Visual Literacy as a Means to Facilitate Conscious Choice in Learning

Victoria Door

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Visual Literacy as a Means to Facilitate Conscious Choice in Learning

In: Learning to See: The Meanings, Modes and Methods of Visual Literacy

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Victoria Door

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 1–11

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848883024_002

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Young learners developing reading skills in French in England are commonly faced with a page or screen containing both text and pictures. But what do they make of this mixture of words and images? What pedagogic support is given in how to use a layout with a word-to-text relationship for the purpose of learning? Original research, drawing on Schmidt’s ‘noticing hypothesis’ (2001) and form-focused instruction in language teaching (e.g. Doughty and Williams, 1998), indicates that the power of the image in supporting or interfering with reading in this context is underestimated. In a qualitative study, students indicated that images could not only distract them from noticing the language itself but also mislead them as to word meaning. Images were privileged as sources of meaning so that accompanying words were interpreted as corresponding to them: words became a secondary source of information. On analysis, images in mainstream textbooks appeared to be inconsistent in their relationship to word meaning. However, learners were not made aware of such potential sources of misinformation; they were not literate in terms of knowing how to read the page in a way that helped them learn. Findings supported Schmidt’s (2001) assertion that attention is necessary for language learning and that the role of selective attention in terms of what is noticed and subsequently processed needs to be considered in developing word-image literacy. In this context it is claimed that conscious choice of focus is key in a limited, selective and highly interpretive system and that teaching across the curriculum benefits from an explicit focus on visual literacy to facilitate conscious choice. Consequently, learners should be helped to develop critical awareness of their own habitual ways of interpreting page or screen content (as well as of the phenomena of noticing) together with a critical understanding of the page designer’s intent.

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Learning to See: The Meanings, Modes and Methods of Visual Literacy

E-Book ISBN:: 9781848883024

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2016

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies
  - Comparative Studies & World Literature
- Social Sciences
  - Cultural Studies

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Visual Literacy as a Means to Facilitate Conscious Choice in Learning

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Learning to See: The Meanings, Modes and Methods of Visual Literacy

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