MODULE TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES

CHAPTER 5: TEACHING OF VIEWING IN ELEMENTRAY GRADES

Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:
a.) define the meaning and use viewing in everyday life;
b.) identify parts of viewing frameworks;
c.) design activities in teaching viewing in elementary grades;

WHAT IS VIEWING?

Kieran Donaghy is a freelance writer,

international conference speaker and trainer. He has
held teaching, teacher training and academic
management posts in the UK, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
He is the author of several books for students and
teachers of English as a foreign language. His
website Film English has won a British Council ELTons
Award for Innovation in Teacher Resources, the most
prestigious European media in education prize, the
MEDEA Award, and an English-Speaking Union Award. Kieran is the founder and
organiser of the only conference exclusively on the use of images in language teaching,
The Image Conference. In addition, Kieran is the co-founder of the Visual Arts Circle, a
professional community of practice for language education professionals interested in
the use of the visual arts in language teaching. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society
of Arts. You can find out more about Kieran and his work at his author
website: http://kierandonaghy.com/.

In the Canadian Common Curriculum Framework, viewing is defined as follows:

‘An active process of attending and comprehending visual media, such as television,
advertising images, films, diagrams, symbols, photographs, videos, drama, drawings,
sculpture and paintings.’ So ‘viewing’ is about ‘reading’ – analyzing, evaluating and
appreciating – visual texts. Viewing is an active rather than a passive process.

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WHY IS VIEWING IMPORTANT?

We are language teachers, so it’s obvious we should focus on the written and
spoken word in our classes. So why should images or multimodal texts that uses
images, matter at all to language teachers? Many teachers argue that language and
text-based approaches should take priority and that the image just distracts from the
word. However, as the majority of texts our students are accessing outside the
classroom are visual texts and multimodal texts which use images, surely we should
give our students opportunities to ‘read’ – analyze and evaluate – these types of texts in
the classroom. Furthermore, the majority of these multimodal texts – YouTube videos,
infographics, websites, blogs, social media sites – are a combination of print text and
image, where the image, far from distracting from the text, actually enhances it.

Therefore, viewing is important because as students are dealing with mainly multimodal
texts they need to understand them and to become more effective, active and critical
viewers to be able to participate fully in society. Viewing helps students develop the
knowledge and skills to analyse and evaluate visual texts and multimodal texts that use
visuals. Viewing also helps students acquire information and appreciate ideas and
experiences visually communicated by others.

WHAT DO ACTIVE VIEWERS DO?

According to the Canadian Common Curriculum Framework, active and effective

viewers would ask themselves a series of questions such as:

- What is the text representing?

- How is the text constructed?
- What assumptions, interests, beliefs, biases and values are portrayed by the
text?
- What is the purpose of the text?
- To whom is the text directed? Who does the text exclude?
- What is my reaction to the text? What causes this reaction?
- What personal connections and associations can I make with this text?

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It’s important that students are aware that understanding the viewing process is as
important as understanding the listening and reading process. Students should
understand that effective, active viewers engage in the following procedure:

1. Pre-viewing –students prepare to view by activating their schema (the prior

knowledge they bring to the study of a topic or theme), anticipating a message,
predicting, speculating, asking questions, and setting a purpose for viewing.

2. During viewing –students view the visual text to understand the message by
seeking and checking understanding, by making connections, making and confirming
predictions and inferences, interpreting and summarizing, pausing and reviewing, and
analyzing and evaluating. Students should monitor their understanding by connecting to
their schema, questioning and reflecting.

3. After viewing /responding –students should be given opportunities to respond

personally, critically and creatively to visual texts. Students respond by reflecting,
analysing, evaluating and creating.

VIEWING FRAMEWORKS

We’re now going to explore three frameworks which have been developed by
prestigious institutions to help students become better viewers. These models, which
have been tried and tested with thousands of students at schools and universities
around the world with great success help to systematize viewing effectively into the
language classroom.

Film and video: The 3Cs and 3Ss

This framework was developed by Into Film and is used widely in schools in the UK.
The 3Cs (Color, Camera, Character) and the 3Ss (Story, Setting, Sound) framework
can be used to help students discuss and analyze all the elements of a film text.

Story, Setting, Sound, Color, Character and Camera are simple headings with
discussion questions teachers can use as an easy way for exploring any film. Here are
some of the discussion questions:

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Color

- What colors do you see?

- What do the colors make you feel?
- Why do you think certain colors are used?
- What mood do you think the colors create?

Camera

- What shots have been used? Can you name them?

- Through whose eyes do we see the story?
- When do we see different characters’ point of view?
- When does the camera move and when does it stay still?

Character

- What do the main characters look like?

- How do they speak and what do they say?
- How do they behave?
- Which character interests you the most? Why?

Story

- What happens in the beginning, middle and at the end of the story?
- What are the most important things (events) that happen in the story?
- How do we know where the story takes place?
- How long does the story take place in ‘real’ time?

Setting

- Where does the action take place?

- When and how does the setting change?
- How could you tell where the story was taking place?
- How could you tell when the story was taking place?

Sound

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- How many different sounds do you hear? What are they?

- How does the music make you feel?
- Are there any moments of silence?
- Can you hear any sound effects?

The simplicity of the 3Cs and 3Ss framework makes it easy to remember and use.

Paintings and photographs: See, Think, Wonder

The See, Think, Wonder routine is one of the Visible Thinking Routines developed by
researcher-educators for Project Zero at Harvard University. This routine helps students
make careful observations and develop their own ideas and interpretations based on
what they see when viewing a painting or photograph by asking these three questions.

- What do you see?

- What do you think about what you see?
- What does it make you wonder?

By separating the two questions – ‘What do you see?’ and ‘What do you think about
what you see?’ – the routine helps students distinguish between observations and
interpretations. By encouraging students to wonder and ask questions, the routine
stimulates students’ curiosity and helps students reach for new connections.

This routine is designed to be easy to remember, practical and invite a broad range of
thinking moves.

The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)

The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) approach was co-developed by Abigail Housen
and Philip Yenawine 30 years ago. It finds meaning in imagery and develops visual
literacy skills through learning in the arts, fostering thinking and communication skills
through listening carefully and expressing oneself. The approach works in the following
way:

- Students silently examine carefully selected art images

- The teacher asks these three open-ended questions

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- What’s going on in this picture?

- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can we find?

STUDENTS THEN …

- Look carefully at the image

- Talk about what they observe
- Back up their ideas with evidence
- Listen and consider the views of others
- Discuss many possible interpretations
- Construct meaning together

THE TEACHER …

- Listens carefully to each comment

- Paraphrases student responses demonstrating language use
- Points to features described in the artwork throughout the discussion
- Facilitates student discussions
- Encourages scaffolding of observations and interpretations
- Validates individual views
- Links related ideas and points of agreement/disagreement
- Reinforces a range of ideas

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For more knowledge about Teaching of Viewing please check the link provided:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfDWHBnTsAk
www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/03_ThinkingRoutines/03a_ThinkingRoutines.ht
ml

Effective Strategies

There are many effective strategies for teaching students how to view media.
Regardless of which one you choose, be sure to walk students through the process
step-by-step, at least the first few times. Students may not see media as anything more
than entertainment. It is your role to teach them how to view media so that it can be
used as educational tool.

Guided viewing is when the teacher provides students with an idea of what to look for
while viewing media. There are lots of possibilities for application! One example is

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providing study guide questions. For example, while watching a film, the educator
provides students with a series of questions to answer while viewing. Two helpful hints
are to 1) put questions in chronological order, and 2) space out questions so that
students have enough time to answer each before the next one (one question per 3-5
minutes of film depending on the students' ability level). Another example of guided
viewing is providing a graphic organizer. If you want students to understand a particular
topic, theme or idea, then this is an effective choice. Your graphic organizer can be as
simple or as complex as you choose. For example, if you want students to view a series
of websites and find examples of prejudice in history, you can create an organizer with
places for one example per website.

A writing reflection activity requires students to take their own notes while viewing so
that they can complete a task afterwards. Depending on the students' ability level, you
can recommend the types of notes they should be taking. For example, you can advise
students to jot down examples of a certain theme, or you can tell students what the
writing reflection topic will be ahead of time so that they can take relevant notes. For
more advanced students, you can just advise them to take notes as they watch; this
puts the onus and responsibility on them to pay attention, and to take notes on the most
relevant details. The writing reflection itself can range from summarizing main ideas, to
drawing personal connections to the media. The choice is up to the educator.

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For more knowledge about Teaching of Viewing please check the link provided:
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-six-language-arts-definitions-skills.html
https://www.slideshare.net/josephestroga/viewing-skill

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