participants to the research in a comprehensive manner. The teaching material selected for the experiment was Jenny Dooley and Virginia Evans’ Fairyland 3, due to their extensive aids proposed in support of their pupil’s and teaching’s books and the richness of the ideas included.

While summarizing our findings, the conclusions of this research paper also propose various research directions and practical applications that can and should be adopted by teachers worldwide to boost their students’ performance and interest in pursuing the acquisition of the foreign language they are studying.

Tributary to Jim Scrivener’s Learning Teaching and Jeremy Harmer’s The Practice of English Language Teaching, the current paper proposes numerous activities based on visuals in support of the theoretical information, as a means of showcasing the versatility and creativity involved in working with visual aids for both teachers and pupils.

We are confident that our findings and research tools managed to capture the aspects researched properly, objectively and in a comprehensive manner, encouraging the further exploration of using visual aids in the foreign language classroom, as learning boosters that help render the classes more appealing and challenging for 21st century students.

CHAPTER 1

VISUAL AIDS IN THE CLASSROOM

Introduction

Before attempting to grasp the reality around us and make sense of the abstract concepts that we need to work with in order to achieve that, we experience the world with the help of our senses. What we see, hear, smell, feel and touch turns into stimuli that reach our brains and are further analyzed and interpreted so as to help us understand our surroundings. No conclusion or judgment about the reality we live in can be passed without the analysis and interpretation of external stimuli.

According to several studies (Wortman, 1988; Shams and Seitz, 2008), when we involve multiple senses in engaging with the external world, or learning, the chances to better understand/retain the informative content at hand increase. The use of several senses instead of a single sense as a primary source of information allows for multiple cognitive associations and connections. The neural pathways for pre-existent knowledge are activated, as the pre-existent information is retrieved and used to make sense and integrate the new information in the system already developed.

The multisensory approach to learning is beneficial, considering that it imitates the real world. As “we operate optimally in multisensory environments” (Shams and Seitz, 2008), since this is the manner in which we were created to function, the use of such an approach in the classroom would eliminate the artificiality of the learning contexts. This closer-to-reality approach could prove more natural and, thus, more engaging for students.

It is true, however, that each student has a natural inclination towards retaining more information received via a certain sense (Scrivener, 2011). For some, it is sight, while for others it may be hearing, touch, or even taste or smell, depending on the student’s learning style. While the teacher should attempt to assess which learning style fits which learners better, the use of certain senses as primary source of information (taste, smell) may not be feasible in the classroom. Therefore, relying on sight and hearing, which are more class-appropriate could benefit the students, the teacher, and the learning process more. This is only one of the reasons behind our choice to focus on the sense of sight and on the visual aids that can be used in the classroom to enhance learning.

Although not all students may be preponderantly visual in terms of their learning style, sight is a vital sense for all learners. At the same time, visual aids help render the lessons more memorable, while engaging learners with the help of stimulating resources. The combination between verbal and visual content helps retain the desired items and increases the chance of the right use of certain words, structures, or other type of verbal content. The ability to associate verbal content with visual content facilitates the process of retrieving information from the memory as well as storing information in the long-term memory by creating multiple neural pathways for the same information (Shabiralyani et. all, 2015). This means that there are more memory triggers for the same information, which helps the learner activate the informative content faster and in a more reliable manner. In the long run, the use of visual aids alongside verbal content helps the learners’ brain maintain its flexibility as well.

The following chapters focus on the manner in which teachers can apply the knowledge obtained regarding the psychology of visual perception in the classroom, which results in more engaging lessons that facilitate learning. We shall also focus on the possible types of visual aids that can be used to boost learning.

The psychology of visual perception

The universe is made of complex information networks. The said information usually reaches us with the help of stimuli that are processed and interpreted by our brain. The outcome of these operations tells us precisely how to make sense of the world around us and how to relate to our environment.

We receive the information needed to learn how to react to our environment from our senses, chief among which lies the visual sense. A phenomenon known as visual information processing/visual perception enables us to process and extract meaning from the visual information that we receive through our eyesight.

Psychologists have attempted in numerous occasions to break down the process of visual processing so as to understand its functioning. Richard L. Gregory (1997, 2015), one of the pioneers in studying visual perception, proposed a top-down approach to analyze the manner in which our perceptions help us make sense of our environment, considering that our preexistent knowledge of concepts and categories (our bird’s eye view or our ability to perceive the bigger picture) help us make accurate assumptions about our environment and identify the actual objects we are faced with, namely the materialization of the said concepts/categories. He used the hollow mask experiment to demonstrate that our top-down knowledge enables us to identify the feature of a human face and project it onto a hollow mask, to make sense of the object in front of us. The theory did come under scrutiny, when other psychologies (Barlow, 1997) claimed that, on the contrary, it was the signals we received via a bottom-up approach (the existence of the eyes on a hollow mask) that enabled us to identify the object before us.

In 2011, Noah Sulma and Thomas Sanocki set out to assess the impact of colors on the visual short-term memory, starting from the assumption that similar colors are deemed more harmonious and pleasant to the eye, while contrasting colors, although deemed bolder, are associated by seers with chaos. The results of the experiment showed that:

Color patterns belonging to a harmonious color palette are better remembered by people;

Patterns with a limited number of colors (2, compared to 4-color palettes) are better remembered by people;

Contrasting background and content colors enhance people’s ability to focus on the content.

Another phenomenon noticed regarding visual perception was the phenomenon of binocular rivalry. The phenomenon emerged during an experiment conducted in 1998 by Frank Tong, Ken Nakayama, J. Thomas Vaughan, and Nancy Kanwisher. Basically, its results have shown that our eyes do not perceive two images at a time in an integrated manner, but rather alternatively, with each image competing for visual dominance.

The effects of typography and aesthetics on reading was studied by Kevin Larson and Rosalind Picard. The participants in their study were split into two groups and allowed 20 minutes to read an issue of a magazine that had been typed. One of the versions had been poorly typed, while the other one had been properly typed. According to the results, the proper typeset seems to stimulate readers’ engagement with typed content.

In 2008, due to Castelhano and Henderson’s influential paper, the concept of scene gist emerged, as the understanding of an image/environment by an observer based on his/her visual perception at a given time. The experiment was meant to demonstrate how color influenced the extraction of overall meaning and facilitated the understanding of a scene, rendering the visual processing faster. The results have shown that color helps observers identify the shape of objects faster, and therefore, understand the scene better and faster.

This entirety of the information above can prove useful when selecting the visual aids to be used in the English language classroom. Notions regarding prototype, prototype expectations and visual perception also help. To summarize, for an effective use of visual aids, the teacher should bear in mind the following:

Arrange the content logically;

A themed approach could facilitate content understanding and retention;

Use a limited number of colors;

Use contrasting colors for the background and the content aimed for retention;

Use the colors expected by the majority of people for certain categories of objects;

If using captions, they should be kept to a minimum;

Resort to easy-to-read fonts when adding verbal content.

Armed with this knowledge of the psychology of visual perception, teachers can make their own visual aids or resort to ready-made aids after a careful selection that would catch the eye of the learners, while also enabling their retention skills. The chapter’s utility lies in setting forth a series of principles for the proper use of visual aids in a manner that would facilitate learning and lead to better classroom performance.

Conventional and modern views on texts

Conventionally, we tend to think of texts as pieces of written language endowed with meaning. This view of texts restricts them to the printed word. Texts are nothing more that strings of words connected with the help of grammar, syntax and the application of formal lay-outs, which translate into paragraph splitting.

Although accurate to a certain extent, in the 21st century, texts are no longer restricted to written words. They include and require readers to engage with “visual, auditory, spatial and gestural semiotic systems that form the basis of new forms of texts” (Bull and Anstey, 2007). This new age of technical innovation is no longer restricted to linguistic knowledge and it favors multimodal texts. Chief among these new forms of texts are the visual texts that rely heavily on the visual semiotic system. Such new texts include films, videos, games, the Internet, and the new types of books and magazine that couple verbal and visual content in an increasingly open manner. Visual texts include both still and moving images, each with its own codes and conventions. While still images rely on color, line, form, texture, and shape to achieve the desired effect, moving images (films, videos, cartoons, TV content, commercials, etc.) resort to camera angle/point of view, framing, editing, pacing, lightening and transitions, the language of gestures, setting and costumes, sound, and dialogue to convey meaning. Knowledge regarding the different codes and conventions of still and moving images needs to be accessible to both students and teachers when working with visual texts.

While still images may be more suited for early age learners, due to their cognitive development stage which favors the concrete and not the abstract, for teenagers and adults, it could be useful to resort to the complexity of moving images to develop literacy and encourage symbol/abstract understanding.

Visual aids in the classroom

If used properly, visual aids can help make the teaching process more effective. A proper use of such aids would entail the weaving of these aids into the topics taught, as complementary items meant to support the teaching process. The teacher should also bear in mind that the aids used need to match the level of his/her students, namely their cognitive development stage and previous experience with English. The introduction of aids that are over-complicated and do not match the learners’ level could result in discouraging them. No visual aid that is irrelevant for the language teaching should be used. Only aids that stimulate students’ use of English and participation in an activity planned beforehand should be brought to class. The visual aids should be realistic and accurate, to the greatest extent possible. The results of the use of such aids should be further assessed by means of follow-up activities, to check the students’ response to the use of visual aids in the classroom and their appropriateness for further use.

Visual aids display certain obvious advantages, compared to other aids, tools and instruments used in the process of teaching English. Some theoreticians have attempted to provide a full list of benefits that we shall refer to and attempt to complete. To sum up the discussion, visual aids help:

avoid excessive, empty and meaningless verbalization in teaching English;

learners go from concrete to abstract faster;

provide direct sense experience to learners;

form clear and accurate concepts in English;

render teaching and learning effective;

provide variety to teaching;

provide interesting and inspiring means of teaching;

create language atmosphere;

reduce teacher-talking time;

clarify the topic;

save time and energy.

(Source: adapted from Daniel, 2013)

Another obvious advantage that Daniel failed to include in the list provided above is that visual aids work for all learners, regardless of their level of English, due to their universality. Even young learners, who may lack the complex abilities to express complex verbal meaning in relation to a picture, understand what is hinted at with the help of visual means and, in time, they will be able to verbalize the visual content, as the learning activity ushers them towards more advanced stages of learning.

The use of visual aids in the classroom is multifold and enhances the processes of learning, knowledge retention, information retrieval, and neural pathway creation. As such, they prove extremely helpful to any teacher who wishes to plan lessons that are easily engaging and speed up retention and overall language acquisition.

Types of visual aids used in the foreign language classroom

This chapter analyses various types of visual aids that can be successfully turned into learning tools and render the foreign language classroom more interactive and stimulating for learners of any age. The aids presented in the chapter relies on Scrivener’s proposed visual aids (2011), while also adding our own visual aids proposals.

Flashcards

Despite being famous for their use during early ages, flashcards or pictures, can be used differently as the students age and become more abstract and develop critical thinking (Gibby, 2013). They have the advantage of providing support in a whole range of activities, appropriate for a whole range of ages.

Teacher might use pre-made sets of flashcards available on the market or online, the school’s library of flashcards (if any), or they can make their own flashcards, according to the topic they intend to teach. Eventually, teachers might actually end up owning their own flashcard library, while also developing an eye for the right image to be included in this personal library. As such, browsing online or through hardcopy materials can be a twofold activity. On the one hand, it may provide the teacher with the information he/she was seeking, while, on the other hand, it may help gather teaching materials. When selecting materials to be used as flashcards, the teacher needs to take into account certain principles: the pictures need to be large enough to be seen by everyone in the classroom, they need to be clear (no fuzzy images included), and they need to be representative (preferably, choose a picture of an object colored in the prototypically expected color). Organizing materials gathered throughout the years could also prove rather challenging. The pictures might be divided by topic/theme. Also, to use them longer, the teacher might seek alternative means of increasing their durability, such as having them laminated, pinned to cardboard, kept in a special plastic container, etc.

There are several ways to use flashcards in the English teaching classroom as teaching support meant to increase language retention and acquisition, and create multiple neural path for retrieving the same information. Below, we mention some of the most used ways of incorporating visuals in the language classroom:

to showcase the meaning of a certain word (e.g. cat);

to illustrate linguistic presentations, such as providing a visual prompt for an imaginary character (e.g. This is Alice. Alice works in an office…, etc.);

to support visually the content of a verbal narrative, in stimulating students’ imagination;

to remind students specific grammar items or errors to avoid;

to prompt students’ creativity (e.g. to provide learners with a set of images and ask them to make connections between the images, or even create a whole narrative);

to support guessing games, definition games, description games (e.g. one person holds a flashcard with the image of a person, while the other one tries to guess how that person looks like).

(Source: adapted from Scrivener, 2011)

A classic visual aid used for multiple purposes, flashcards can be used as prompts for a wide range of activities that promote the association between visual and verbal content as main source of language acquisition and retention. The popularity of flashcards also lies in their availability, as images can be found everywhere so long as the teacher is open to coming up with original ideas for his/her course.

Visual narratives

Either under the form of simple visual narratives or children’s picture book stories, this form of visual aids help children transition into literacy and scholastic success. Meant for older students, visual narratives help enhance abstractization and promote multisensory learning as well as cognitive development.

Eliciting the analysis and interpretation of visual means to make sense of the storyline told by the juxtaposed pictures, such aids can be used in multiple ways. On the one hand, they help learners verbalize the content expressed visually, expanding their learning horizon by enhancing their abilities to pair up images and words. On the other hand, in the long run, visual narratives open up an entire world to the future potential readers, in stimulating learners’ interest in storytelling.

Visual narratives are complex in terms of “the nature of relations between images in a sequence, the range of possibilities for point of view in a visual narrative and the visual resources for emotional engagement with the reader in such texts” (Painter, et al., 2014). As multimodal texts, they can resort only to the rational side and require learners to verbalize the actions performed/what they see/how the story is evolving/the sequence of events, or they can add an emotional side, and ask learners to put together a story that appeals to their emotional side, as well, after analyzing the visual content.

Another advantage of visual narratives is that, in addition to enhancing linguistic knowledge and facilitating the learning process, they also teaching thinking skills. So, during the process of learning a new language, students also learn how to extract meaning, assess and interpret data, solve problems, make decisions based on the evidence at hand, establish relationship patterns, such as cause-effect, predict the outcome based on the current information available, support or reject a hypothesis, question the content they were presented with, analyze, etc.

Teachers might use picture stories from a book, found online, they might print them on handouts, draw them on the blackboard or on an interactive board, or bring them to class on posters. The advantage of visual narratives is that they can be used as starting points from almost any type of activity, be it a writing, reading, speaking, or listening activity. At the same time, they can be used to pinpoint the difference between past, present and future actions. To maximize the manner in which a visual narrative can be used, teachers should first answer some basic questions that would help them break the activity down into stages and focus on what their students need to perform the task at hand:

What vocabulary do my students need to know to tell this story?

What grammar item/linguistic function can I focus on, if I use this visual narrative?

How should I structure the activity? What do I want my students to do?

What kind of exercise can I use as follow-up?

While answering the questions above, teachers make important decisions regarding the content of the activity, the preexisting knowledge that needs to be activated in their students and the manner in which this particular activity can be used as starting point for another activity, while ensuring a smooth transition.

Animations

Animations can be used to all age students, from early age to teenagers and adult learners. While in the case of young learners, animations work because children can relate to characters and it facilitates immersion in the fictional world, in the case of older learners, animations can pinpoint to other aspects, complementary to the learning process. For teenagers, animations can be used to teach a moral point, empathy, or help develop character in addition to teaching language. Social and thinking skills can be enhanced with the help of the right animation. While introducing or recycling vocabulary, grammar, and functions, animations were found to help build a more positive attitude towards learning (Yildirim and Torun, 2014).

As a multi-sensory technique, animations involve seeing, hearing, talking and, perhaps, even touching, which is an extremely effective manner of improving learning that creates several neural pathways for retrieving the same information. It is engaging, interactive and interesting. At the same time, a limited number of minutes can convey a lot of information and have an incredible impact on the social dynamics of the classroom as well, in building groups with shared experience. Also, the use of a favorite character or a pleasant and interesting animation may tear down barriers made up of fear of expressing one’s opinions, while creating a more open, safe, and light-hearted learning environment. In this environment, learners feel more encouraged to come up with new ideas, learn communicative strategies, discuss or debate issues with their peers in a respectful and constructive manner. This type of material can be used as a filler or as way of providing a breather and ease the transition into a different type of activity.

Videos, TV shows and films

Even though some theoreticians believed this type of teaching to be the lazy teacher’s version (Scrivener, 2011), with the teacher popping a DVD into a DVD player, sitting back, and allowing students to watch a video material, it could be enriched in a number of ways to ensure its usefulness in the classroom.

Teachers can use ready-made videos, films, and clips, materials they found online, or they can actually make their own materials or recordings to engage students faster and render the tasks more relevant. There are certain tenets that need to be taken into account when deciding on the video materials to be included in the lesson and the manner in which they could be used. Below, we present some of the most significant aspects to take into account:

The material should be short;

The material should be well exploited (used as starting point for a certain task/activity);

The screen should be blanked if the activity includes interruptions (for guess what’s next, etc.);

The teacher should decide on his/her place in the classroom before the activity commences, so as to make sure that he/she reaches the DVD player, and doesn’t disturb students;

The material should not be used in isolation or for simple, basic tasks (extract lexis, etc.). Since the teacher took some time to find a particular material, it should be exploited in a variety of manners and throughout a variety of activities.

Teachers should not pop a DVD on and expect it to do the work entirely, while allowing students to doze off. The use of the material should be interactive and complex. To be able to decide which part of the video is worth focusing on, teachers should refer to the multitude of aspects related to moving images mentioned in the previous chapter regarding the new types of multimodal texts. Videos have sound, image, characters that connect with each other via body language, facial expressions, eye movement, physical contact, a background, etc. If possible and if available, subtitles should be used to enhance understanding. The video can be paused, played back, or fast forwarded, according to the learning needs at hand. Usually, DVDs provide additional materials in the form of deleted scenes, director’s cut, set dialogue, or even learning material in the case of specialized DVDs. All this additional material can be turned into a starting point for a research activity, a debate/discussion, a written essay, a project, and so on. A longer video can be split into sections and used intermittently or throughout several lessons, integrated with traditional learning activities.

The checklist used in the subchapter regarding visual narratives for breaking down the activity could be relied on here, as well. As such, the teacher can decide faster on the lexis, function, or grammatical item that will be the focus of the activity, while also preparing pre-task and post-task activities. If the activity is more complex, aimed at older students, the teacher can provide a worksheet that would help students focus on particular aspects of the video (sound, movement, relationship between characters, etc.). An activity meant to highlight the importance of the visual content in rendering meaning could be muting the video and allowing students to watch a part of a scene and extract the relationship between the characters and the actual topic from the on-screen cues, such as body language, gestures, physical contact, movement, facial expressions, etc. Students can be asked to write down what they think happened in that scene, and even make up a dialogue and predict what’s coming next. After hearing the various versions of the story, the teacher could play the video again, with sound, to check the students’ understanding of visual cues.

Teaching tools

Certain teaching tools used in the classroom can help enhance the use of visual aids in the classroom. Below, we briefly mention some of these tools, as well as the manner in which they can be used to support the use of visual means of learning in the English teaching classroom.

Interactive whiteboards

Interactive whiteboards have the advantage of being multi-purpose, as their touch-sensitive surface can be connected to computer and some loudspeakers. These particular types of boards are used visually not only to project an image (still or moving) from a computer, but also to write or draw with the help of a special pen. The images drawn are created and projected electronically. So, in addition to showcasing images, or documents, PowerPoint presentations, it can also be used as a monitor to play videos or even feature films. It is also worth mentioning that some of these boards come with specially-designed learning material that includes animated, interactive exercises which could prove useful to learners.

As they help create highly interactive classes, interactive whiteboards have been proven to enhance student motivation and performance (Decker, 2010), as students are allowed to work with gadgets they commonly use in real life and interact with information in a manner that mirrors regular life interaction.

Presentation software

Either paid or free presentation tools, from the classic PowerPoint to the innovative, animated Prezi, this type of software can help pair verbal and visual content in providing much-needed explanations supported by images. To use this type of software in an efficient manner, the text should be reduced to a minimum of key ideas that the teacher should develop orally. At the same time, the illustrations/images/cliparts used should be content-appropriate and, to the greatest extent possible, original. Presentations can also be used to teach vocabulary with specific images. The visual aids can obtain a maximum effect, with little help from verbal content. The animated tool provided by the software can help enhance grammar lessons, while pointing out various alterations in specific words or word position in different contexts (Scrivener, 2011).

While presentations are definitely useful to teachers, they can also be elicited from students, to get them more involved in the process of learning, especially with teenagers who are technology-prone already, or adult learners. Students can be asked to do specific projects, from presenting a current story that’s already in the news to developing their own story, with the help of visual aids. Researching particular topics could also be a nice idea for them. Other possible uses include resorting to sets of connected words and asking students to build up coherent content starting from that particular set, etc. Putting students’ creativity and thinking skills to work may prove extremely beneficial to enliven the learning environment and enhance learning.

The dangers of overusing presentation software lie in eliminating actual classroom interaction, while focusing too much on the planned content on the slides, to the point when students’ actual reactions are no longer considered. At the same time, teachers may fall back on this tool too much and eliminate creativity and experimentation with various teaching tools or methods, which impoverishes the lessons. The temptation to use the same tools and material over and over again is great indeed, but it means simply repeating the same lesson over and over again. The actual teaching process should include a variety of methods and tools used, depending on each classroom’s reaction, as the teacher evolves and develops his/her teaching skills. Repeating the same lesson multiple times only blocks the process, resulting in dull lessons for both teacher and students.

The learning lab

Setting up a learning lab with school or sponsor funds could prove effective in the long run. The integrated use of computers and headphones can enhance learning in multiple ways. A learning lab can ensure the use of audio-visual materials, such as podcasts, videos, or films. If feasible, the teacher may even propose video conferencing students from a different school and come up with shared tasks, lively debates or other type of activity that students might feel comfortable and interested in. Setting up a school social network or forum might help students improve their English skills, while sharing and discussing content with native speakers.

Virtual Learning Environments

As platforms created to accumulate various teaching resources, where the teacher acts as content creator and the students are granted access only to view and download the content uploaded by the teacher, these environments can be used as stand-alone tools for online courses, or as part of a regular, face-to-face course (Scrivener, 2011).

This type of learning system also allows students to post their homework, mark and annotate it and collate the scores they receive, in addition to providing a series of automated tests, exercises and activities. Depending on the add-ons available, students might also be allowed to create encyclopedias, based on their collective work and blogs for keeping class diaries, etc.

Despite their much acclaimed nature, virtual learning environments are rather easy to use. However, similar to all technology-related tools, the danger in overusing such platforms is that of eliminating students’ feedback and repeating the same content over and over again.

Text analysis tools

Various websites provide text analysis tools that might help students work on tasks that could be part of larger projects or portfolios (Scrivener, 2011). Some of them could turn a set of words into word clouds for further use as posters introducing a particular event, from a play to a debate, seminar, open class, etc. Other websites can help students make up visual dictionaries from the words entered, while also providing students with information regarding the way in which words are connected (synonyms, antonyms, words of similar form or similar meaning, etc.). One such resource is www.visuwords.com. Early age learners can be asked to use such websites to create thematic visual dictionaries (research words related to clothing, food, home, farms, school, etc.). This would also enhance their retention of particular words, while also ensuring that the neural pathways of connecting this knowledge with previous knowledge are created.

Virtual worlds

Although it might seem like a bit of a stretch, visual worlds could actually work in attracting students. Creating a virtual learning environment could prove interesting and challenging for both teachers and students, as they explore the possibilities of their environment. The fun thing with virtual worlds is that they can take extremely communicative approaches and student-centered (Kluge and Riley, 2008). If aiming to teach the language used in hotels, or restaurants, for example, the teacher may actually create a virtual restaurant or hotel where students can interact and practice real-life conversations. This way, students might have the visual backup that would allow them to immerse in the task at hand and not simply imagine its environment. This simulation is the closest thing to real situations and takes role playing to the next level.

Despite coming under scrutiny for various reasons, including the lack of control over various other guests in the virtual environment, and exposure to virtual dangers, this type of tool can be extremely useful for role playing, simulations, and even task-based activities.

Most of the tools we have mentioned have little to a lot to do with current technology. Despite obvious arguments against the use of such tools, including the fact that they are time-consuming, they might hinder proper interaction, and some of them cannot be properly controlled, the rebuttals are also strong. Making the classroom more interactive, opening it to new experiences that may already replicate the type of interaction students enjoy today could enhance learning, by incorporating more appealing tools and methods of teaching. If relying on proper feedback and not used in excess, such new learning tools might provide solid alternatives to the traditional English teaching class.

Conclusions

Before we proceed to take a look into the various areas and skills that need to be taught during the language classroom and the various manners of incorporating visual aids in the teaching of the said areas and skills, we should summarize the significant information we acquired during this brief account of visual aids.

First of all, we should bear in mind that we based your entire paper on the hypothesis according to which a multi-sensory approach to learning is more beneficial in the long run, as it helps create multiple neural pathways in the brain for retaining and retrieving the same information. The connections and associations established with the help of multiple senses link knowledge in the process of acquisition with preexistent knowledge, while also serving as framework for knowledge to be acquired in the future. As far as the characteristics of the visual aids used in the classroom are concerned, we should retain the following:

Colored materials are more appealing than black and white visual aids;

The number of colors should be limited and the colors should:

be harmonious;

contrast with the background;

The accompanying text should be kept at a minimum and written with an easy-to-read font;

If arranged in a sequence, the material should be ordered logically.

In terms of activity preparation and planning, the teacher should bear in mind certain aspects pertaining to both logistics and teaching process and content, and draw up a checklist for integrating visual aids in the English language classroom, consisting of the following:

Preexisting knowledge that needs to be activated;

Lexical/grammar item or language functions to be focused on;

Activity structure;

Follow-up activity.

Obviously, there are other aspects that need to be taken into account when planning to use visual aids in the language classroom. Besides the age and content-appropriateness, attention should be paid to integrating the visual aids with other methods and techniques, so as to provide a general sense of unity at lesson level. The transition between activities should run smoothly and the visual aids should not be used in isolation. On the contrary, an activity performed mainly with the help of visual aids should naturally build into the next lesson sequence. Taking into account all these details would ensure a full and proper exploitation of visual aids in the classroom that would enhance learning and create a more positive and inviting atmosphere.

CHAPTER 2

TEACHING AREAS AND SKILLS WITH VISUAL AIDS

To speak a language, learners need to acquire certain knowledge pertaining to various areas of the topic at hand, as well as develop a series of skills that would enable them to use that language in real-life situations. This chapter is meant to revise the aspects that need to be taught/learnt, so as to provide a framework for the activities proposed in the practical chapter of this paper.

Teaching English grammar and language functions

This subchapter aims at highlighting some essential aspects in teaching not only classic English grammar, but also language functions (such as asking for/giving information, giving orders/instructions, refusing to do something, apologizing, disagreeing, complaining, etc.) that resort to specific, rather fixed structures applied in actual conversation.

Deemed for many years the central focus of students’ language learning, grammar has recently become integrated in the set of areas and skills that students need to develop in order to acquire the English language. Defined as a set of preexisting rules regarding sentence building, tenses, verbal patterns, etc. that help speakers structure their discourse, grammar is oftentimes associated with an infinite number of exercises containing rules and extensive explanations (Harmer, 2007). It is true that grammar reference books do provide information regarding rules of use, and extensive explanations on the proper context in which certain rules apply. However, the teaching/learning of grammar doesn’t need to be limited to the use of such books, nor does it have to be dull. Usually, grammar should be activated and taught by means of practical contexts of use. The purpose is to achieve linguistic competence in terms of both fluency and accuracy.

For students to be able to learn a certain grammar item, they need to be exposed to real-life context, be allowed to notice specific items and understand their functioning in context, as well as be granted contexts for practicing the item in question and be provided with the proper tools to store the information in the long-term memory and then retrieve it. The table below offers a bird eye’s view on the overall process of teaching/learning grammar:

Table 1: Teaching grammar

Usually, grammar is taught in the following sequence: present – practice (Scrivener, 2011). The grammar item is introduced and after being understood, it is practiced. This breakdown of the sequence means that there is an introductory activity, where the teacher introduces the topic, followed by a clarification stage, when the teacher provides examples of language use, and an eventual output stage, split into two sub-stages: restricted output (the students practice with the help of contexts similar to the context in which that particular item was introduced) and authentic output (the students practice the grammar item in various contexts of use, including contexts that differ from the context in which that particular item was introduced).

Teaching grammar presupposes the fulfilment of a certain set of necessary conditions for proper learning. First of all, the teacher needs to be extremely familiar with the correct grammatical uses of the item to be taught. Then he/she needs to prepare the activity by answering a set of questions regarding the content selected:

What grammar items do I want to teach?

What can I include/leave out for the time being in teaching this item? (e.g., leaving out the interrogative forms when teaching the present tense, etc.)

In which situations, places, or relationships, this grammar item is typically used?

What specific sentences make use of this grammar item naturally?

Which of these sentences can be used in a more realistic and natural way as an exponent of a target sentence?

Which situational context works better for teaching this item?

What aspects pertaining to the form, meaning, and pronunciation of the grammar item in question could prove troublesome for students?

What is the main benefit of learners in acquiring this item (what is the main objective of the lesson)?

Below, we shall explore more interactive and interesting methods of teaching English grammar with the help of visual aids in all-age language classes. The multitude of uses for visual aids in the language classroom shows the versatility of this particular ways and the manner in which they can render a class more appealing for students.

Activity 1

In a beginner or elementary class, teachers can use a very simple task to practice present simple and transform a present-practice procedure into something that would entice students and help increase their level of task engagement. A picture such as the one below can be used:

Figure 1: Ella

The teacher can ask students to imagine what Ella likes to do in her spare time, what she’s like, what a day in her life looks like. Answers like She likes reading. She is in high school. She goes to the library a lot. might pop up. To obtain more answers and keep the activity going, the teacher might ask some guiding questions: Does Ella have a pet? What pet does she have? Is she good at sports? This type of activity can be used as lead-in for discussing daily routines. Starting from this activity, students can transition to discussing their own likes/dislikes and daily routines.

Activity 2

As a variation of this activity, the teacher and the students can play a guessing game. Basing their assumptions on the hints provided by the teacher, students are asked to guess the job of a person. First, the teacher holds up flash cards showing a book, a stack of money, a pen/laptop and, then, the following picture:

Figure 2: Marie

Students start inferring the job: She earns a lot of money. She uses a laptop/a pen. She looks very relaxed. She dresses casually. Once they guess that the woman is a writer, the game can reset and continue with other jobs. This activity can be a lead-in for a lesson about jobs and lucrative activities.

Activity 3

To practice tenses (present vs. past), the teacher might with to use a set of revelatory pictures, that students can use to compare someone’s previous condition with their current situation. This type of activity would work well with intermediate students. The following pictures can be provided, as the teacher asks questions, such as Who is she? Do you know her? What differences do you notice between the two pictures? The activity also helps with function vocabulary (the vocabulary used to describe people – She used to have long, frizzy hair. Now, she has soft curly hair. When she was little, she had natural, black hair. Now, she’s dying her hair blonde. She fixed her teeth. When she was young, her teeth were not perfect. Her nose was bigger.)

Figure 3: Celine Dion – past and present

The teacher can add several more pictures and ask the students to develop further on her current situation (She’s rich now. She is successful. She is singing in front of a lot of people. She has a huge mansion with several pools, a tennis court, a gazebo and a water slide.). This could also help students practice their descriptive vocabulary in relation to various types of buildings and parts of a house. The teacher can even draw a bubble next to Celine Dion’s head and ask students to fill in what she might be thinking when she is performing in front of such a large audience. Students can be dared to write something classic (I’ve made it!) or something funny (I wonder if they still remember my former nose!), etc.

Figure 4: Celine Dion’s mansion

Figure 5: Celine Dion singing in Las Vegas

This activity could be the start of a project that students themselves may prepare, in groups, pairs, or individually, where they present another celebrity’s “from rags to riches” stories. The teacher may even suggest some names, such as Oprah, Ellen, Mark Ruffalo, etc. or they can be encouraged to use their own roles models.

Activity 4

To teach reported speech, the teacher might use an image like the one below:

Figure 6: Girl talking on the phone

The girl in the picture could be called Jill. Students are asked to notice her posture and imagine a scenario that would require her to talk covering her mouth. Then, students are asked to imagine who she is talking to and what she might be telling the person on the other end. Paired up or in groups, students are asked to imagine a dialogue in which they would tell a “secret”/”embarrassing” story to a friend and play it in front of the classroom. The sentences used are bound to include reported speech, as the narrator is retelling what happened in the past (She told me she had cheated in her finals, etc.).

Activity 5

As a nice lead-in activity, students can be asked to play a memory game. The teacher can show them the pictures below for 5 to 10 seconds, and then remove them from sight and ask students to answer some questions: How many people were out shopping for clothes? Were they all women? Did they all carry shopping bags? How many dogs were in the second picture? What was the couple doing in the third picture? What fruits were in the sundae? How many people were there in the picnic picture? Do you recall any of the food laid down on the tablecloth? Students can even be split into two large groups and the activity could take the form of a competition. The group that answers most questions wins a prize established beforehand by the teacher. This type of activity could be used as lead-in for a lesson about fun activities during summer time. In terms of grammar points, when describing the activities in the pictures, learners are practicing present simple, present continuous and, perhaps, present perfect forms (Four people are leaving the store with a lot of bags. They have been shopping for clothes. The couple is eating ice cream. A girl is walking two dogs. She is dressed as if she had been running. Several couples are having a picnic.).

Figure 7: Shopping for clothes

Figure 8: Walking the dogs

Figure 9: Eating ice cream

Figure 10: Picnic

Activity 6

In an intermediate class, the teacher may want to tackle the topic of freedom and rules to abide by, which would enable him/her to teach the language of obligation. As lead-in to such a lesson, students can be asked to look at the poster bellow and infer the meaning as well as the place where they expect to find such signs:

Figure 11: It is forbidden …

An exercise could accompany the poster, to ensure that students internalize the language of forbidding/allowing something:

Decide whether the statements below are true or false:

You are not allowed to smoke here.

You must smoke only here.

You have to give up smoking altogether.

You can use your cellphone here.

You shouldn’t use your cellphone here.

It is forbidden to use your cellphone here.

Everybody can go in there.

Nobody can go in there.

Only members of the staff are allowed to go in there.

You can’t bring pets here.

You can bring pets here.

You can take phots here.

You are forbidden to take photos here.

Only pedestrians are allowed in this lane.

Only cyclists are allowed in this lane.

Pedestrians and cyclists are both allowed in different lanes.

Everybody should take a dive here.

No one is allowed to dive here.

You could dive here.

You need to sit here.

You shouldn’t sit here.

You can’t sit here.

You can go in.

Other people can go in.

Nobody can go in.

Starting from this exercise, students and the teacher analyze the subtle differences between modal verbs expressing obligation, prohibition, etc. Then, students can go on to making their own signs forbidding or allowing various actions in different locations, with or without further directions or suggestion from the teacher.

As noticeable, visual aids can play a significant part in making grammar easier to grasp and relate to, while also increase students’ engagement with the material and enhancing the formation of associations between verbal content/language structure and visual material to boost retention for further use.

Teaching English lexis

Students are inclined to approach this particular area of the English language learning in a random manner, even though a more systematic approach could serve the purpose better. Their use of English outside the classroom (playing games, making friends and interacting online, listening to music, watching movies, etc.) allows them access to a large number of lexical items that are retained and used in specific contexts, without any particular rule, by means of mere exposure.

The current educational approach to lexical matters favors the term lexis instead of vocabulary (Scrivener, 2011), considering that the former includes lexical items (words or word combinations/patterns used to convey a single meaning), while the latter is restricted to single words. Due to such distinctions and the fact that certain items, such as collocations and chunks are believed to belong to a gray area between grammar and vocabulary, it is sometimes difficult to clearly state which items belong to grammar and which to lexis/vocabulary (still used as interchangeable terms covering the same meaning). The connection between lexis and grammar goes deeper than such aspects, since the accumulation of words and word combinations belonging to various fields and topics is not enough to build proficiency, in the absence of the proper combinatory rules provided by grammar.

Traditionally, students were encouraged to memorize long lists of words, or to acquire vocabulary in translation (Harmer, 2007). This actually led to a restricted view on language, as students assumed that a particular lexical item could be used in a single context and rejected evidence of multiple use.

In order to properly internalize a lexical item, learners need to be aware of the words that have similar meaning, with the difference in meaning and contextual use clearly pointed out, of the lexical family/group that the said lexical item belongs to, of its collocations and collocational restrictions, of the set phrases that include the lexical item, and of the particular contexts and situations where this lexical item can and will be used and found. To become aware of all this information pertaining to meaning, in recent years, students were encouraged to use monolingual dictionaries, where lexical items were not only explained, but also presented in context, alongside their synonyms, antonyms, fixed phrases, and collocations. This would enable learners to understand the item’s context of use and internalize information that would translate into language production sooner than any other method of teaching vocabulary.

Similarly to the grammar teaching methods, the teacher need to introduce the lexical items he/she intends to teach in context, make sure to provide all needed clarifications and ensure proper understanding from students, provide plenty of opportunities for students to practice the lexical items in question and memorize them unknowingly, and provide opportunities to retrieve lexical items from the long-term memory and use them in authentic contexts. The main aim of the teacher should be to turn any passive lexical knowledge into active knowledge (to go from items that are understood and recognized in context to items that are internalized and used in conversation in various contexts).

To help learners, teachers could resort to a thematic approach and group words linked to the same activity, location, even, etc. Teachers could also group words according to their grammar and use (e.g. verbs of movement), or according to the manner in which they help students perform tasks (e.g. persuading someone to see a movie).

As pictures can prove extremely stimulating means of teaching vocabulary, we have included below multiple suggestions regarding the manner in which vocabulary can be taught/learned and recycled in new contexts in the foreign language classroom. The activities proposed are highly interactive and they are designed to elicit students’ interest and attention.

Activity 7

To teach animals to early age learners, the teacher could provide the following picture and ask students to identify the animal in the picture:

Figure 12: Baby lion

After having successfully identified the baby lion, children may be asked to pretend that they are the baby lion in the picture. The following questions might help:

What do you do as a baby lion? (roar, play, hunt, eat, sleep, etc.)

Where do you live?

What other animals are in the savannah with you?

Children might even be asked to imitate the motion of the lion and its actions. Starting from this activity, children can be asked to do projects individually or in groups to present other wild animals in their natural environment. The portfolios would provide plenty of opportunities for individual vocabulary research and, thus, develop certain skills that learners need to pursue learning on their own.

Activity 8

A similar activity can be used to help students label objects found in a specific environment. The teacher can use an image such as the one above and first remove the labels, or make up his/her own image:

Figure 13: Kitchen vocabulary (1)

This approach helps students retain words, as they pair them with images, while the words themselves are thematically related. This approach can work with topics, as well, placed, types of buildings found in a city, types of stores, etc. A non-labelled images such as the one above could also be used, as students are asked to label the kitchen items themselves:

Figure 14: Kitchen vocabulary (2)

Activity 9

As follow-up, upper students can be split into pairs and asked to role play a situation when they meet a friend/relative that they haven’t seen in a while. Then, they can describe a trip they had to a foreign country and explain to that friend what was typical of the country they visited. The activity can be performed as a project, as well. Another follow-up for beginner to lower intermediate students would be to think of various animals or objects and split them by shape, size, color, etc.

To introduce verbs of movement, the teacher can resort to a ready-made worksheet, such as the following:

Figure 15: Verbs of movement

The teacher can also draw some movements on the table, or use illustrations and a set of images that renders the idea of motion when used in a fast sequence. To practice the verbs, the teacher can use a cue-response drill when he/she points at a particular movement and asks a student to read out loud the movement.

Starting from this picture, the teacher can draw basic human shapes in motion, such as a male figure walking, running, diving and emerging out of a pool. The shapes can be drawn in random order, and the children can be asked to place them in the right order and identify the main action. The teacher could use pictures like the following one for inspiration:

Figure 16: Diving

As follow-up, some of the movements on the poster can be cut out and made into a worksheet asking students to match the picture to the verb. Another follow-up for upper intermediate students that could be used as homework to help enhance individual vocabulary research could include the following activity:

Write instructions for the fitness routine below. Use the verbs mentioned in the text box.

Figure 17: Morning routine

Activity 10

To help students develop a sense of language, it could be useful to provide them with activities where they themselves need to come up with definitions and explain what they mean to another person, rather than look for definitions in a dictionary. This would help them make themselves understood even when they don’t know a particular word, as they would be able to describe its function/use or purpose. The activity also helps students develop critical thinking skills, as they are asked to extract the main descriptive aspects of an item. The following activity could help:

Put the words in the right order to make up sentences and match the descriptions to the pictures.

It jewelry is to store used

It kind specific is a dish of

They of used sometimes made bamboo are and are they to with eat

You it wash hands use to your

It’s figure tall stone of made a

People this heard crowds by use large be to

A B C

D E F

Figure 18: Descriptions

Activity 11

A more complex activity could require a set of images designed to activate and teach specific activity lexis. A set of images showing a supermarket environment, for example, could help students learn vocabulary related to the sequence of shopping in a supermarket (shop assistant, credit card, sales, shopping bag, aisle, receipt, customer, trolley, shopping card, cash register, bill, etc.). Students might even be proposed several pictures displaying the signs used by supermarkets to announce special prices, to notice the vocabulary/structures used (sales, great prices, half off, half prices, discount price, etc.).

Figure 19: Supermarket prices

Figure 20: At the cash register

Figure 21: Click and collect

Figure 22: Checking the bill

Students can be split into groups or pairs and asked to draw up a shopping list and then imagine they are going to the supermarket to buy all they need. Then, they can describe how they get each item (the fruit stand, the fresh meat stand, etc.), and eventually go up to the cash register and pay. Cues can be provided for each group/pair (for example, one group could have as key-points the words grocery, click and collect on their cue card, while another can be presented with a cue card that reads meat/dairy/fast food/pastry and cash register, etc.). As such, each group describes a different experience, as they visit different stands and use different payment methods.

As a follow-up, students can be asked to imagine a situation that would cause their discontent with the supermarket and even write a letter of complaint to the manager to describe the circumstances. The teacher can provide ideas (waited too much, the queue was too long, the bags I left in the luggage area got stolen, I witness a man stealing goods, the goods I purchased were faulty, etc.) or allow the students to imagine a whole new situation and describe what happened.

Activity 12

The following sheet can be used in multiple ways. As mentioned in the activity below, students can be asked to match the image and the picture, or, to make things more interesting, the teacher can prepare a similar worksheet where all pictures are labelled wrong and the students are asked to correct the mistakes.

Match the images with the following words: ferris wheel, pirate ship, teacups, bumper cars, merry-go-round, roller coaster, freefall tower, spinning ride.

Figure 23: Amusement park

This type of activity could prove a nice lead-in for students describing a day at an amusement park. As follow-up, written descriptions can be elicited from the students, as part of their portfolios (under the form of letters addressed to their best friend travelling abroad, diary entries, etc.).

The pairing between vocabulary and visual aids is crucial for retention of items, which is also proven by the increasing number of visual dictionaries on the market. Similar to teachers of the new millennia, producers of teaching/learning materials have understood that it is easy to show than to explain and that students understand better the distinction between close categories of objects if provided with visual support and they are more likely to retain this distinction, as they resort to the mental image ingrained in their brain.

Teaching productive skills: speaking and writing

This subchapter tackles the manner in which productive skills can be approached in the classroom, while also providing suggestions for incorporating visual aids in the foreign language classroom. The development of productive skills is essential as they help learners transition easier towards real use of the language outside the controlled environment of their classroom.

Speaking

Speaking activities should be approached in an integrated manner, and not in isolation. As such, the teacher should allow enough time to raise interest in the topic at hand and select a topic that the students would be knowledgeable or experienced in , so as to raise motivation.

For an effective activity, the teacher should prepare some cues beforehand (Scrivener, 2011), so as to prompt the discussion when it stalls, structure the talk to ensure all learners have the opportunity to pitch in, avoid loops by adding new remarks or asking new questions, use open questions to elicit elaborate answers and play the devil’s advocate to enliven the talk. Therefore, in addition to acting as prompter and feedback provider, the teacher could even act as participant/animator who allows students to take over his/her own enthusiasm for the task at hand.

The purpose of speaking activities is largely to build fluency and confidence, which are mutually reliant in learning a foreign language (Harmer, 2007). The more fluent the speaker, the more confidence in his/her abilities to use that particular language he/she uses. At the same time, the more confident the speaker, the more he/she will be inclined to use the language in a practical context, which, in turn, builds fluency.

Barriers that may be encountered during fluency activities should also be addressed by the teacher in a supportive manner. Unexperienced speakers might get nervous in the beginning when asked to speak in front of their peers or their teacher. To avoid or minimize these instances, teachers should create a safe environment that encourages learners to create and practice language. Too much negative feedback, or too many comments, or corrections might hinder the process, and dishearten learners who may refuse to participate in further activities to avoid criticism.

In order to prompt an efficient speaking activity, some points need to be considered:

The discussion needs to be framed. Usually, this happens with the help of a lead-in activity and specific manners to close the discussion and not simply let it fizzle out.

Students may require preparation time. Before actually delivering a spoken part, students may need to prepare and organize their speech/arguments. They might require help with the vocabulary they intend to use, etc.

Teachers shouldn’t interrupt students’ flow. Even though other peers might express their intention to talk as well, when the previous students hasn’t finished the speech, the teacher should resist any such requests and make it clear from the beginning that any person with something to say will be listened to and allotted the right amount of time and that students should respect each other’s time.

The topic selected should be specific, not over general. Even if the teacher might create particular roles to play in a debate, which would be time consuming, this approach would be preferable to inviting students to talk in general about a topic.

Aids should be used. Teachers could prompt discussion with the help of role cards, pictures, etc.

Teachers should resort to buzz groups. Buzz groups can summarize the discussion, express their points of view, extract the most interesting arguments used, etc.

Teacher should be flexible. Sometimes, if students seem particularly interested in a direction, teachers should go with the flow and allow them to express themselves, as a spontaneous topic that the learners are passionate about might turn into a much more successful learning opportunity than the topic/lesson planned.

These types of interaction usually require the teacher to be quick on his/her feet and adapt constantly to the classroom flow. At the same time, on-the-spot decisions can be made regarding the importance of accuracy versus fluency and the manner in which accuracy can be improved without it affecting fluency.

Attention should also be paid to the genre of the speech elicited from students, and students should be encouraged to notice and internalize the differences in style, tone, manner, quantity, volume, word choice, directness, formality and content type between face-to-face conversion, phone conversation, formal speeches, presentations, functional interactions, etc. At the same time, students should be made aware of conversational structure and roles, as well as survival and repair strategies that we use in real-life interactions.

Similarly to any type of activity planning, speaking activities should be set up, planned, and rehearsed before being actually performed and it should be followed by a feedback/review of the activity. Perhaps some activities could be even recorded and listened to afterwards to ensure that students are aware of the language they used. After revising and correcting the issues, the task could be even performed again.

Writing

Despite its peripheral role in previous decades, ever since the 1990s and the success of the Internet and the emergence of various platforms, forums, groups, and social networks where people all over the world can chat, get to know each other and exchange information and ideas, written communication has become more used. Familiarization with the norms specific to each type of written communication, which might include abbreviations, shorthand, etc. is a must.

However, students may need specific knowledge regarding the convention of specific types of written texts, including note-taking in a foreign language, academic presentations and essays, business letters and correspondence, etc. This could be obtained during special classes.

Writing can be approached from two perspectives: as a product and as a process (Scrivener, 2011). As a product, writing requires and helps build spelling skills, and knowledge regarding layout and the role of punctuation. As process, it involves and develops critical thinking skills, as students need to think, reflect, prepare, organize and sequence material, rehearse, etc.

Unexperienced learners might benefit from a guided approach, when they are given precisely the stages they need to go through, the points they need to cover and the manner in which the written piece should be organized. Students can even benefit from a brainstorming session before actually writing something, where the teacher and the peers are allowed to decide what the most important aspects related to the topic at hand are, how they can be organized, who the target readers are, etc. When they become familiar with the process, the teacher can propose occasionally unguided activities. More advanced learners could benefit from creative writing tasks, as they delve in writing poetry, storylines, or plays, while discovering their own creative resources. This type of activity could prove extremely rewarding for teachers and students alike, as the former improve their teaching by instilling in students the love for writing and familiarizing them with various genre conventions, and the latter develop product-related pride. Cooperative writing tasks can even help strengthen group relations and develop a new dynamics.

To interest students in such activities, contemporary texts should be selected, including emails, letters, newsletters, magazines or blogs (as group projects), comments and replies to various discussions on social media, questionnaires, resumes, etc. Aspects such as layout, style, tone, reader effect, distinctive features should also be discussed.

The teacher should act as motivator, organizing the right circumstances that would help generate ideas and persuade students to freely give into the writing activity, as resource during more difficult tasks, where students might benefit from the teacher’s linguistic knowledge and not only, and feedback provider.

As far as the feedback is concerned, perhaps it would serve students to approach writing tasks as two-sequence tasks, where the first stage involves the writing of a draft that will be seen by the teacher, and the second stage centers on writing the final version of the text, incorporating the teacher’s feedback. This approach should be used particularly with texts that students are likely to be asked to produce in real life (cover letters, resumes, etc.).

As speaking activities could merge easily into written tasks aimed at enhancing learner awareness of the conventions that need to be observed and differences between spoken and written interaction, we decided to provide some integrated suggestions for incorporating visual aids in the teaching of writing/speaking.

Activity 13

Visual narratives can also be used to teach speaking. A picture such as the one included below can help students create meaning and put together visual clues to make up a story. Students can be asked to develop on what they see and the sequence of actions that take place as lead-in for a discussion about daily routines.

Figure 24: Out and about

As follow-up, students can be asked to make up their own visual narratives, accompanied by a short written description of their daily routines, as part of their portfolios. The activity would require students to pair up verbal and visual content, which they can they present to the class in a game-like activity (the sequence of events can be faulty and their peers can be asked to put the actions in the right order, etc.). Relying on student material might boost interest in such activities, as students are more curious about their peer’s work and willing to share their own results.

Activity 14

A lively debate could be proposed by the teacher with the help of pictures that tell a story. For example, as set-up, the teacher might use the pictures below to create an activity, where the mayor’s office of a small town has been awarded a strip of land. Now, the mayor’s staff needs to decide whether they should rebuild one of the old town buildings that need to undergo make-overs, as the current ones are old and not so appealing. They need to choose between rebuilding the leisure center, the retirement home, or the town’s only hotel. To help students, role cards can be added, and students can split into three groups: the architects, the local residents and the town council, each making their case for one of the buildings in front of a panel (made up of the teacher or a learners’ buzz group).

Figure 25: Town land for sale

Figure 26: Town leisure center

Figure 27: Town retirement home

Figure 28: Town hotel

As follow-up, after the town council has decided on the use of the land available, the class can be split into three groups and asked to write: (a) a letter to the County Council detailing their plan and asking for approval; (b) a letter from a dissatisfied resident presenting arguments against the town council decision; (c) a letter from a satisfied resident, supporting the decision. This type of follow-up would help students explore various letter writing conventions.

Activity 15

A more complex picture, however, may be used differently. In the case of the picture below, the teacher might use the visual narrative to elicit the names of the activities performed in a sequence (basic use) from early age students, or he/she might elicit a storyline from more advanced learners of an older age (complex use). The love story can be inferred and told from various perspectives (hers, his, objective point of view, etc.). This would appeal to both the rational and the emotional side of learners, which might actually help enhance the learning process, as the emotional side is also activated, facilitating long-term retention.

Figure 29: Him and her

The activity above can be used as prompt for a writing activity, which describes the relationship of the couple featured in the pictures, or as a prompt for imagining a different end to the story. Students might even be asked to write diary entries belonging to him/her to describe what happened.

Interwoven, speaking and writing could be prompted by visual aids in a manner that is both entertaining and boosts language acquisition. Student interaction with the visual aids might render the content more interesting and more personal, by engaging both the rational and the emotional side. Both speaking and writing elicit this type of deeper interaction with the learning content, which is beneficial for raising interest and attention.

Teaching receptive skills: listening and reading

This subchapter aims at highlighting the most important aspects that could be incorporated in a receptive skill approach. While paying attention to the most significant aspects of teaching listening and reading, we will also integrate visual aids as means of prompting the desired cognitive and emotional response from our students.

Listening

As knowledge of grammar and lexis is not sufficient to ensure the understanding of a particular foreign language, listening activities are essential for acquiring new language, as they help learners get accustomed with the pace of native speakers, or pronunciation issues, while extracting both the general meaning of a speech and the details. When listening, learners might become aware of stress and intonation as well, which facilitate the understanding of the attitudes expressed by people.

At the same time, students should be encouraged to participate in listening activities without worrying too much about missing even a single word of what they hear. They should know that it is not necessary for them to catch every single word uttered to understand the main idea of the spoken text. Usually, listening activities focus on two elements: getting the gist, or catching particular details (numbers, names, addresses, etc.) (Scrivener, 2011). Each of these require the training of specific skill sets and a particular approach to the listened text, which is why students should know beforehand what they need to pay attention to. The teacher usually provides learners with a sheet of paper with specific questions that clarify what is required of them.

Just like in the case of reading, there are too types of listening: extensive and intensive listening, which, both help the learning process. While extensive listening is usually performed outside the classroom and it is done for pleasure, as an activity supported by inner, personal motivation, intensive listening is more punctual and heavily relied on in learning contexts.

To be successful, a listening activity should be as close as possible to real-life situation and elicit students to perform tasks and pay attention to the details they might need to pay attention in real-life situations (for example, when making or taking a phone order, etc.). As such, teachers should prepare for interactive listening, where the participants respond, direct the conversation, require clarifications, etc. Listening activities should be performed with the purpose of helping students participate in real-life conversations, ask or answer questions, act upon the response they receive, take notes, etc. Some knowledge of conventions pertaining to specific interactions (phone conversations, etc.) could come in handy when predicting what comes next and deciding which strategy to adopt.

As some theoreticians have argued that in real life, spoken discourse is not really repeated (Ur, 1996), and therefore, students should be exposed to a material only once, live listening could provide the right type of authentic text, in the form of interviews or even parts of conversations, or debates.

In addition to the parts of organizer, feedback organizer, and prompter, in this case, the teacher also needs to operate the machine used to play the audio material, which means he/she has control over the stop/start and pause buttons, which he/she can use, depending on students’ reactions. If the teacher notices confusion on several faces and even restlessness, he/she might decide to interrupt the recording to check the issue with the class.

Overall, listening is an enriching and entertaining activity, especially if the teacher relies on interesting and stimulating material that raise students’ interest and help them engage. Visual aids can play an important part in teaching this skill, as well, as noticeable from the examples below.

Activity 16

Teachers can improvise listening activities and make their own activities with the help of an audio recorder. The recording could be paired up with a picture and students can be asked to spot the differences between the picture and he picture description in the audio recording. For the picture below, the teacher could record and then play the following content:

Despite the rainy day, some people decided to go to the beach and make the most of it. A little girl was trying to fly a kite, while a red-haired man was riding a donkey. A dark-haired girl was building a sand castle with the flag of the U.S. on top, and a little boy was playing with a white-and-pink stripped beach ball. A fat lady was reading as the sound of an airplane leaving behind a trail of smoke roared in the background. The only disappointment seemed to be that the ice cream stand was closed. All in all, the few people who went out had a nice time.

Figure 30: A day at the beach

After listening to the spoken part, students can notice the errors in the description: it was a sunny day, not a rainy day, a lot of people were at the beach, not just some/a few people, a boy is flying the kite, a blonde boy is making a sand castle with the U.K. flag on top, the airplane leaves behind a trailing banner, the ice cream stand is open, etc. This activity can prompt a discussion regarding summer activities/beach activities, or a grammar lesson having the past tense as central focus.

Various listening ideas can be developed to ensure the integration of visual aids into the learning material, including murder mysteries that pair visual clues and listening bits, etc. Visual aids can help make listening activities more entertaining, while also resorting to two senses, in addition to the verbal content used. This in itself supports the idea of multi-sensory learning, which is increasingly popular and had provided good results over the years.

Reading

When approaching reading activities, teachers should pay attention to several aspects, including the fact that each student has a particular reading pace and the amount of time required by each student to go through a text may be significantly different, a lack of lexical knowledge that makes it compulsory to check the meaning of words in a dictionary, while the gist of the text is missed, etc. Such barriers might have a disheartening effect on students who might become reluctant to perform reading activities.

Similarly to the skills required in listening activities, students should be encouraged to learn techniques that help extract the gist of the text, instead of focusing too much on individual words and missing the whole point. For this to happen, reading should be seen as an activity during which, ideally, readers should not go back and ponder too much on unknown words, unless they provide a major setback in terms of understanding (Harmer, 2007). To increase students’ reading speed, skimming (reading fast to grasp the gist of a text, or to identify key topics, theme and main structure) or scanning (moving the eyes quickly over a piece of written text to locate a piece of information, such as a name, an address, a phone number, a price, a date, etc.) could be practiced. These top-down skills help readers become familiar with different text shapes and structures, which help processing the information.

Extensive reading at home should be encouraged for students to be able to develop linguistic skills, acquire vocabulary and get familiar with various grammatical forms, which would translate into enhanced confidence and better language skills (Scrivener, 2011). For students to feel the need to pick up extensive reading on their own, however, the activities and texts proposed in the classroom need to satisfy their curiosities and engage their attention.

Intensive reading, or reading for detail should also be taught and encouraged, preferably once the learners have detached from the idea that they need to know each individual word in order to perform a reading task properly. This is usually the type of reading found in the language classroom, due to temporal and spatial limitations. For students to be able to perform intensive reading tasks properly, the teacher needs to fill the shoes of an organizer who provides instructions and sets up the goal of the reading task, an observer who refrains from interrupting the task, yet takes note of their progress, a feedback organizer who helps students measure their success and improve, and a prompter who directs learners’ attention to specific items that need to be taught.

At the same time, a balance needs to be reached to accommodate both students’ need to grasp the gist of a text and their automatic inclination to attempt, at least, to understand each word. Perhaps some words that might be unfamiliar to the entire class could be explained beforehand or introduced by means of a different activity. Even though this would only cover some lexical problems, the probability for students to need less further explanations would increase, thus, reducing the anxiety related to the unknown words. Students might even be allowed to ask some questions regarding the vocabulary of a specific texts. However, this should be limited in time and word number, so as to avoid wasting too much precious time.

In the case of reading as well, real-life texts or texts similar to real life, yet adapted to the level of the students, should be used, so as it increase familiarity with different genres and conventions (e.g. advertisements, leaflets, magazines, blogs, etc.). The possibility to transfer the information and skills acquired in the classroom in real life situations could help motivate students better, and provide a purpose in learning, which boosts interaction, engaging students’ attention.

To engage students’ attention, teachers might want to rely on visual aids that would test and boost understanding, while helping students make sense of verbal content they had read and help them interact with the learning material on a deeper level that might be beneficial for the learning process.

Activity 17

To boost students’ reading skills, the teacher might provide students with the picture below and a written work sheet containing the story shown in the picture, with slight modifications. The students are asked to identify the differences between verbal and visual material and correct them.

Three Billy Goats Gruff

ONCE UPON A TIME there were three billy goats named Gruff. The goats lived in a bleak field that extended alongside a riverbank. Hardly any grass grew there, but on the reverse side of the river the land was lavish and green.

“I’m hungry!” bleated the smallest billy goat Gruff. He decided to trot over the fence and eat the grass on the other side.

The smallest billy goat Gruff went trip-trap, trip-trap, trip-trap over the fence. Up ahead he could see a lush field full of good things to eat. Well before he got to the other side, a loud roar came from beneath the fence. The little billy goat Gruff stopped.

The billy goats Gruff did not realize that it was an enchanted fence. A brutal warlock resided underneath it, eating up anyone who attempted to cross over to the other side. “What shall I do?” whispered the little billy goat Gruff. When he peered over the side, he could see the warlock resting below with a fishing rod.

The warlock looked irritated and mean. He had a big red nose, wonky teeth and a shaggy black beard that was matted with knots. “I’m hungry!” he grumbled. “What am I going to eat?” It had been several days since he would last had a meal and he was in a very bad temper.

The smallest billy goat Gruff gulped, and then made a dash for the other side. The warlock was on the fence instantly. “Who’s that trip-trapping over my fence?” he screamed. “I’m going to gobble you up! “

The little billy goat Gruff thought quickly. “Don’t eat me,” he reacted. “I’m only tiny. Just wait for my small brother. He’s much fatter than me.” The warlock rubbed his chin. Finally he let the smallest billy goat Gruff go on his way.

The middle billy goat Gruff noticed his small brother grazing in the lavish meadow on the other side of the fence. The grass appeared green and appealing. “I’m hungry!” the middle billy goat Gruff announced in a loud voice. He chose to cross the fence, as well. The middle billy goat Gruff went trip-trap, trip-trap, trip-trap over the fence. His belly rumbled when he smelled the fresh field in front. Beneath fence, the warlock heard every step. His eyes gleamed with pleasure.

The warlock jumped on to the bridge. “Who’s that trip-trapping over my fence?” he screamed. “I’m going to gobble you up!“

The middle billy goat Gruff walked back. The warlock blocked the fence. He pointed a rotten finger nail at the goat, his eyes filled with menace.

The middle billy goat Gruff was equally as clever as his brother. “Don’t eat me,” he replied. “I’m only middle-sized. Just watch for my small brother. He’s much heavier compared to me. ” The troll looked over at the biggest billy goat Gruff and licked his lips. The middle billy goat Gruff continued his way.

The biggest billy goat Gruff craned his neck to check out how his brothers were faring. The goats were ambling lazily across the field on the reverse side of the river, eating their fill of green grass. “I’m hungry!” he announced. The warlock got excited when he saw the biggest billy goat Gruff crossing the fence.

The biggest billy goat Gruff went trip-trap, trip-trap, trip-trap over the bridge. He could not wait to have his very first mouthful of refreshing grass! All of a sudden, the warlock hurled himself into the goat’s way.

“Who’s that trip-trapping over my fence?” he exploded. “I’m gonna gobble you up!” “Oh no you are not!” yelled the biggest billy goat Gruff. The warlock dropped his cutting knife and fork as the goat lowered his head and energized towards him.

The biggest billy goat Gruff grabbed the warlock with his horns and thrown him into the river. The three brothers witnessed the troll land with a massive splash, vanishing without a trace.

“Come,” smiled the biggest billy goat Gruff. “Let’s go and eat our fill.” And the three billy goats Gruff grazed cheerfully ever after.

Figure 31: Three Billy Goats Gruff Short Story Summary

Plenty of interesting ideas can start from a story and the idea of visuals incorporated. Students can be asked to prepare a map of a story they read, compare a pre-existing map of the characters’ movement in a story to the actual information they have read, fill in the blanks in a story by relying on visual aids that complete the story, etc.

As in all cases, visual aids provide plenty of interactive opportunities and allow students to engage deeper with the learning material, by eliciting their full attention as they try to make sense of the materials at hand. Creating multiple neural paths for the same information requires involvement and attention, which means that incorporating visual aids is actually the perfect way to ensure less distractions and higher task engagement.

Conclusions

In real life and in actual classroom situations, the areas and skills discussed in this theoretical chapter are not taught in isolation. They usually merge with and into each other, as a specific activity (for example, a reading activity) can transition smoothly into a different type of activity (writing). Vocabulary and grammar are taught/learnt basically during each activity performed, regardless of whether it’s a reading, writing, speaking, or listening activity. The division stated above exists merely for theoretical purposes, as the actual situation in the classroom is less definite.

With visual aids, several skills may be practiced at once, as film or video material involves simultaneous listening and reading, if subtitles are added, while watching. In this case, students can also notice paralinguistic markers, such as facial expression and gestures and link them to intonation, for example, to extract the attitude of the speaker. Gestures can be analyzed in terms of cultural cues, as well. Complex video materials have the advantage of conveying habits, customs, or behavior better and more directly.

Pictures can be used as prompts for all sorts of activities aimed at developing grammar, lexis and a certain set of skills. At the same time, they can be incorporated in the lead-in of the activity, they can accompany the task at hand, or become part of the follow-up.

Animations and presentations can be restricted to teaching particular grammar items at some point during a language course, but the teacher can also strive to integrate such tools in other type of activities as well as lead-in or follow-up. Teacher can also resort to creativity to use such materials in innovative manners.

All visual aids can be used in different parts of the actual activity. Sometimes, visual aids can be integrated in the lead-in, as tools meant to raise interest. Other times, the can accompany the task, be used as prompts, and become an integral part thereof, or as part of any follow-up.

The creativity of working with visual aids is limitless. Therefore, the teacher should explore as many means as possible, starting from the classic ones presenting in the books and work his/her way into coming up with original ideas to integrate visual aids in a relevant manner in the language classroom. As already stated, the greatest advantage of visual aids is that they appeal to sight as well as cognitive understanding of the content at hand, which enhancing learning, improving language acquisition, and reducing the number of distractions, as pairing up multiple sources of information is rather challenging and requires high engagement.

CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Overview

The difficulty of researching language acquisition lies in the fact that the methods used are mostly empirical and the object of research seems rather volatile at first glance. To be able to apply scientific methods to language study and collect, process and analyze the data collected during language classes, teachers who also wish to learn more about the language acquisition process so as to select better methods for their students need to know exactly what methods and processes can be used to design useful research.

To begin with, we must clarify a crucial point in the research process. As language knowledge is not something palpable or easily visible, the researcher needs to resort to analyzing the manifestations of language knowledge to draw his/her conclusions (Blume and Lust, 2017). Therefore, the quantifiable answers to tasks and errors made during the performance of a particular task need to be focused on as sources of useful information.

Usually, the research involves establishing a set of working hypotheses and putting them to the test with the help of scientific methods. Thus, the empirical evidence needs to be collected, analyzed, and processed in a scientific manner. The research endeavor is made particularly difficult in the linguistic field, as the researcher needs to work with human subject, who act and react in unpredictable manners. This holds true particularly of young learners, who are the subjects of our research and whose reactions were essential to confirming/rejecting our working hypotheses. The next sub-chapters will help shed some light on the best methods and instruments used in language teaching research to overcome possible obstacles.

Research methods

Generally speaking, research related to language acquisition relies on two main types of empirical methods to collect the data it needs for testing hypotheses and forming conclusions. The two methods are the experimental and the observational methods (Blume and Lust, 2017).

Experimental methods resort to designing and calculating a set of stimuli that are then introduced to the subject (usually in the form of a task that needs to be completed) to obtain a response in the sense of language comprehension, production, or assessment. The environment is controlled and the results obtained are further analyzed in relation to the working hypotheses. The steps of this particular research are as follows:

Form the hypothesis

Develop the experimental design

Construct the elicitation technique

Select the population

Test the hypothesis

Collect raw data

Analyze/process the data

Interpret the data.

(Source: Blume and Lust, 2017)

In the case of observational methods, the stimuli are not generally designed in a specific manner, being rather random. The researcher is more interested in observing the subject’s reaction and behavior than in the stimuli used generically for that purpose. The stimuli and the environment does not need to be specifically controlled to provide the desired observational data. Data is usually collected at a place where participants to a study experience the issue in question (Creswell, 2007).

If we refer back to the steps quoted below for experimental research, we need to mention that in the case of observational methods, the forming and testing of hypotheses is optional and the research design and elicitation method do not need to be specifically developed. All the other steps remain intact. (Blume and Lust, 2017)

Although the data collection manner differs, the transcription and analysis of the data collected used for the two types of methods overlap, as language is captured and analyzed thoroughly to ensure the sound scientific foundation of the research. Whether they need to support a working hypothesis or not, the results need to be reliable. At the same time, both methods could be considered qualitative methods of research, through their focus on a small sample of selected individuals, the refusal to direct the outcome (Abbuhl and Mackey, 2017) and the use of multiple data gathering methods (Creswell, 2007).

By designing an experiment backed up by observations, we adopted a qualitative approach that focused on a pre-determined number of subjects, divided into the control group and the experimental group to identify, isolate and analyze the effects of not using visual aids in the foreign language classroom.

The issue of human subjects

Using human subjects to test various language acquisition theories and hypotheses involves a series of legal and ethical issues pertaining to the information the subjects are provided with regarding the research they will become part of. As the consent of the subject is crucial for any study, the researcher needs to decide what information will be provided to the subjects (information on the nature of the experiment, the working hypotheses, the results desired, etc.).

The information provided needs to be sufficient, yet not disclose essential elements of the experiment and alter the results. It is, perhaps, better to focus on the logistics (time, date, and place) and the structure (questionnaire, interview, experiment, etc.) and leave all details pertaining to the content of the research out. The general theme should be announced, to provide the subjects with enough information regarding the type of research without going into too much detail on the nature of the endeavor.

The researcher’ role

For any research to be successful, the researcher needs to decide what their role is in the process. Is it a mere observant? Is it a teacher and a researcher, which means that the researcher will be involved in the experiment and needs to address the issue of the time spent teaching and the time allotted to the recording of the data.

The role of the researcher needs to be carefully selected in line with the objectives of the research and the hypotheses (if any). If involved in the research as teacher as well, the researcher needs to be careful to elicit responses from the children and adapt to the situational context without guiding them in the direction desired to confirm the working hypotheses. It would be preferable for a researcher and/or teacher with experience to act in this double capacity, so as to allow him/herself the time to observe the interactions, behavior, and reactions contemplated. This would require enough experience to conduct the lesson/experiment while also collecting data.

Research tools and methodology

Research tools are usually classified as quantitative and qualitative instruments. The quantitative instruments include questionnaires, while qualitative instruments include narratives, ethnography, interview, and diary (Rezaei, 2017) each displaying certain advantages and disadvantages, depending on their use.

The advantage of questionnaires, the quantitative method used to complement the experiment documented in this paper, is that it allows researchers to collect large data in a short amount of time. The data collected with the help of questionnaires translates easily into generalized conclusions. Although questionnaires may not be sufficient to cover a particular matter, they can serve as precious add-ons in empirical research. In the current paper, for examples, questionnaires were used to elicit class assessment from the students and revealed some interesting aspects. However, the experiment and the observation methods of research yielded the results aimed at, while the questionnaire merely confirmed the conclusions drawn from the observation.

Conclusions

Our research endeavor will attempt to overcome the initial difficulties presented in the previous sub-chapter by adopting multiple research methods, namely by combining experimental research methods and observational methods. The experiment designed is meant to test two working hypotheses related to the usefulness of visual aids in the foreign language classroom, in terms of both language learning enhancement and the atmosphere created in the classroom.

The environment chosen was not specifically controlled, as the school premises were selected as study site. However, the form of presenting language structures was controlled and variables were introduced to distinguish between the results of the control group and the results of the experimental group.

Following the extended literature on experimental design, we opted for dividing the participants into two samples, namely the control group that shall attend a traditional, non-visual class, and the experimental group that will enjoy an interactive, visual class (Nunan, 1992). The results of the two groups will display the differences between using/eliminating visual aids from the foreign language class. We should also mention that, in order to select two groups of similar language knowledge and skills, we proceeded to an initial placement tests for various groups and our observations throughout the entire month before the actual experiment.

To reinforce the conclusions of our observations, we decided to make up a questionnaire containing both closed and open ended questions (Nunan, 1992) that are easy to understand for a beginner’s class. The questionnaire is aimed at allowing students to assess the class they attended and state the favorite part, as well as the weaknesses. It is also aimed at checking to see if both groups identify visual aids as an important classroom support that can alter their experience of a foreign language lesson.

We set up the experiment by providing the pupils with several highlights regarding the experiment, without disclosing any information that would hinder or interfere with the research results. After handling this ethical aspect of the research, we adopted an organization of the next chapter that mirrored the steps of the research itself and included the following:

Working hypotheses

Research objectives

Research methodology

Time and place of the research

Participants

Variables

Methods and instruments of collecting data

Organization and sequence of the research

Presentation of the results

Measuring scale results

Classroom observations

Questionnaire results

Interpretation of the results

Conclusions (implications for teachers)

As noticeable, the checklist used to develop on our experiment included aspects related to the logistics of the experiment, the participants and scales/questionnaire developed to assess the experiment. The implications for the teacher are actually the conclusions of the pedagogical research carried out. We believe that this organization takes into account all aspects pertaining to the experiment in a comprehensive manner.

CHAPTER 4

PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH

Set-up

To begin with, we must tackle some ethical aspects of the research. As our subjects were human, we needed to decide whether we will let them know that they will become part of an experiment and what information regarding the experiment we will share with our subjects, while ensuring that the information provided does not interfere with the results.

We decided to opt for a mixed approach and inform them that they will be part of an experiment meant to test certain teaching methods, without actually disclosing the particular nature of the research (testing the importance of visual aids in the foreign language classroom). We decided on this scarce information to make sure that students do not anticipate the lesson structure, as a way of ensuring the naturalness of the classroom and the pupils’ reactions and behavior.

We also informed students that the experiment (the lesson) will be held on a Saturday on school premises and that it will be followed by a questionnaire that they will be required to fill in 10 minutes after the class had ended, to assess the lesson. As such, we made sure that the students received some information regarding the time, date, and structure of the activity planned for them, yet not enough for the lesson to become predictable in a manner that would tamper with the results. We chose to focus on the logistics of the experiment rather than the linguistic content and provide some details that would build certain expectations, without revealing anything that would render the results null.

After obtaining the consent of the two classes involved in the experiment, we proceeded to inform them that they should bring their textbooks and writing materials. Even the control group was told to bring the textbooks, as it was essential for them not to know, at this point, what the experiment consisted in and announcing the differences between the classes would have been an obstacle.

We believe that this approach proved successful, as students’ behavior and reactions were natural and there was no sign of any predictability factor that interfered with or directed the outcomes. No expectations were built regarding the structure of the lessons, the materials used, or the desired behavior.

The hypotheses

The following research is based on two main working hypotheses, one related to the process of learning itself, and the other one related to the students’ perception of the activities they are asked to perform with the help of visual aids. The second working hypothesis included two secondary hypotheses related to pupils’ engagement with the learning material and their attitude towards it. The hypotheses are as follows:

H1: Visual aids facilitate understanding and retention of new linguistic knowledge.

H2: Visual aids alter pupils’ perception of the learning content.

H2.1: Visual aids render the learning material more appealing.

H2.2: Visual aids boost pupils’ engagement with the learning material.

The working hypotheses are of equal importance, since linguistic content and knowledge acquisition and retention are facilitated by pupils’ perception of the learning content. A content that includes visual aids is generally perceived as more appealing and interesting than a learning content that is verbal alone. This perception enhances pupils’ engagement with the material and boost their enthusiasm, allowing them to perform tasks that are not particularly engaging (drills, repetitions, presentation and production, etc.) as if they were highly interesting and challenging tasks.

The experiment we have developed for the purpose of putting the working hypotheses to the test does not include highly altered learning material, the only variable being the existence/absence of visual aids. The learning materials presented to the experimental and control group are extremely similar. However, as shown below, the alteration of the visual aid variable led to very different results in terms of classroom energy, enthusiasm and atmosphere as well as material engagement, understanding and retention.

The objectives of the research

Our pedagogical research aims at measuring the effectiveness of visual aids in the English language classroom. To that end, we developed a scale, which is included in the chapter regarding the methods employed to collect data, to help us measure some significant variables for our research. The variables are: the time it took pupils to complete the task, the number of errors made, the level of task engagement and the class’ level of energy and enthusiasm. We believe that these three variables would help us confirm/reject the working hypothesis.

By comparing two similar groups, we wanted to show how visual aids improve language retention, as the learning content is perceived as more challenging and more interesting. This help motivation and energy/enthusiasm remain high, while students engage better and faster with the task at hand.

To sum up, our goal is to prove that visual aids makes the English language classroom more efficient in the sense that visual aids:

help retain verbal content faster and on the long run;

aid the pupils in making connections and solving the tasks at hand faster;

improve the learning material in making it more creative and more interesting and easier to engage with;

help keep a higher energy level in the classroom and keep students motivated.

Overall, the results of the research will show that an English language classroom that relies on visual aids is more successful than a regular classroom relying exclusively on verbal content, as the task completion time improves, the enthusiasm is higher, and the students make correlations faster between images and words, which enables long-term retention.

Research methodology

The methodology selected for our research was experimental. Our participants were two homogenous groups, the experimental group and the control group, which displayed similar linguistic knowledge and skills. The visual aids were eliminated from the class held with the control group, including the textbook itself, while the experimental group enjoyed activities based on flashcards as well as the visuals provided by their pupil book.

We collected the data by means of the observation method, with the teacher making short notes and filling out the scale prepared during the activities performed with both classes. This endeavor was a bit more challenging with the experimental group, as their level of engagement with the activities allowed very little time for the teacher to perform other tasks and focus on anything else, for fear their interest would drop. In the control group, the teacher had more time make notes, as the pupils were more distracted and their level of engagement with the task was lower. Also, the teacher asking for constant feedback and desire to help the students complete the task failed and it hindered the activity further.

The results were recorded with the help of the scale included in the chapter regarding the data collection methods and the results were further centralized and discussed in the chapter dedicated to their presentation and interpretation. The last chapter focuses on the conclusions drawn following our experiment.

Time and place of research

To conduct our experiment, we selected two groups of 3rd graders of similar linguistic knowledge and skills and assigned them to role of control/experimental group. The research took the form of a special class planned for March, 10 2018. The special classes were held outside school hours, on a weekend. However, the premises we selected belonged to the school.

As time, we chose 10 am for the control group and 12 pm for the experimental group, considering that it would be a little more difficult to cope with students’ disengagement after a successful class and later in the day, as the teacher’s level of energy was also dropping. The one-hour interval between the two classes allowed the teacher to regain strength and motivation and collect notes and thoughts regarding the experiment, which would translate easier into the current paper. At the same time, this interval meant that students did not interact with each other or share information/experiences and, thus, did not influence each other, at group level and their performance was unaltered by any external conditioning.

Participants

Since the methodology and instruments selected to conduct research fail if the participants selected are not suitable for the task (Cohen, 2007: 101), we decided on two groups of comparable linguistic knowledge and skills. Any major differences would have altered the results of the research, as the extended time needed to complete any task, the high number of errors and the low level of enthusiasm/energy and task engagement could have been attributed to the participants’ poor linguistic skill and understanding of the tasks at hand. This would have defied the purpose of the research, as the visual aids would have had little to do with the poor results recorded by the less knowledgeable group.

Students’ knowledge and linguistic skills were assessed by means of an initial placement test and the results of our continuous observation for a period of one month before conducting the actual experiment, the ensure the selection of the right groups for our research.

Variables

For our research purposes, the control and the experimental group were presented with the same linguistic content. However, the form of this linguistic content was altered to obtain the results we were interested in. The textbook used was Fairyland 3, and the learning unit chosen was Unit 3c – It’s my job!

For the control group, we decided to eliminate the textbook as well, as it contains visual aids for each exercise, considering the learners’ young age and knowledge of English. To replace the textbook, we used worksheets containing altered versions of the exercises from the original textbook, adapted to the lack of supporting visual aids.

For the experimental group, we used all the suggestions included in the Fairyland 3 pack, including the Activity Book, the Teacher’s Book and the Teacher’s Resource Pack, while we restricted the use of the said suggestions for the control group to suggestions unrelated to visual aids (games, listening and reading activities).

As a lead-in, in order to activate the vocabulary needed for the lesson, we decided to write down the needed words for the control group, with the possibility of searching the meaning in a dictionary or translating them to students to make sure that the meaning is understood. For the experimental group, we resorted to the flashcards proposed by the authors in the Picture Flashcard textbook companion and pinned them to the board for easy word-picture association.

The first activity proposed the experimental group to look at the pictures in the textbook and spot the policeman, the mailman, the fireman and the milkman before listening to the audio recording and completing the task. The control group was asked to think about the actions performed by each of the four people on the job, with no visual support. As the textbook had been eliminated as well, the students worked only with the verbal content included on Worksheet 1 and the audio content from the audio recording.

For the second activity, both groups listened to the tape and watched the teacher impersonating the policeman, the mailman, the fireman and the milkman and imitated the actions on the third listening. There were no major modifications and the extra activity was also the same for both groups.

In the third activity, the experimental group was allowed to use the textbook for visual reference, while the control group needed to use Worksheet 2, which restricted their knowledge of the topic to verbal knowledge. The structure of the exercise was altered to eliminate any visual aids for the control group. Therefore, while the experimental group had the visuals proposed by the textbook as aids, helping them to identify the structure of a family tree and the members of Alvin’s family drawn on each branch of the tree, the control group needed to match the names of Alvin’s family members with a short verbal description of their character.

The last exercise remained unaltered for both groups, as it mainly relied on audio aids. The only variable was the fact that the control group needed to listen to the teacher’s instructions in order to make sense of the task instead of referring back to their textbook, which they were not allowed to use in this class. The students were supposed to listen to the tape and repeat the words, with the help of the teacher as regards their pronunciation.

The follow-up excluded the use of flashcards for the control group, while the rest of the activity remained quite the same. Once again, the control group relied exclusively on verbal content (the words written on the board) to understand and complete the task at hand. The game of choosing a job and saying it out loud when prompted by the teacher while exiting the room was carried in a similar manner.

The homework exercises were altered, so as to exclude the use of any visuals for the control group. Therefore, the experimental group was asked to draw their family tree and to prepare a booklet describing the most important people in their lives, while the control group was asked to verbally describe the same people, with the help of short sentences.

The effort of eliminating the textbook for the control group was aimed at understanding the actual benefits of using visual aids in the classroom. Had the teacher chose to keep the textbook, the results of the pedagogical research would have been rendered insignificant by the presence of plenty visual aids in the textbook, with the sole elimination of flash cards. The students would have still been able to match the images from the textbook with the verbal content, which, in itself, boosts learning. Altered by the elimination of the textbook, the experiment achieved actual results, as no visual aids were allowed whatsoever and students relied exclusively on verbal content.

Methods and instruments of collecting research data

In order to assess the importance of visuals aids for the learning process, we opted for a measurement scale that includes both objective and subjective elements. The measuring variables used included the time it took pupils to complete the task, the number of errors made, the level of task engagement and the class’ level of energy and enthusiasm:

Table 2: Results’ measuring scale

We also need to remark that while the first two variables were easier to measure, the third and the fourth variables involved a certain degree of subjectivity which was resolved by using a 1 to 5 scale (1 being the lowest score and 5 the highest) and approximating the reactions, by comparing them with the task engagement and enthusiastic/non-enthusiastic response of previous activities. The attempt to quantify the less quantifiable variables proved successful and relied on the teacher’s experience and know-how, which led to the ability to grasp the overall atmosphere. These variables were introduced as we deemed it crucial for proving that visual aids not only enhance learning, by reducing the time needed to comprehend and solve the task and the number of errors that are likely to occur, but also by altering students’ perception of the learning material. Despite the fact that the learning content did not differ, the only difference being the elimination of visual aids in the control group, the experiment set out to prove that there are significant differences in the manner the learning content is perceived, which affects the learning process. The elimination of visual aids rendered the learning material boring, uninteresting and unchallenging, which resulted in a disengagement on pupils’ part. We shall discuss more about that in the chapter dedicated to the presentation and interpretation of results.

Each variable was measured during each activity included in our lesson plan. The teacher ranked on the spot all variables, in a swift action that was meant not to perturb the lesson or cause students’ to lose their focus. The reference values were included to remind the teacher of the target envisioned.

To further assess the efficiency of the class and to check students’ level of self-awareness, we decided to collect impressions from the students under the form of a questionnaire adapted to their beginner level of English and span of attention. The number of questions was maintained at a minimum and the language used was relatively easy. Students were told to answer the questions honestly and the teacher also provided them with explanations in their mother tongue before applying the questionnaire, while also making them understand that she was available for further assistance. The pupils were encouraged to use their mother tongue to answer the two questions that required more elaborate answers. To streamline the process and not waste further time, the teacher made it clear that the last question was optional and that students should only provide suggestions if they had something in mind or could come up with something and they did not need to dwell on this excessively. This was added to prevent a situation where students take more than 10 minutes to fill in the questionnaire, particularly since the time gap between the control group and the experiment group was not too large. Also, we believe that encouraging students to follow their instinct and answer the first thing that pops in their heads enhances the possibility of being provided honest, straightforward answers.

Questionnaire

Tick the right answer ():

Table 3: Questionnaire

It is also important to note that the results of the questionnaire were not directed in any way and that the teacher did not propose even examples of possible answers, to allow students the freedom of coming up with original answers and assess the language classroom in their own selected manner. We did toy with the idea of introducing a question that would ask the groups directly whether the visual aids helped (experimental group)/would help (control group) make the class more interesting, but we decided not to use it, as it would have directed the attention of students in the direction desired and alter the results. We wanted to see if the pupils of the experimental group identified on their own the help provided by visual aids and whether the control group manage to identify properly what was missing from their class.

This combination between experiment and questionnaire was selected to provide a comprehensive interpretation and analysis, in providing a student assessment in support of the teacher’s observations. We thought it would be important to allow students to tell us in their own words what was right/wrong with the class they had attended and whether they wished/did not wish to repeat the same type of class.

The results of the experiment and the questionnaire are thoroughly analyzed in the further sub-chapters of the current paper and they provided some interesting insight into the process of teaching/learning English as a foreign language and the variables that influence class success.

Organization and sequence of the research

To be able to interpret the experiment, the teacher wrote down the scores for each activity and relied on a group score rather than on individual scores. Therefore, the score reflects the average score obtained by each individual group. The fact that we came up with a scale for measuring unquantifiable variables helped take down numbers in the classroom swiftly and efficiently.

The classroom observations that completed and explained the score granted to each group for each activity were written down in the one-hour interval allowed between the classes, as it was crucial for the results of the first group to be discussed largely before the second part of the experiment, so as not to be influenced or merge into each other.

The results of the questionnaire applied were left as such until the experiment was over for both groups and analyzed afterwards, as the teacher translated the results in the target language, where the pupils had answered in their mother tongue. The questionnaire was the last to be analyzed, so as to avoid contamination between the teacher’s observations and the students’ observations.

Presentation of the results

To cover all aspects of the research, we have divided this chapter further into presenting the measuring scale results, our observations and the questionnaire results. This comprehensive approach helped us gain a bird’s eye view, as we included both an objective assessment (the scale), and our and the students’ perspectives on the experiment.

Measuring scale results

To present the classroom observations, we need to show the scores achieved by both groups throughout the lesson. The table below summarizes the results for each group in numbers, for each activity performed throughout the lessons, whereas the extensive observations that led to this score are presented below the table.

Table 4: Applied measuring scale

Although it was not measured, the homework assessment performed during the next class was actually included in the sub-chapter dedicated to classroom observations, as it shows the students’ engagement with this type of teaching and their enthusiasm and attitude in the absence of any visual aids.

Classroom observations

This sub-chapter includes all the observations we made during the experiment, which are relevant for displaying the differences between the two main groups (the control group and the experimental group) and the importance of using visual aids in the English language classroom.

To begin with, we must state that our decision not to use the textbook for the control group, due to its many visuals needed to be announced to students. We used the introductory part of the lesson to ask them to leave the textbook aside. This resulted in an enthusiastic reaction from the students, who were hoping for a highly interactive class.

The first activity was performed fast and efficiently by the experimental group, where the flashcards were used. The pupils displayed signs of interest when shown the flashcards and they engaged immediately. There were no signs of boredom, even when asked to repeat the words. The control class, hyped by the initial announcement that no textbook would be included, started the activity with a higher level of enthusiasm than the experimental group, but ended it with a lower energy level. As the activity continued, with no visual support, and they were asked to mechanically repeat the words written on the board, the pupils began to lose interest and became more distracted.

The first activity of the lesson was welcomed by the experiment group who used the textbook to identify the policeman, the mailman, the fireman and the milkman on the spot, due to the visual aids. The listening part took a little longer, as they needed to match the written text and the audio material and then link it to the images. There were no mistakes recorded for this activity.

In the absence of visual aids, the control group needed to rely solely on the audio material, which it found difficult to correlate with the words on the board. Also, they mistakenly assumed that the mailman was the one who was walking all day, due to the differences between the Romanian culture and the British culture and their pre-existent stereotypical knowledge of the jobs. They also assumed that the fireman was riding all day, associating the idea of a fireman with a fire truck, and that the policeman was the one running around to catch thieves and other criminals. Unable to relate the recorded material with the textbook images, where the actions are obvious, the pupils relied on their pre-existing knowledge of the world to complete the task and they were wrong, as the assumptions they made and their stereotypical knowledge of the world did not match the textbook authors’ worldview. It took longer for the control group to complete the task and the mistakes and corrections tired them further and lowered their enthusiasm. As such, even if they did try to successfully complete the task in the beginning, by the end of the activity, they mostly relied on guesswork, which was completely eliminated from the experimental group, who referred back to the images in the textbook.

The second activity followed the first listening activity organically for the experimental group, who was eager to practice the actions performed by the mailman, policeman, fireman and milkman in the images and to practice their singing. Some positive reactions were also obtained from the control group, who engaged in this game-like activity a little bit more enthusiastically. However, the fact that they could not rely on visuals for the set-up activity had consequences over all the further activities. As no connections were made between verbal content and visuals to aid retention, the singing and mimicking was performed rather chaotically and instinctively by the control group, as the associations between actions and persons had not been internalized. The replay of the CD multiple times did not help organize the activity better, as the pupils were already distracted by the lack of any interesting material and did not make much effort to follow the song logic. The activity took longer and died out eventually, from lack of interest. The same did not hold true of the experimental group who could rely on the textbook images and had already internalized the associations between actions and people. By the third replay, they had already learnt the song in a logical manner.

The extra activity was greeted with enthusiasm for the idea of a competition between pupils in the experimental group, while the control group showed little interest for this and barely paid attention to the teacher’s explanations regarding the rules. The enthusiasm of the control group fizzled out throughout the activity, which lasted longer than in the control group.

The family tree activity was successful for the experimental group, who was allowed to use the textbook and, thus, able to make the connections between Alvin’s written description of his family members and the characters hanging from the family tree faster. The control group, however, had difficulty transitioning into this activity, as their lack of interest was already evident. Once again, they relied mostly on guesswork and their stereotypical knowledge of the world to complete the task instead of logical associations.

The last activity was performed fast and efficient by the experimental group and rather mechanically by the control group. There were no particular signs of interest or enthusiasm in the control group, who was starting to become agitated, as it was clear that they were looking forward for the end of the class.

The follow-up activity was performed enthusiastically by the experimental group, while the control group did not manifest any rise in their energy level and seemed quite all right with the idea that the classroom was finally coming to an end. The disappointment in this type of class was evident.

As far as the homework is concerned, when checked during the next class, we discovered that the pupils of the experimental group were eager to share the results of their work with their peers and they produce interesting and creative booklets and family trees. The control group, who was asked to produce mere sentences, did not care much for the homework and the verification was done swiftly and unenthusiastically.

Overall, the experimental group displayed a steady level of enthusiasm throughout the entire classroom. Even though it wasn’t over the top, it sustained the rhythm of the activities properly, while the control group had a lot of ups and downs. Hyped by the announcement that we would not be using the textbook, their level of enthusiasm soared in the beginning, reaching its highest point, only to plummet during further activities. There was another spike in their enthusiasm level during the game-like activities, however it was not sustainable and it was, once again, followed by a downfall.

The use of visual aids in the classroom allowed the experimental group to form logical connections between verbal and visual content and perform the tasks faster and more efficiently, while also retaining the linguistic structures introduced by the lesson. Deprived of visual aids, the control group relied on guesswork mostly and simply proposed one solution after another with no logical base, after noticing that their initial solution to the exercises was not the right one. There was a general air of confusion and chaos surrounding the control group whose initial expectations were deceived. Despite being relatively easy to perform, the activities took longer and led to student lack of interest.

As far as the homework was concerned, the experimental group welcomed the idea of creating family trees and booklets for their portfolios, despite the fact that it took longer to gather the materials required and work on the outcomes. The task allowed for their creativity to manifest, which was something exciting and new for the pupils of the experimental group. The control group’s homework was easier and it required little effort, which is why it was performed with very little interest, as it was perceived as unchallenging.

The absence of visual clues from the control group class resulted in disastrous consequences as far as level of enthusiasm, energy, classroom atmosphere and cognitive understanding and retention are concerned. The control group disengaged fast and lost interest and motivation to perform the tasks, while also manifesting signs of agitation and discontent.

Questionnaire results

The results of the questionnaire were not necessarily surprising, as the experimental and the control group both answered in the predicted manner. We need to remark that both groups favored honesty instead of politeness, which helped the questionnaire reach its goal and provide us with useful information.

All the pupils in the experimental group provided positive answers to the first question, stating that they would like to have another class like this one. They found that the exercises were not difficult and the classroom was interesting. Five pupils stated that they like the class because it contained games, while six stated that they liked the song. Three liked the activities proposed as homework, while two actually mentioned the flashcards as something they liked to work with. Four pupils did not answer the question. For the last question, five pupils stated that they had wished for more games, six stated that they wanted more songs involved, and three mentioned that they would like to have more activities that would allow them to draw. The respondents were the same as the ones who answered that they liked games, songs and drawing activities in question two. The remaining six pupils in the group did not answer the question.

The control group unanimously answered No when asked whether they liked the class or not. When asked to explain their choice, three pupils said the class had been boring, five stated that they didn’t like not giving the right answers, four said they wished for pictures, and eight didn’t answer the question. They all agreed that the class had not been interesting and twelve of them said that they found the exercises difficult. They also agreed that they didn’t want another similar class. Seven pupils answered the last question with the word games, five asked for more songs and four asked for drawings. The remaining four didn’t answer the last question.

The differences are notable. Despite enjoying the class, the pupils of the experimental group answered the last question by resorting to their favorite part of the class, which they wished they had more of. The control group, on the other hand, remained united in the opinion that the class had not been interesting or entertaining. It was interesting that five students associated the failure of the classroom with their own inability to provide the right answers. Therefore, the learning content was important to them only insofar as providing them with plenty of opportunity to showcase their knowledge and skills. In the absence of such opportunity, the associated the failure of the class with their failure to provide the right answers. This reveled an interesting mutual dependency between the learning process and the class atmosphere. We could infer in a rather straightforward manner that the classroom atmosphere facilitate the learning process, as a positive environment, full of energy and enthusiasm is more likely to prompt students towards language acquisition. However, it was interesting to find that the learning process also influenced the atmosphere and that learning failure led to poor classroom conditions. This mutual dependency led to the establishing of a vicious circle for the control group, which was difficult to exit once set. The fact that the control group did not manage to match the jobs and the actions from the beginning made the control group perceive the exercises as difficult. The experimental group found the exercises rather easy, as they associated the visual aids with the verbal content and managed to complete the task faster and more successfully. In the control group, only four identified some form of visual support as a possible improvement to be adopted in future classes, while the others resorted to the more engaging activities that the class did contain, such as songs and games, assuming that if the class would have had more of that, it would have been more successful.

The questionnaire collected the resulted expected from the pupils, despite the fact that neither group seemed to assign the success/failure of the class with the presence/absence of visual aids. The experimental class considered the visual aids a given and did not pay as much attention to them, while the control group mostly relied on their wish to include more games and songs in the English language classroom, without signaling the absence of visual aids.

Nonetheless, the pupils’ perception of the activities performed and their overall feelings towards the class confirmed the working hypotheses, in the sense that the class using visual aids was associated with easy-to-do tasks and enjoyment, while the class that eliminated any form of visuals was perceived as dull, with tasks that were difficult to follow or complete, which resulted in an unsuccessful experience.

Interpretation of the results

The results introduced in the previous chapters show that visual aids not only boost learning, but they also change student perception of the material they are learning. By rendering the learning material more appealing, visual aids help increase student engagement in the lesson, by allowing students to maintain a healthy and steady level of energy and enthusiasm throughout the lesson. At the same time, students are more motivated to complete tasks if they involve visual aids.

As far as the linguistic acquisition is concerned, we should mention that the absence of visual aids in the control group led to a decontextualization of the material, which resulted in poor connection-making on the part of the learners. Without the visual support, the pupils included in the control group attempted to rely on their previous knowledge of the world and use associations that they were familiar with to complete specific tasks. As worldviews differ, they failed and took a rather guesswork approach to solving tasks. At the same time, the absence of visual aids made it more difficult for students to retain and process the information even after the task was completed with the help of the teacher. Unable to rely on associations between visual and verbal content, the pupils forgot the right association between jobs and actions (activity 1) faster. Therefore, when activity 2 elicited the same type of associations that were supposed to be formed during the first task, the pupils of the control needed to re-make the said associations as if they were never retained. As it had not been properly retained, the information could not be retrieved and recycled into further activities.

The levels of energy, enthusiasm and task engagement also varied greatly for the two groups. While the experimental group maintained a constant level of high energy and enthusiasm, which allowed it to perform tasks successfully and engage with the activities, the control group showed major fluctuations. In the control group, the high level of energy from the beginning, when they were announced that they wouldn’t be using the textbook, dropped suddenly when the pupils saw that the activity performed did not match their expectations. The game-like activity (activity 2) barely managed to increase the level of energy, which soon dropped again, as students were discouraged by the mistakes they made and become less engaged and motivated to perform or complete the task. The experimental group did not experience any of these problems. The fact that they were allowed to rely on visual aids meant that they made connections between visual and verbal content faster, which resulted in successful task completion. The success of each task completion propelled them further and helped maintain a high level of energy throughout the class, by acting as a motivator. Even if they did not perform all tasks entirely correctly and they did make some mistake, whose number was lower, compared to the control group, the experimental group moved on from the mistakes faster and did not allow them to decrease their enthusiasm or motivation. The control group, on the other hand, were deeply disheartened by the mistakes they made and got stuck in guesswork, losing the purpose of the activity from sight.

The pace of the classes differed as well. The experimental group worked faster, as they were excited to see what the next activity would bring. In the control group, some activities were not completed as much as faded away in the overall atmosphere of disheartenment. The teacher did intervene to make sure that the task is completed, however she did not make any effort in redirecting students’ attention back, as that would have altered the results of the research.

Overall, the use of visual aids was proven to create a more entertaining learning environment and a more positive experience, as learners engaged faster and more successfully with the tasks at hand when they benefitted from the support of visual aids. The absence of visual aids rendered the tasks more difficult to complete and the learning content less appealing for students, which resulted in a lack of motivation and task engagement.

Implications for teachers

The confirmation of our working hypotheses show that English language teachers need to resort to multiple aids, with the visual aids being more prominent and appealing to our most used sense, to help students retain the learning content. The nature of the aids employed, however, proved to be crucial, as not all aids used during the class actually fulfilled their role of learning aids.

It was interesting to note during our experiment that not any aid would help students learn and make connections fast. Despite students’ own preference for songs and games, the use of these activities in the absence of visual aids did not provide the much-needed diversity and failed to prompt students in the right direction. As such, the activities involving songs and games were rather aimless for the control group, compared to the experimental group who had the opportunity to connect information by means of visual aids.

The visual aids were the only aids used during the class that facilitated understanding, by helping students connect verbal and visual information and make sense faster of the task they were asked to perform. It didn’t matter that much whether our students were more inclined to rely on the sense of sight to the detriment of all the other senses. It was mostly a matter of the sense most used in everyday activity, which helped form paths faster due to practice.

There are still elements that our research did not cover and should be looked into further. For example, our research was somehow restricted to young learners with a beginner’s level of English. It is widely known that young learners need to be stimulated more to learn, as their attention span is smaller and they need constant reinforcement to avoid boredom and disengagement. Our research revealed nothing connected to teenager or adult learners. It would be interesting to carry out the same experiment in a class with older learners, to see if the efficiency of visual aids is the same, considering their increased ability to apply reasoning to learning and make abstract connections.

In conclusion, our experiment revealed that visual aids help improve greatly the language acquisition in young learners, as they rely more on concrete connections. The visual aids in the classroom help them make connections faster and learn and retain the verbal content for further use. The use of visuals in the acquisition phase of learning is crucial for creating multiple paths that can be used to retrieve the information later on.

CONCLUSIONS

The Internet-driven age has brought about many changes in the manner in which the teaching/learning process is perceived and occurs. It is no longer enough to rely on inadequate or obsolete learning methods centered on verbal content. As texts evolve, so must learning. No longer restricted to linguistic content, texts have now become a multitude of multimodal strings brought together. To learners, that means that multiple methods to convey meaning and information need to be used to help the language acquisition process. That shift in perspective opened up plenty possibilities for the inclusion in the language classroom of means that could not even have been imagined twenty years ago. From basic images to the use of computers for presentations made using special software or animated elements, the aids available for the teacher have become more complex and their manner of use more adapted to psychological findings related to the human brain. As such, the learning process has become more precise and oriented towards efficiency. In the age of speed, where information reaches users faster than ever and needs to be processed and retained ever faster, it is vital to rely on the most suitable aids that maximize the results in the shortest amount of time in all fields, including the field of education.

Some of the most important aids that can be used in the classroom are visual aids which work on multiple levels. On the one hand, they help form connections faster, as they create multiple paths for information retrieval in the brain, facilitating the further use of the information transmitted. This is precisely why the experimental group performed better and retained faster the associations between jobs and actions and verbal description and family tree, facilitated by the visuals. On the other hand, they alter students’ perception of the learning material. Our experiment showed that, despite the identical verbal content of the tasks proposed, the use/elimination of visual aids from the class has led to very different results. The experimental group perceived the material as entertaining and interesting, while the control group perceived it as dull, unchallenging and unhelpful. This perception of the materials led to task engagement/disengagement and controlled the atmosphere and level of energy and enthusiasm in the classroom, which in itself was crucial to students’ willingness to perform.

The visual aids provided a framework of reference and guided students’ imagination, motivating them to relate the verbal content to the images provided. For our young learners, who had not yet developed abstract skills, the ability to refer back to extremely concrete and colorful imagery helped them understand the tasks better and perform successfully. The success of each activity built up and helped the students in the experimental group engage in the next activity in a more optimistic and positive manner, while the failure of their associations disheartened the students of the control group, whose enthusiasm slowly decreased, as their performance level dropped.

Driven by the need to achieve results fast, our educational system needs to focus more on the use of helpful aids in the language classroom that would facilitate learning, while also raising students’ spirits to create a proper learning atmosphere. As the two are interlinked and mutually dependent, it is essential for learners to be provided with aids that would both boost the learning process and facilitate the forming of multiple connections and neural paths and energize students. It would be useful for teachers to study the psychology behind information retention and the research made in the field of information perception and incorporate that knowledge in the way they outline their syllabus. If they adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the teaching/learning process, the results in the classroom could improve greatly and the students would acquire the desired information faster and in a manner that would facilitate retention and retrieval for future use. Overall, the language class would achieve better results, as the students would become proficient faster and more inclined to further deepen their knowledge of a foreign language and pursue the learning of another foreign language in the future.

APPENDIX 1

THE LEARNING UNIT

Figure 32: Fairyland 3, Unit 3c – It’s my job, p. 26

Figure 33: Fairyland 3, Unit 3c – It’s my job, p. 27

APPENDIX 2

LESSON PLANS

The lesson plans that follow are based on the materials included in the Fairyland 3 pack (Dooley and Evans, 2007), as detailed in the bibliography.

Lesson plan for 3rd grade (control group)

Time/Level/Number of students

50 minutes / Beginner / 20

Textbook

Fairyland 3

Unit

Unit 3c

Aims

Talking about jobs

Skills

Listening, writing

Language focus

Structures

What am I? I’m a …

Language in use

I’m a policeman/fireman, etc.

Pronunciation

/u:/

Extra materials

No extra materials, no textbook.

Lead in

Student greeting. The teacher announces students that they will not be using their textbook for today’s lesson.

The teacher writes the words milkman, policeman, fireman and mailman on the board, one by one, points to each word and says the corresponding words. The pupils repeat, both as a group and individually.

Activity 1

The teacher elicits the definition of a job. If necessary, L1 will be used for this purpose. Pupils are asked to say what a milkman, a policeman, a fireman, and a mailman do. Then, the teacher presents the students with a worksheet (Worksheet 1) containing the transcript for exercise 1 from the pupil’s book with the job name eliminated from the description. Listening to tape script 52 from CD 1, students fill out the text, matching the actions with the jobs.

Activity 2

The teacher plays the CD. The pupils listen and follow the text.

The teacher plays the CD again, asking the pupils to listen and watch the teacher as he/she mimics the movements and actions specific to each profession (walks with his/her hand behind the back when impersonating a police officer, runs around when impersonating a fireman, rides a bike when pretending to be a postman and drives a car when pretending to be a milkman).

The teacher splits the class in groups of 5 and assigns one job to each group. The teacher plays the CD again and each group sings along and does the actions corresponding to each job.

Extra activity:

The teacher splits the classroom into two teams and mimics the actions corresponding to each job. The team that guesses most jobs wins.

Activity 3

The teacher presents the pupils with worksheets (Worksheet 2) containing Alvin’s text from exercise 3 (the family tree) on top of the page and a description of each character in the family tree lower on the page and explains that it show’s Alvin family. The students need to match the character with the description. The pupils are allowed some time to read the text and complete the task. The teacher checks the pupils’ answers. The teacher plays the CD, while the pupils listen and follow the text. The pupils read aloud fragments of the text.

Activity 4

The teacher reads the instructions from exercise 5 and explains the task. The teacher plays the CD and asks the pupils to listen and repeat. The teacher draws pupils’ attention to the pronunciation of the sound /u:/ and asks individual pupils to repeat the sentence, while correcting their pronunciation.

Follow-up

The teacher writes all the jobs on the board and asks pupils to choose a job and not tell anyone. When the teacher points at a job on the board, the students that chose that job say out loud the name of the job and exit the room. The game continues until there is no one left in the room, except for the teacher.

Homework 1

The teacher asks students to write down a sentence describing each of their immediate family member, starting with the oldest.

Homework 2

The teacher asks pupils to select the people they interact with, on a regular basis and make a booklet about them, as part of their portfolio. Each person should have a dedicated page and pupils should write a short sentence to describe him/her e.g. This is my landlady. Her name is Cathy.

Lesson plan for 3rd grade (experimental group)

Time/Level/Number of students

50 minutes / Beginner / 20

Textbook

Fairyland 3

Unit

Unit 3c

Aims

Talking about jobs

Skills

Listening, writing

Language focus

Structures

What am I? I’m a …

Language in use

I’m a policeman/fireman, etc.

Pronunciation

/u:/

Extra materials

Flashcards 9-12

Lead in

Student greeting.

Pupil’s book on the table, closed. The teacher pins flashcards 9-12 on the board, one by one, points to each pictures and says the corresponding words. The pupils repeat, both as a group and individually.

Pupil’s book on the table, opened. The teacher writes the number 26 on the board and ask pupils to open their textbooks at page twenty-six. The teacher reads out loud the number of the unit and asks the pupils to repeat, both as a group and individually. The teacher checks students’ pronunciation and intonation.

Activity 1

The teacher elicits the definition of a job. If necessary, L1 will be used for this purpose. Pupils are asked to look at the flashcards and spot the milkman, the policeman, the fireman, and the postman. Then, the teacher redirects the pupils to exercise 1 from the pupil’s book and explains the task. Listening to tape script 52 from CD 1, students listen and write down the jobs.

Activity 2

The teacher plays the CD. The pupils listen and follow the text.

The teacher plays the CD again, asking the pupils to listen and watch the teacher as he/she mimics the movements and actions specific to each profession (walks with his/her hand behind the back when impersonating a police officer, runs around when impersonating a fireman, rides a bike when pretending to be a postman and drives a car when pretending to be a milkman).

The teacher splits the class in groups of 5 and assigns one job to each group. The teacher plays the CD again and each group sings along and does the actions corresponding to each job.

Extra activity:

The teacher splits the classroom into two teams and mimics the actions corresponding to each job. The team that guesses most jobs wins.

Activity 3

The teacher points at exercise 3 (the family tree) and explains that it show’s Alvin family. Going through the tree, the teachers asks students to guess who each character drawn is. Then, the teacher reads the instructions and explains the task. The pupils are allowed some time to read the text and complete the task. The teacher checks the pupils’ answers. The teacher plays the CD, while the pupils listen and follow the text. The pupils read aloud fragments of the text.

Activity 4

The teacher reads the instructions from exercise 5 and explains the task. The teacher plays the CD and asks the pupils to listen and repeat. The teacher draws pupils’ attention to the pronunciation of the sound /u:/ and asks individual pupils to repeat the sentence, while correcting their pronunciation.

Follow-up

The teacher writes all the jobs on the board under the related flashcard and asks pupils to choose a job and not tell anyone. When the teacher points at a job on the board, the students that chose that job say out loud the name of the job and exit the room. The game continues until there is no one left in the room, except for the teacher.

Homework 1

The teacher refers pupils to exercise 4 and explains how a family tree is supposed to be build (older generations at the top, younger at the bottom, etc.). The teacher asks pupils to prepare, as part of their portfolio, their own family tree, using drawings or pictures of their family members.

Homework 2

The teacher asks pupils to select the people they interact with, on a regular basis and make a booklet about them, as part of their portfolio. Each person should have a dedicated page and pupils should draw or stick pictures of that person on the page and write a short sentence to describe him/her e.g. This is my landlady. Her name is Cathy.

APPENDIX 3

WORKSHEETS

Worksheet 1

Fill in the jobs, according to the description:

I’m a ………………….. in the town.

All day long,

I walk around!

It’s my job,

It’s what I do.

It’s my job,

I like it, too!

I’m a ………………….. in the town.

All day long,

I run around!

I’m a ………………….. in the town.

All day long,

I ride around!

I’m a ………………….. in the town.

All day long,

I drive around!

Worksheet 2

Read Alvin’s description of his family and decide which match the characters with the sentences below:

Meet my family! This is my grandpa, Tom, and my grandma, Mary. My dad’s name is Jack and he’s a policeman. My mum’s name is Molly. This is my sister Claire. She’s very funny! I love my family very much.

She likes to knit.

He is the oldest of the family.

He spends his days looking for clues.

She loves to play and laugh all day.

She takes care of the family.

APPENDIX 4

FLASHCARDS

Figure 34: The postman

Figure 35: Policeman

Figure 36: The fireman

Figure 37: The mailman

REFERENCES

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CORPUS

Dooley, J. and Evans, V. (2007). Fairlyland 3. Pupil’s Book. Berkshire: Express Publishing.

Dooley, J. and Evans, V. (2007). Fairlyland 3. Teacher’s Book. Berkshire: Express Publishing.

Dooley, J. and Evans, V. (2007). Fairlyland 3. Activity Book. Berkshire: Express Publishing.

Dooley, J. and Evans, V. (2007). Fairlyland 3. Vocabulary and Grammar Practice. Berkshire: Express Publishing.

Dooley, J. and Evans, V. (2007). Fairlyland 3. Picture Flashcards. Berkshire: Express Publishing.