A Visual Lexicon: A Language Learning Must Have!

Why do language instructors artificially separate text and speech from the visual lexicon? 

A lexicon is a catalog of a language’s wordstock and the rules or grammar that dictates the combination of the stock of words into meaningful sentences.

Our visual language is the system by which communication uses visual elements to be effective: pragmatics, semiotics, gestures, images, diagrams, maps, and other forms of nonverbal communication. Speech or text does not act alone effectively, not without the help of emoticons, anyway.

The structural units of visual language includes line, shape, color, form, motion, texture, pattern, direction, orientation, scale, angle, space, and proportion. The same structural elements that create our written language – add sound and you have our spoken language. These are also known as the formal elements in art analysis.

Notebooks of all those listed. Found at this link.

Therefore, a visual lexicon is the collection or ‘visualstock’ and the elements or visual-grammar that dictates the combination of intersecting visual elements and text/words to create meaningful communication.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s 15^th century sketchbooks are famous examples of visual lexicons. Other famous visual lexicon notebookers that changed the modern era include Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Alexander Graham Bell, and Albert Einstein.

Creative genius is found at the intersections of the visual and verbal. Our entire Internet culture exists at the same intersection: it is the living love-child of these innovators’ notebooks (read Steve Job’s biography – official and unofficial).

Interbreed and Interrelated: Intertextuality.  

Image found here. 

The idea of intertextuality suggests that all images relate to other cultural texts such as books, poems, other images, movies, commercials, and music, etc. (See Wilson, 2003, citation below). 

Turn intertexuality inside out: an utterance never exists without relating emoticons, images, books, poems, other utterances, movies, commercials, and music, etc.

Million dollar question: 

So, why are so many EFL/ESL instructors telling our students’ to check their visual lexicons at the door to learn language (and then wondering why their students fall asleep at their desks)?

Encourage the development of your students’ visual lexicons.

Some scholars suggest that L2 learners need a vocabulary of at least 5,000 words for a good working knowledge of the English language (as well as an understanding of syntax, morphology, and pragmatics, etc.). Most L1 English speakers are thought to have a vocabulary of 20K or so words.

Encouraging students to build and maintain visual lexicons increases their meaningful encounters with words or even the meaning of sentences or phrases. For example, an assignment can be on creating visual lexicons based on a series of idioms or ideas.

One of our visual lexicons for Orientalism. Found at this link.

In an intermediate level class, my Korean university students created visual lexicons based on the concept of Orientalism. They also applied critical thinking skills to further break down the image and its meaning. 

My students can now discuss their opinions on the concept of Orientalism by analyzing an image. The proficiency level of these students ranged from intermediate-low to advanced-mid.

 A visual lexicon was created to bridge the huge proficiency gaps between the students in the class. All of the students saw an increase in their ability to use academic vocabulary, and some students saw a dramatic improvement in the sophistication of their sentence structures (verbal and written).

Facilitate your Da Vincis and Einsteins to produce their online notebooks…   

Technology is crucial to the development and long-term maintenance of visual lexicons. 

Mural.ly collaborative project. 

Pinterest.com is a great tool to collect, store, and organize images whereas Mural.ly is a user-friendly location to produce visual essays. Mural.ly is an excellent resource for large collaborative mind maps or to help students outline presentations and essays.

This semester, my novice level students produced family introductions on MindMapper.com, a mind mapping app that is cellphone friendly. All the students posted their family MindMapper.com on our class Facebook.com timeline with pictures of their family (or pictures who they wished their family to be).

MindMapper "My Family" assignment. 

Posted on our Facebook timeline to share with classmates. 

There are a litany of the other social bookmarking, mindmapping, and intertext apps that will help you and your students' to build visual lexicons. 

Resources

Wilson, B. (2003). Of diagrams and rhizomes: Visual culture, contemporary art, and the impossibility of mapping the content of art education. Studies in Art Education, 44(3), 214-229.

Classroom Mash-ups: Remixing with Mobile Learning Virtual Environments (MLVE)

According Larry Rosen’s Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn (2010), asking students – who were raised with technology as digital natives of the iGeneration- to do one task at a time (Unitask) is not only torture, but research shows that their performance actually decreases.

These students are so wired, so socially and digitally interconnected, that Rosen (2010) argues their learning circuits are rewired: they learn differently. And just as they move through their daily lives collaboratively through an assortment of portable devices (PDIs) and social networking, Rosen (2010) states that “research does demonstrate rather convincingly that students who communicate during a learning experience perform equally well as those who read the material and have no outside communication— it just takes them longer to finish the assignment" (p. 67). These students are rewired as multitaskers.

There are some teachers under the thumb of standardized testing that might scoff at Rosen’s flippancy of “just” taking longer to finish assignments, but I am not one of them. I am lucky enough to have the flexibility of my curriculum, as well as the material my university level students cover.

mLearning in action... 

As stated in earlier blogs, I am starting to introduce mobile learning (mLearning) concepts into my English as a second language (ESL) classrooms; Facebook acts as catchall virtual classroom, while writing assignments using mind mapping apps (Mindmapper), presentations produced as videos using a mash-up of apps, blogs (Google Chrome Blogger), and collaborative brainstorming using a virtual bricolage app (Mural.ly) are all on this semester’s menu.

Students work to navigate visual literacy as they explore the English language as an object that can be manipulated through technology and creativity. Language isn’t something that just gets stuck in their throat when they try to answer an instructor’s question or collects dust in their English books that live stuffed in their backpacks.

The introduction of mLearning transforms English into something that they can create in-between texting their girlfriends and ignoring their Mom’s incessant questioning about when they are going to do their chores.

5 Concept of mLearning

Rosen’s (2010) five important concepts of mLearning are:

Information is available anywhere there is Internet access.

Information is available anytime.

Information is available through devises that are becoming commonplace and will soon be affordable to most people.

Information can be “pushed” from the environment to the student and “pulled” by the student from the environment.

The learning environment is fluid and adapts as the learner learns.

    

    Mobile Virtual Learning Environments (MVLE) in action... 

mLearning concepts –if watered daily and fertilized well- can grow up to become Mobile Virtual Learning Environments (MVLEs).

Now, my classroom social landscape is only in the infancy stages of MVLEs and might never reach full maturation… but here are some of the baby steps are we (my students and me) working out…

1. Engaging environments: “A key to an MVLE is that any virtual educational experience must be adaptable to whatever environment… is currently embraced by students” (Rosen, 2010, p. 64).

We use Facebook. Each class has their own private class group that only they can see and share. I post the class PowerPoints, the syllabus, study guides, announcements, and send messages/reminders to the students. They post homework assignments especially designed to be Facebook posts on the class timeline (more on this later).

2. Environmental flexibility: “A virtual learning environment can utilize any available technology to teach a concept” (Rosen, 2010, p. 65).

Although my MVLE is still in level 1 yoga class, my students are going to explore a few different apps and resources this semester. Here is an example of the “Family Mind Map” project that my low level ESL university freshman students are currently working on (due next week):

My "Family Mind Map" homework Facebook post
on the class timeline. 

This project replaced the traditional “make your family tree” – ever a favorite of rerun of ESL teachers everywhere.

3. Relevant learning strategies: “Educators need to recognize that even though a book may employ specific learning strategies that have been researched and proven effective, they may not be effective for each and every student” (Rosen, 2010, p. 65).

Rosen (2010) goes on to claim that MVLE can be a “strategy-independent” learning zone where students pick up and discard a variety of research-approved methods until they find the mLearning strategies that fit them like a pair of skinny jeans.

 

The "Family Mind Map" created on the computer
version of the free Mindmapper app. 

Admittedly, I don’t know if I am giving the students enough of a variety of virtual tools to really provide them with a plethora of options, but I’ve gotten them out of the book. Rote learning and memorization is not the pivot by which our classroom revolves.

4. Material interactivity: “The tools have to allow students to work actively with the material rather than have a static “book learning” experience” (Rosen, 2010, p. 65).

I consider our book only the launching point from which we explore the MVLE that is designed to produce creative reactions by the students in English.

5. Human interactivity: “Learning can no longer be individualized to one working alone” (Rosen, 2010, p. 65).

I don’t have a single activity in the real-world classroom that my students do alone. Interestingly enough, I do actually assign their MLVE homework individually, but they are always posting it to the class collective Facebook site. Their homework for next week is to start asking each other questions about their “Family Mind Map” to promote the same sense of interconnectivity in the MLVE as we have in classroom.

6. Student-centered versus the standard teacher-centered education models.

Most of work done by my students in the MLVE takes initiative as the book can only be used as reference and launching point. Otherwise, they are responsible for generating the materials to produce the Facebook timeline posts.

They are inspired to work together and to do more research on the internet.

Introductory profile
assignment. 

7. Collaborative: see #5.

8. Creative: “The opportunity for creative exercises within a learning domain heightens interest in the subject, motivates the learner to continue with the educational process, and results in increased levels of understanding” (Rosen, 2010, p. 68).

The students not only have to produce the language that goes into their projects, they also have to form and produce the project itself. They can’t just scribble haphazard sentences on a piece of paper and hand it in on the fly. The students have to interact with the virtual interface while thinking through all the pieces to complete the Facebook post correctly. They have to generate pictures and describe them. They are assigned with telling a visual story as well as written one.

In our MVLE, learning is a creative process just as language and communication are a creative process.

9. Available 24/7: “Education can no longer be seen as something that happens between 7:30 A.M. and 2:30 P.M., Monday through Friday, with afternoons and evenings for homework” (Rosen, 2010, p. 69).

I personally have the sleep/work pattern of teenager. I’ve been known to respond to students’ questions at midnight or have started asking them questions on their profiles to find myself accidentally in chats with several of students, because I was on during prime social networking time (after 10 pm).

Available 24/7. 

The result of all that MVLE?

This is the first semester that I’ve introduced so much mLearning into my classroom social landscape… and my Freshman students have a near perfect attendance rate going into week 4 of classes. That is unheard of.

My advanced conversation class, who are studying a content-based survey course on critical analysis of visual literacy, have opted to do the extra work to master the material that is proving difficult for them. The more that I transform the class into a MVLE – the more breakthroughs that we are having with the material. The trust is now established between us and we are heading into the world of collaborative blogging and Mural.ly brainstorming.

So, I will check back with you in a few weeks to see if they are still hanging tough.

Remixing in the EFL Classroom: The Interlanguage Mash-up

Being Labeled Radical: the “artsy” one  

With my commitment to meaning-making language education comes my cross to bear: I am labeled.

Yes, I am the “artsy” English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructor at my higher education institution. Art, in this case, is mistaken for poster making by my unenlightened colleagues; aesthetic teaching methods reduced down to the redheaded stepchild of “real” academics and legitimate language instruction.

There is a misconception that art-based methods are less rigorous and/or effective than focusing on correcting student errors and teaching them language/grammar points. (Side note: I most certainly don’t advocate for only having one style of teaching. Students need good instruction on the structure and form of English by instructors who get it. They just also need the balance of instruction based on the creative process of communication.)

My teaching methods admittedly privilege meaning-making over language rules and form. I seek to engage my students in authentic experiences where learners use their creative process to communicate meaningfully in their new language (Chappell and Faltis, 2013). Our (my students and me) classes are dedicated to, not only giving them the tools for creative communication, but providing them opportunities to get dirty using them, as well.

The Re-mix: focusing on the student’s interlanguage

In my last post, remixing and the mash-up were introduced as a natural creative process that human’s use to adapt to an ever-changing environment. I believe an effective language classroom is a microcosm of these bigger mash-ups of life; as students engage in their language-learning environment in creative ways, their perception begins to evolve and morph as they decode the English language/world. Therefore, they need strategies on processing this experience outside of just verbal and written communication.

The creative process as the bridge
between interlanguage and
language production. 

A students’ internal ‘interlanguage’ is the mash-up that my teaching methods focus on bringing to the surface. Chappell and Faltis (2013) summarizes Selinker’s (1972) definition of a student’s ‘interlanguage’ as “an internal system of language constructed by the learner, based on cognitive and linguistic interactions between the first and second language, coupled with how the learner experienced learning” (p. 8).

In an active and engaging learning environment, students’ are working from a continuous remixing as they learn to engage in meaning-making activities and therefore, their production of language in this environment are inherently mash-ups, in every sense of the word (even once they’ve become fluent whether error-free or not).

My goal is to get my students’ mash-up (interlanguage) from the inside out. I want to give my students the tools and strategies to creatively explore remixing and to understand that these moments of collage communication are legitimate. Mistakes are part of the learning process and some of the most profound works of fine art were thought to be mistakes by the artists themselves; an adjustment to real world obstacles that produced more interesting products then the artist’s original intention (here is list of quotes that work with this idea.) 

Visual literacy provides the students with a bridge between their interlanguage and their outer expression. The use of images and cultural symbolic representation provides students with the tools to improve their storytelling in English and to provide a more malleable structure to communicate within.

Students' pictorial autobiographies.
Their written narratives were separate.
Their final project combined them
together in a digital format. 

The use of collage via digital tools provides the students the ability to piece together their narratives with sound, image, and video. By loosening the structure of the acceptable classroom composition assignment, students have more freedom to explore the unknown creative meanings as they work to speak their stories that originate in Korean, but have to travel into effectively being told in English. Collage (mash-ups) gives students the opportunities to add texture to their storytelling that they can’t yet say in full-color via their foreign language(s).

Now, I am not advocating that your students simply stand in front of a video camera and talk. I don’t believe that is storytelling, nor does it apply the rigorous critical thinking that is embedded in the creative arts-based process. Students are still accountable to construct well-thought out compositions. They are just given more creative tools and vocabulary to produce them and the instruction to scaffold them.

Resources

Chappell, Sharon Verner & Faltis, Christian J. (2013) The Arts and Emergent Bilingual Youth: building culturally responsive, critical and creative education in school and community contexts. New York and London: Routledge.