Today people live in a visually intensive society and a world of spectacular and exciting images. They are bombarded with an orderly and continuously stream of visual stimulation from all manner of media every day. They see mediated images more often than they read words. We live in a digital age awash in images and texts that combine words and images (Gee, 2007)."Something is happening, we are becoming a visually mediated society. For many, understanding of the world is being accomplished not through words, but by reading images"(Martin, 1994). Visual communication is everywhere today, from electronic media like webpages and television screens to environmental contexts such as road signs and retail displays and the role of mass media such
…show more content…
In the visual and verbal dyad, one is not higher than the other, in fact, they complement each other. Textbooks are among a wide range of tools called language teaching/learning materials which are important resources for teachers in assisting students to learn every subject including English and according to Tomlinson (2001,p.66) teaching materials are defined as "anything which can be used to facilitate the learning of a language. Among those materials, the images are of high importance and they make us receive much knowledge in a short time, but, we should be able to read them properly and correctly and everyone should have a 'visual literacy' to read them because different issues such as culture, religion, beliefs, customs, habits, life styles, ideologies, identities, food, and so on are depicted in them. …show more content…
In this regard, Fang (1996) lists six roles that pictures play in story books. Pictures may serve to help (a) establish the setting, (b) define/develop the characters, (c) extend/develop the plot, (d) provide a different viewpoint, (e) contribute to the text's coherence, and (f) reinforce the text. Fang goes on to list several benefits that pictures provide, including such things as motivating the readers, promoting creativity, serving as mental scaffolds, fostering aesthetic appreciation, and promoting children's language and literacy. As an addendum to pictures-in-text commandments, Levin and Mayer (1993) proposed seven "C" principles for explaining the "whys" of pictures facilitation. In particular, they suggest that pictures improve students' learning from text because they make the text more concentrated (focused, with respect to directing a reader's attention), compact/concise ("a picture is worth a thousand words"), concrete (the representation function), coherent (the organization function), comprehensive (the interpretation function),
In the visual and verbal dyad, one is not higher than the other, in fact, they complement each other. Textbooks are among a wide range of tools called language teaching/learning materials which are important resources for teachers in assisting students to learn every subject including English and according to Tomlinson (2001,p.66) teaching materials are defined as "anything which can be used to facilitate the learning of a language. Among those materials, the images are of high importance and they make us receive much knowledge in a short time, but, we should be able to read them properly and correctly and everyone should have a 'visual literacy' to read them because different issues such as culture, religion, beliefs, customs, habits, life styles, ideologies, identities, food, and so on are depicted in them. …show more content…
In this regard, Fang (1996) lists six roles that pictures play in story books. Pictures may serve to help (a) establish the setting, (b) define/develop the characters, (c) extend/develop the plot, (d) provide a different viewpoint, (e) contribute to the text's coherence, and (f) reinforce the text. Fang goes on to list several benefits that pictures provide, including such things as motivating the readers, promoting creativity, serving as mental scaffolds, fostering aesthetic appreciation, and promoting children's language and literacy. As an addendum to pictures-in-text commandments, Levin and Mayer (1993) proposed seven "C" principles for explaining the "whys" of pictures facilitation. In particular, they suggest that pictures improve students' learning from text because they make the text more concentrated (focused, with respect to directing a reader's attention), compact/concise ("a picture is worth a thousand words"), concrete (the representation function), coherent (the organization function), comprehensive (the interpretation function),