Seeing what they mean - helping L2 readers to visualise

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Seeing what they mean: helping l2 readers to visualise
DIEGO DOS SANTOS ROCHA
introduction
 Mismatch between what learners are asked to do in published textbooks and the reality of language use;
 Mismatch between pedagogic procedures of current textbooks and the process of learning a second language;
 The strategy of visualisation has been neglected by both general EFL coursebooks and by EFL reading skills books.
Do l1 readers typically use visual imaging?
 Words that have come into our heads from reading or listening commonly leave us with pictures, sounds and feelings in our minds;
 Descriptive texts and narrative texts tend to produce imagery during reading;
 Not all visualisers use visual imagery with the same vividness, frequency and effect.
POEMA TIRADO DE UMA NOTÍCIA DE JORNAL
MANUEL BANDEIRA
João Gostoso era carregador de feira livre e morava 
[no morro da Babilônia num barracão sem número
Uma noite ele chegou no bar Vinte de Novembro
Bebeu
Cantou
Dançou
Depois se atirou na lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas e morreu 
 [afogado.
 Visualisers vary in the way they respond to different texts in different circumstances, as motivation, topic familiarity and familiarity with the language of the text;
 Another important factor is the perceived relevance of visualisation as a strategy for reading a particular text at a particular time.
	FOR L1 READERS, VISUAL IMAGING CAN HELP:
	During and after reading;
	To remember - people with high imagery ability are able to remember texts easier than people with low ability;
	To achieve interaction between old and new information;
	Fleshing out the text;
	To achieve tolerance of ambiguity;
	To create images endowed with a descriptive power;
	Visual imaging is functionally significant in L1 reading and there is a strong possibility that it could play a beneficial role in L2 reading too.
Do l2 readers visualise?
 Many authors don’t make any reference at all to visualisation as a reading strategy;
 Students claim to get pictures from words in her own native language, but not in a foreign language which they speak very effectively.
	MAIN READING STRATEGIES REPORTED BY STUDENTS
	Looking up difficult words
	Trying to translate the poem
	Reading the poem over and over again
	Trying to memorise the poem
	‘Giving up’
 L2 students did not typically use visual imaging when reading;
 Two independent memory codes are involved in word processing: imagery codes and verbal codes;
What are the characteristics of l2 visualisation?
 It seems that L2 learners do not typically visualise when reading in the L2. Those who do so tend to achieve greater comprehension and recall than those who do not;
 When L2 readers do visualise, they are less likely to make default inferences than L1 readers are.
THE APPLICANT, BY SYLVIA PLATH
First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Stitches to show something's missing? 
No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand
To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start
But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.
It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.
 The L2 readers who are content to leave many gaps in their mental images of what a text represents seem to be those who achieve the least understanding of the text;
 Prototypical or stereotypical images suggested by key words;
Can l2 readers be helped to visualize more often and more effectively?
 Primarily bottom-up strategies which focus on the low-level decoding of words;
 This insistence on understanding every word leaves little processing capacity for such high-level skills;
 Helping learners to visualise resulted in increased visual imaging, greater interest and involvement in reading activities and improved reading ability.
Visualisation instruction
 The author of the article presents some important characteristics, arising from his own experience with the preparation of material, which should be highlighted in the construction of teaching materials in order to develop the visualization strategy.
Visualisation activities
 Drawing;
 Connection activities;
 Illustrations; 
Miming
Conclusion
 If learners do not see pictures in their minds of the texts they are reading, then they will have great difficulty in achieving global understanding and their experience of the texts will be fragmentary and shallow. Not only will they not enjoy reading, but they will not transfer reading skills which they have already developed in their L1 and their encounter with the language of the texts is unlikely to be deep and meaningful enough to facilitate language acquisition;
 It is possible and desirable for materials to be developed which can help L2 learners to use visual imaging to increase their understanding of the texts they are reading, to deepen their engagement with the texts, to improve their comprehension and retention skills and to facilitate language acquisition.
references
BANDEIRA, Manuel. Estrela da vida inteira: poesias reunidas. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1980.
FRANCO, Claudio Franco; TAVARES, Kátia. Way to go!. 2. ed. São Paulo: Ática, 2016.
PLATH, Sylvia. Ariel: edição restaurada e bilíngue, com os manuscritos originais. Tradução de Rodrigo Garcia Lopes e Maria Cristina Lenz de Macedo. 2. ed. Campinas: Verus, 2010.
TOMLINSON, Brian. Seeing what they mean: helping L2 readers to visualise. In: TOMLINSON, Brian. Materials development in language teaching. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2011.
Imagens: Google Imagens, 2021.