5 Visual aids

Visual aids: All kinds of non-verbal resources that imply meaning usually accessible through the eye capacity. Visual aids can help you reach greater audiences than just speaking words in English, and may be enhance meaning for those who are fully understanding language.

Among visuals you can use posters, flashcards, gestures, and realia (=real objects). Whatever you use, you should make sense of them. They’re not for decoration. They’re not for fun. They’re present for the purpose of communication while helping emergent bilinguals acquire new vocabulary for content purposes. While using visuals, have into account the following DOs and DONTs which come from my own experience teaching Spanish, which are summarized from Samway, Pease-Alvarez, & Alvarez, L. (2020).

DOs and DONTs of using visuals

DO

1. Point at the visual while pronouncing emphatically the word you are referring to.
2. Face the audience (not the visual) as you pronounce the word. If this is hard to do, point to the visual silently, then face the audience and pronounce the word.
3. Use simple drawings black and white on a white background as visuals. Details may distract and overwhelm bilingual learners. When using Google Images, you may add the word “drawing” to the search terms.
4. Use big letters in a classic character style (Arial or Times New Roman).
5. Prepare a way to smoothly pass through visuals. For example, have a space where you place the passed flashcards on your teacher table. Make sure your passing control works well on your computer.
6. Use body language or the real object (called “realia”) to enact key words.
7. Teach body language to check for understanding. E.g. thumbs-up, thumbs-down.
8. Have a list of key-words with visuals (e.g. potty vocab) for students to point at when they don’t speak any English.
9. Keep posters at a classroom at minimum. Keep only those that you will use on a daily basis.
10. Provide a structured set of rules to let bilingual students use assistive technology through their smart phones.

DON’T

1. Don’t speak too many words as you’re pointing at the visual.
2. Don’t self-translate as you point at the visual. Self-translating often just reveals insecurity in the cross-language communication process.
3. Don’t use pastels or light colors on your visuals since this reduces visibility.
4. Don’t use fancy or complex backgrounds since this is distracting.
5. Don’t use complex photos.
6. Don’t use especial styled characters that may look fancy, but may make reading difficult for early readers.
7. If using visuals for early readers, avoid text as much as possible.
8. Don’t hold your visual with your hands if the visual is complex. You may get nervous you’ll shake off the visual.
9. Don’t overcrowd your classroom with too many posters. They’re too distracting for bilinguals and students with attention issues.

Onomatopoeia

We have talked about visuals, but there are sounds of language that make a good job at working as visuals. Onomatopoeia may do something similar to visuals whenever you don’t have the marker to make the drawing, and may be fun for young children to watch the teacher engage in producing silly sounds. The power of onomatopoeia is immense.

What’s onomatopoeia? When you mock the sound of something. It is quite common to use onomatopoeia for animal sounds. In English, however, animal sounds may different from Spanish. Notice the following chart: It’s not that you must learn all ways animals speak in different languages, it’s you should teach animal sounds as the first time the children know about it. For students just arrived from a different country, the way this sounds in English may be a new learning, and that’s how you should treat it in the classroom.

My daughter’s first days in daycare

My daughter is bilingual. When she went to daycare the first time, she didn’t speak any English. The way she communicated in the classroom was by pointing at objects. The teacher said: “Do you want milk or water?” by pointing at the jar of milk on one hand, and pointing at the glass of water on the other. Then she pointed at the milk. She became so accustomed to pointing that later on she thought it was fun to just point at things while being silent, but she was able to say the words. Yet the pointing played an important role at having the kid communicate.

You can make this more explicit by using posters with visuals to help students communicate. For example, you can have a poster with emotions where students can point at when they need to tell you how they feel. You can have a poster with school supplies so students can request some object they want to use. You can have a poster with places at the school such as: bathroom, library, principal’s office, cafeteria… The student can use that to ask you to go to the bathroom, or you can use them to point at them when instructing the kids to go to another place.

You can also ask them to draw on things they want to express, or even respond to certain questions in the social studies by using visuals such as drawings or realia. You can ask them to draw a comic on the Civil War instead of writing an account on that.

Bibliography

This bibliography guide is a work in progress. Feel free to email me at adiazcoll@gmail.com if you find any reference that requires citation.

Allen, Kate, & Marquez, A. (2011). Teaching vocabulary with visual aids. Journal of Kao Ying Industrial & Commercial Vocational High School, 1(9), 1-5.

Dolati, R. (2011). Harnessing the use of visual learning aids in the English language classroom. Arab World English Journal, 2(1), 3-17.

Macwan, H. J. (2015). Using visual aids as authentic material in ESL classrooms. Research Journal of English language and literature (RJELAL), 3(1), 91-96.

Mathew, N.G., &Alidmat, A.O.H. (2013). A study on the usefulness of audio-visual aids in EFL classroom: Implications for effective instruction. International Journal of Higher Education, 2(2), 86-91. doi:10.5430/ijhe.v2n2p86

Pouwels, J. B. (1992). The effectiveness of vocabulary visual aids for auditory and visual foreign language students. Foreign Language Annals, 25(5), 391-401.

Samway, K. D., Pease-Alvarez, L., & Alvarez, L. (2020). Supporting newcomer students: Advocacy and instruction for language learners. Norton/Tesol Press.

Yunus, M. M., Salehi, H., & John, S. A. (2013). Using visual aids as a motivational tool in enhancing students’ interest in reading literary text. Recent Advances in Educational Technologies, 114-17

“How to Support ELLs in Every Aspect of Your Classroom.” In MarcoLearning. https://marcolearning.com/how-to-support-ells-in-every-aspect-of-your-classroom/