MOBILITY 2. Aspects of Teaching English. Brighton, the UK. Laura Borràs. Day 7

Learner Generated Visuals

Why use images? By providing ‘a window back into our world’ (McCloud 2009), images aid comprehension on another, almost metaphorical, level.

Visualisation

·  leads to ‘unique cognitive and affective consequences that heighten the reader’s experience’

·      helps to achieve involvement, comprehension, achievement and recall

·   is one one of the most effective means of achieving understanding, interpretation, representation, retention, recall

·   facilitates positive engagement with the text… increasing ability to comprehend and retain

The unfocused and creative element of representing something graphically – ‘diffuse thinking’ as opposed to focused thinking (Girling 2015) allows the brain time to relax, during which we’re still thinking, but without the pressure or stress of it feeling like work.  ‘Ceasing to focus on a project gives [the] brain unconscious permission to get to work’ (Burkeman 2015).