DOI: 10.5176/2251-1814_EeL12.19
Authors: Glichelle Pereyra, Karen Hoshino
Abstract: Drawing activities can help language students of all levels increase their motivation. McConnell (1993) and Paquette et. al. (2007) advocate the use of the Talking Drawings Strategy (TDS), whereby students create mental images based on classroom content and then translate these images into drawings. This strategy allows teachers to determine students’ knowledge before and after instruction, as well as nurturing their interest in visually constructing meaning.
We adapted the Talking Drawings Strategy to several classes of low-level Japanese EFL students with varying degrees of motivation, and found that these first-year undergraduate students participated actively when there was a visual aspect to learning. We propose that this pedagogical strategy is particularly meaningful among Japanese students due to the pictographic qualities of the written language and the rich tradition of elaborate art-based storytelling.
Keywords: motivation; visual learning; classroom strategy; art; EFL
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