Visual Language: Reflection Jounal

Visual Language: Reflection Jounal

Introduction

Young children starting school have been brought up in an environment where visual language plays an important part in their lives. Parents know very well that children of four years old, and younger, can read the McDonalds big "M" logo and can interpret what the sweet displays at supermarket checkouts are advertising.

It is the visual impact of what children first read and write that is important to them rather than any specific meaning or message. Young students' skills at interpreting visual language play an important part in their learning about their world in general. English and language programmes in school need to build on their prior experiences and learning in order to develop their visual language skills.

Discussion

Visual language plays an important part in our youngest students' entry into the world of print. In junior classrooms, especially, a visually stimulating environment is important in encouraging children to explore and understand language. Junior classrooms are exciting places, even for adults, with colourful displays of shared language work, picture books, poetry charts, students' work, alphabet charts, and bilingual signs.

Many media and techniques are used to communicate ideas visually:

collages, in which diverse materials are assembled to give depth and texture to a picture;

models, which are made from materials like clay to give a three-dimensional effect, adding the visual aspects of light and shade;

mobiles, which are suspended from the ceiling and move with the slightest air motion, creating further visual impact.

Older students' classrooms can be arranged to emulate this stimulating visual environment and reflect the importance of integrating the three strands of language in everyday school experience. Students often feel more comfortable, confident, and competent than their teachers with visual language. Such technologies as television, video, advertising, interactive computer games, CD-ROMS, and the Internet are often commonplace and very important in their lives outside the classroom. This out-of-school experience is a valuable resource for the school classroom visual language programme.

How Do We Communicate by Using Visual Language?

Whether we listen and speak, read and write, or view and present, we participate in a very similar communication process. When we receive communication, we (the audience) receive (medium) something (meaning or message) for reasons (purpose) by some means (mode of transmission, or form). When we communicate, we (the originator) convey (medium) something (meaning or message) for someone (audience) for our reasons (purpose) by some means (mode of transmission, or form).

A Framework

When we "close read" or view any visual language text, we consider the purpose, the audience, and the topic similarly to the way we do this when we read written text or listen to oral text. During guided, shared, and independent reading of visual language, it is useful to ask the following questions:

What is the visual text about?

What sort of visual language is it? This question clarifies genres and forms and the "rules" that govern them.

How do we know what this visual language means? This question investigates the codes and conventions that are constantly developing and that help make ...