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The study of visual language, which draws on semiotics, provides an understanding of the ways in which visual and verbal elements are combined to produce particular meanings and effects. It involves the interpretation of dramatic conventions, signs, symbols and symbolic elements of visual language.
English in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 39
Underlying the study of visual language is the study of semiotics. The glossary of English in the New Zealand Curriculum defines semiotics as:
The study of signs and symbols and their use in human communication, referring not only to language, but also to cultural and social elements such as clothing.
In other words, semiotics extends the concept of language to include not only words but many systems of communication. This concept can involve different ways of communicating - sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch - and it can cover all contexts, including clothing, politics, eating, or housing. Semiotics is a vast area of enquiry covering the ways we create and interpret patterns in all aspects of social and cultural behaviour. This is obviously far too big an area to investigate in a curriculum where the "language"to be explored is restricted to the three strands of oral, written, and visual language. The term "semiotics"is introduced here, though, because it is an especially useful concept when looking at visual language.
The basic unit in semiotics is the sign. In English in the New Zealand Curriculum, a sign is defined as:
... any symbol or form that has a conventional meaning within a particular community. "Sign"is a broad term that includes visual symbols, conventional gestures, and other types of non-verbal communication, as well as words. When we recognise a sign - by eye or ear - we recognise both its pattern and its meaning.
The term "sign"was introduced around 1900 by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who is sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics". Using a word as an example of a sign, De Saussure showed that a word had two parts - a concept and a sound image. For instance, in the human mind, the word "tree" is connected to a concept of a tree.
The two must go together: we cannot talk about the concept without the word, and the word without the concept would just be a sound without meaning. De Saussure referred to the concept part of the meaning as the signified and called the sound image part the signifier. The two together make up the sign, and like two sides of a coin, the concept and word cannot be separated. These terms - sign, signified, and signifier - are important in semiotics.
The notion of the sign is particularly useful for visual language. Obvious examples of signs other than words are road signs, signs at airports, or signs on car dashboards. These can all be understood by people who do not share a common language but who do share an agreed understanding of what these visual signs or signifiers mean.
A sign may be a word, like "tree". It can be a gesture, like a nod or a shake of the head or a handshake. It can be a pattern of sound, like booing or cheering. The important thing is that there is an agreed understanding of the meaning of the sign within a certain social group.
Visual signs can have denotations and connotations of meaning in the same ways as words do. See The Grammar Toolbox on pages 40-1. For example, the Air New Zealand koru sign, in combination with the airline's name, makes up the distinctive brand signature used by Air New Zealand. This koru has a definable denotation, signifying a well known airline. But it also has other connotations. It has come to symbolise not only the airline but also the region within which Air New Zealand is based, the Pacific. As used by Air New Zealand as a marketing tool, this koru sign has further connotations of travel, relaxation, discovery, and freedom. In wider terms, Maori view genetic koru designs as symbolising energy. Some iwi also view koru designs as a frond of manaia that refers to the ancestral homeland. It is clear then that the connotations attached to the koru are extensive and profound for many people.
The red logo carrying the words "Coca Cola"may simply denote a beverage, but in its advertising, the lettering style and the related visual images of young people at a sunlit beach provide connotations of youth, freedom, vitality, happiness, and the United States of America. The television advertisement, which adds a lively soundtrack and moving images, not only denotes the product, Coca-Cola, but also extends the positive connotations of energy and pleasure, "signified"by specific "signifiers."
The meanings of signs can vary from culture to culture. Several examples of the significance of different gestures in New Zealand and Samoa are described in the Oral Language section of this book. The meaning of signs can also change over time. Dungarees, denim shirts, and working men’s boots once signalled a working-class labourer, but today these clothes have become trendy and expensive, worn by well-to-do young people.
Summary of Terms
Exploring language content page
Exploring Language is reproduced by permission of the publishers Learning Media Limited on behalf of Ministry of Education, P O Box 3293, Wellington, New Zealand, © Crown, 1996.
Visual genres include pictures, picture books, photographs, book jackets, posters, advertising, newspapers, maps, cartoons, comics, plays, computer games, feature films, and television programmes.
These genres can be grouped into more specific genres. For example, feature films can be westerns, thrillers, comedies, or musicals. A play in which the hero and/or heroine dies at the end is usually called a tragedy, whereas a funny play (or television programme or feature film) that has a happy ending is called a comedy. Tragedies and comedies are different kinds, or genres, within the broader genre of plays, and they can be usefully considered in this more specific way.
Such specific genres or subgenres derive from the purpose or purposes of their makers, who have made choices just as writers or speakers make choices. Genre categorisation is based on the experiences and perceptions of audiences, who in the case of visual language are more likely to be viewers than creators of visual language. In fact, most of us, including our students, are much more likely to be experienced writers and speakers than film or television directors. However, it is important that students have as many opportunities as possible to produce visual language, in the same way that they have opportunities to speak and write. The experience of production will in turn help them to understand and "read" visual language in an informed way.
What is the basis of the experiences and perceptions that influence our categorisation of visual genres?
Different genres are not fixed or discrete categories. Rather, what distinguishes them from each other is the distinctive pattern of what we call conventions.
Conventions can be based on what is presented, drawing on the agreed expectations that have already been established within a certain genre. For example, if you open a kitchen drawer, you expect to find kitchen utensils, not underwear. Breaking the expected conventions creates surprise and humour or shock. Monty Python's The Holy Grail is based on the well known search by King Arthur. If a strange creature were to appear, we would expect a dragon or a knight with the strength of ten men, but not a killer rabbit. The arrival of a vicious rabbit instead breaks the expected conventions of the historical film genre and creates the humour.
Feature films such as westerns, thrillers, or musicals, and tragedies and comedies for stage, television, or film - all have their own conventions. So, too, do television news programmes, documentaries, soap operas, and quiz programmes. And so do cartoons, comics, and weather information in our daily newspapers. Although all the conventions of what is presented in one genre may not be exclusive to that genre, the pattern or combination of conventions is what distinguishes examples of one genre from another.
Other conventions are based on how something is presented. Such conventions influence our expectations, how we interpret what we view and read, and what we and our students in turn recreate and present. For example, in a mime or drama, the performer is able to suggest, and we are able to understand, that he or she has come to a wall or is eating or drinking, even though there is no wall or food, knife and fork, or glass. We know this because of our knowledge and understanding of the conventions of mime, which enable us to read, make, and share meaning. We explore, read, and interpret visual language in terms of our understanding of conventions.
Some Conventions Common to Books, Film, and Television
Conventions of narrative
Many teachers and students view and study the feature film in much the same way as they do a novel because the conventions of narrative in the novel and the feature film are similar. Our youngest students come to school with prior knowledge of many of the conventions of narrative, based on considerable experience of books, film, and television.
Both books (especially novels) and films often have a plot and narrative structure shaped into three main movements, similar to a three-act play. The work typically opens with one or more characters in a situation where an incident incites a conflict. This catalyst then sets off complications, often developing through two or three crises or particularly tense moments. The situation reaches a climax and is then resolved.
However, the structure of narratives in books and feature films differs from that in programmes made for television. Television programmes are scripted, made, and shown in segments, the length of the segments being determined by how frequent and how long the advertising breaks are. Feature films made for continuous screening but shown on television with ad breaks inserted are consequently often interrupted at inappropriate times.
Makers of films or television programmes use in-points and out-points to start and end a sequence or narrative in much the same way as writers do. In-points grab our interest, introduce the situation, reveal character conflict, or start the action. Out-points end a sequence of narrative in such a way that the sequence can either be returned to if it is left unresolved or be concluded. If it is concluded, the narrative can be either resolved or left open.
Subplot
As in written narrative, a subplot is common in feature films and television. A secondary story, connected to the main narrative in some way, keeps viewers interested and may reinforce or provide contrast to important ideas in the main story.
Journeys
Many films, such as Watership Down, Once Were Warriors, and An Angel at My Table, are journeys of experience for both their characters and their viewing audiences. So, too, are television programmes like The Simpsons or Friends. As in fiction, the structure of a film narrative can be based on a physical as well as a mental and emotional journey: one well known example is Apocalypse Now, which is closely related to Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Symbols and motifs
Narratives can be unified by symbols. Visual symbols, such as bright sunny weather, might suggest happiness, enjoyment, and hope. Narratives can also be unified by the repetition of symbols, called motifs, as in the sea, rain, mud, bush, and trees in The Piano: motifs that reinforce the sense of isolation and entrapment. The same film has several other recurring symbols or motifs: the fingers and hands and, of course, the piano itself. Sound can also unify narrative, providing recurring motifs. The regular, rhythmic, and sinister musical beat in Jaws, signalling that another crisis or attack is imminent, is a good example. Comedy often has a motif of a particular recurring character or action, such as the mice who appear in the corner of the screen singing to introduce each new adventure in Babe.
Themes
The structured narratives of feature films and television programmes have central ideas or themes. Our interpretation of the theme is related to the expectations we have, which in turn revolve around the external and internal conflicts of the characters.
Forms
The form is the essential structure of the visual language text, including its organisation, style, and sequence. A picture book might be in the form of a series of collages. A film might be structured in flashback or contrasting sequences from plot and subplot.
Settings
The setting, including the period in which the action takes place, is important, too. For example, in science fiction, the setting is usually in the future. Other science fiction conventions might include some scientific development or phenomenon that is central to the narrative; there may be extraterrestrial beings, and the world of good characters may be under threat from evil "baddies" trying to gain power. Again, the conflict may be between the good and evil uses of a discovery or a new world. The expectation, or convention, is that at the climax, usually against the odds, the "goodies" win.
The settings of The Piano in the past and Once Were Warriors in the present are significant in the comments they make about the societies they are set in. Sometimes, however, a production will be located in a period or setting different from its original script - Hamlet probably holds the record for different settings. The setting for a particular film will have been chosen to relate the emphasis of the script to the audience, breaking conventions and their usual expectations or demonstrating the timelessness of a theme.
Rites of passage
The conventions of feature films that deal with rites of passage typically include unsympathetic adults who don't understand or sympathetic adults who do but find themselves in conflict with other adults who don't. The teenagers usually rebel, but in the end, they either conform or find some way of accommodating themselves. This is often as a result of some change by some of the initially unsympathetic adults or authorities as well as of the increased understanding the teenagers may have gained.
Codes
When we are about to read a book or to view a film or a television programme in any particular genre, we have expectations about what it will contain. In a Western, we expect a gun-slinging hero in the American West, probably in a saloon with a barmaid somewhere and a duel at high noon. In a thriller, we expect a female victim, a male killer or would-be killer, and a male rescuer. But such conventions may also be very effectively broken.
The common characteristics or conventions of any genre, including film, are sometimes called codes. These can include structural codes, which are such features as particular kinds of plot, character, or setting. Stylistic codes include such features as particular lighting, shooting style, or music.
For example, take the romance genre. Structurally, it commonly includes two people who fall in and out of love two or three times during the course of the film. Their difficulties often seem huge, though sometimes simple misunderstandings are the cause. Against seemingly insurmountable odds, they are nevertheless usually completely in love at the end. Stylistically, this genre includes low lighting, soft focus, sometimes beautiful settings, and music that might at times be raunchy and at times soft and romantic.
The different genres, or patterns of various conventions and codes, influence our expectations and help us to read closely and to make and present meanings.
Exploring Language content page
Young children starting school have been brought up in an environment where visual language plays an important part in their lives. Parents know very well that children of four years old, and younger, can read the McDonalds big "M" logo and can interpret what the sweet displays at supermarket checkouts are advertising.
It is the visual impact of what children first read and write that is important to them rather than any specific meaning or message. Young students' skills at interpreting visual language play an important part in their learning about their world in general. English and language programmes in school need to build on their prior experiences and learning in order to develop their visual language skills.
Visual language plays an important part in our youngest students' entry into the world of print. In junior classrooms, especially, a visually stimulating environment is important in encouraging children to explore and understand language. Junior classrooms are exciting places, even for adults, with colourful displays of shared language work, picture books, poetry charts, students' work, alphabet charts, and bilingual signs.
Many media and techniques are used to communicate ideas visually:
Older students' classrooms can be arranged to emulate this stimulating visual environment and reflect the importance of integrating the three strands of language in everyday school experience. Students often feel more comfortable, confident, and competent than their teachers with visual language. Such technologies as television, video, advertising, interactive computer games, CD-ROMS, and the Internet are often commonplace and very important in their lives outside the classroom. This out-of-school experience is a valuable resource for the school classroom visual language programme.
How Do We Communicate by Using Visual Language?
Whether we listen and speak, read and write, or view and present, we participate in a very similar communication process.
When we receive communication, we (the audience) receive (medium) something (meaning or message) for reasons (purpose) by some means (mode of transmission, or form).
When we communicate, we (the originator) convey (medium) something (meaning or message) for someone (audience) for our reasons (purpose) by some means (mode of transmission, or form).
A Framework
When we "close read" or view any visual language text, we consider the purpose, the audience, and the topic similarly to the way we do this when we read written text or listen to oral text. During guided, shared, and independent reading of visual language, it is useful to ask the following questions:
What is the visual text about?
Is this visual language meant to represent reality? This question refers to how "true" a text is and how we know. We sometimes refer to this aspect as representation.
Who is the visual language for? This question refers to who receives the text (the audience), how it is transmitted to them, and what they may make of it.
It is also helpful to ask: how might the knowledge and understanding reflected in the answers to these questions be useful when I present my own visual text?
Some of these questions derive from a framework developed by the British Film Institute and adopted and adapted in several countries around the world. Their questions are blended here with questions similar to those that students and teachers might ask of any writing, including students' writing, and to those that listeners can usefully ask about any oral text.
Students can use such a framework from early years of school and readily answer many of the questions when viewing or close reading visual language. The question framework also reflects the choices and decisions that any originators of visual language, including students, make when they present visual texts. Purpose, intended audience, and topic influence the choice of genre: visual language, like written and oral language, has its own genres, distinctive features, codes, and conventions. These, in turn, contribute to the effects and meaning communicated to viewers.
These questions can be tested by applying them to two contrasting illustrations from Going to the Beach by Margaret Mahy and illustrated by Dick Frizzell.
Most of the questions from the suggested framework can be asked and answered for these two contrasting illustrations. However, answering those questions also involves asking and answering questions specific to the two illustrations, such as:
What is the main focus of attention of each illustration? How do we know?
In the first picture, how well and how fast is the car travelling? How do we know? What visual and verbal features give us clues?
In the second picture, how well and how fast is the car travelling? How do we know? What visual and verbal features give us clues? In what ways is this picture different from the first one?
Exploring Visual Language in Developing Technologies
Written language was the only strand of language able to be recorded, read and reread, stored, and studied, through printed text and pictures, until the relatively recent development of the still camera, movie camera, tape recorder, video recorder, and computer. These technologies enable us to record, store, revisit, and study both visual and oral language.
A video recorder and a television set, a video camera, and a computer are very useful for the teaching and learning of visual language.
Technology now enables us to record and play back at varying speeds and to freeze visual language so that students can identify, describe, discuss, analyse, and evaluate the language features used in a very short section of what they view. Thus they gain experience in interpreting visual language through close reading.
Computers and applications software programmes enable users to carry out different communication tasks that require, for example, a database, a spreadsheet, a wordprocessor, a simulation, or a drawing and to explore many of the conventions of print described in this book.
Computer programmes provide a range of graphics, including line graphics, animated graphics, and 3D graphics, as well as the variety of interactive computer and video games that many students know. Games can assist students to explore visual language by using such technologies to view, interact with, and present ideas. Students can describe the games' narratives, including their own interactions, change their narratives, describe their visual features, and create their own games.
Experiences in exploring visual language can contribute to meeting objectives at several levels in Technology in the New Zealand Curriculum.
Computers also provide access to e-mail: local, regional, national, and international communication via the Internet and the World Wide Web. These are valuable resources for exploring oral, written, and visual language.
Exploring the language of the Internet reveals that Internet users in conversation with each other have developed their own conventions. They refer to "speaking" on the Internet rather than "writing". The conventions of grammar, punctuation, and spelling applied to other forms of written language are usually not observed because of the speed and immediately interactive nature of what some have called "e-discourse". This tendency not to extend the usual courtesies of written conventions to the Internet conversationalist has created difficulties for some users. They may need to be reminded of the importance of appropriateness to the purpose and audience, in, for instance, Internet conversations between a student and tutor, where the written conventions are likely to be used.
Internet users have developed another dimension of oral language to make up for the lack of visual contact when "speaking" to each other. They use text as visual language. A joke might be followed by Chuckle Chuckle! They use the upper case when SHOUTING. They use about 50-60 symbols that need to be read sideways and communicate all sorts of facial expressions and gestures, for example, :) or :( .
CD-ROM not only provides interactive opportunities for computer users but also extends to multimedia viewing, presenting, and interaction through its ability to integrate moving images with sound and with computer text and graphics.
Developments in audiographics and multimedia digital technologies are rapid and continuing. Knowledge, understanding, and use of the terminology accompanying such developments are essential to help students explore all aspects of language. Technological language is in itself a fascinating topic suitable for a special language study, and surfing the information super-highway and entering cyberspace can be a good means of exploring language.
However, there are many ways in which technology can be used to explore not only visual but also oral and written language without expensive high-tech equipment. The office fax machine, for example, can provide excellent opportunities for young students to explore and learn about the conventions of different written genres quickly and interactively.
"English and Technology" (number five in the 1995 eTV series Getting the Message) shows teachers and students using technology in the English programme, including exploring language.
The Viewing and Presenting strands in English in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 40, refer to "reading visual and dramatic texts, including static and moving images" and "using static and moving images". Static images are literally visual images that do not move. They include greeting cards, posters, slides, photographs, paintings, compact disc covers, comics, cartoons, charts, collages, models, dioramas, newspapers, and print advertisements. Static images also include tableaux or silently sculptured images in drama, where students may create an image, as if in a freeze-frame, of arms, heads, legs, and trunks.
Many of these static images communicate by combining visual elements with words. Although this interrelationship is very important, we can separate out the non-verbal features of static images and explore the language and meaning of all the visual as well as the verbal elements present in many different forms of communication.
Visual Language in English in the New Zealand Curriculum includes the splendid resource of drama. The functions of Viewing and Presenting include drama explicitly, and the process of Exploring Language includes drama by implication. Drama, including stage production and performance, is also a distinctive part of the Arts learning area in The New Zealand Curriculum Framework.
The viewing strand of the English curriculum refers to "reading visual and dramatic texts". Dramatic texts are defined not only as plays or written scripts but also as dramatic pieces of visual communication that constitute coherent, identifiable language events. As such, dramatic texts refer, for example, to oral narratives, mimes, and performing in role.
The presenting strand requires students to use and combine verbal and visual features (which include drama) in increasingly complex ways in order to communicate a range of information, ideas, narratives, and other messages to different audiences and for different purposes. Exploring visual language in relation to these viewing and presenting functions enables students to achieve their communication objectives.
Exploring Language in the English Classroom through Drama
Moving images in drama, film, and television communicate meaning most often by combining speech and, sometimes, written words with visual signs. Although this relationship between verbal and visual language is the basis of the visual strand in the English curriculum, it is useful to separate out and explore non-verbal signs to enable us to consider the role of the purely visual as well as the other elements present in many different forms of communication.
When we speak and listen to each other, we communicate not only by using and interpreting spoken words or sounds but also by such visual signs as gestures - a nod or shake of the head - and by such facial expressions as a smile or a raised eyebrow. We use such physical gestures and facial expressions naturally and intuitively to convey and respond to meaning. Such visual signs or clues can also be consciously and deliberately crafted and used to communicate effectively, with or without spoken or written words, in drama.
Performing in Role
In the English classroom, drama is a very effective teaching and learning methodology. It provides a process that enhances exploring language. Performing in role, or role-play as it is sometimes known, is particularly useful. When performing in role, students (and sometimes the teacher) assume specific roles in order to gain perspectives on those who have those roles, in real life or in the imaginary life of literature, and to understand their actions and motives.
Performing in role can help students to explore different feelings, points of view, courses of action, and decision-making processes. They can also explore language in use as they express understandings of the persona they have adopted. Role-play can help students explore social and personal issues, including gender, culture, and equity, in the process gaining knowledge and understanding of another culture's traditions, oratory, storytelling, movement, song, and dance.
A role can also be taken and explored in fictional ways. Students can adopt characterisations, with appropriate forms of speech and visual conventions for people whose roles are very different from their own, expanding their own repertoire of oral and visual language as they explore those roles. Students presenting and questioning each other in the roles of characters in a book increase not only their insights into the characters themselves but also their understanding and knowledge of language. Mock trials or presentations of ideas for television advertisements need to take into account both verbal and visual features.
Mime is another medium for performing in role without using words and focusing on conveying richness of meaning through visual language alone.
Although the purpose of performing in role is often to increase knowledge of a character, situation, or issue, students’ knowledge of oral, written, and visual language is enhanced in the process.
As role-play is very public compared with most writing, it needs to be managed sensitively, with good preparation and time for reflection and with care taken that students are able to select roles appropriate to them. Performing in role as a classroom activity is designed for language and other exploration, not for psychodrama.
The viewing or close reading of dramatic texts includes exploring and extending students' knowledge and understanding of drama as:
Classroom performance can be in the form of a stage production, but it does not usually lead to a complete or public performance. An integrated teaching and learning approach that develops and shapes towards a stage production provides many opportunities for exploring how verbal and visual language are combined.
What we present, view, and interpret on the stage or screen is the result of combining a number of elements that have been chosen and integrated to convey particular meanings to a specific audience.
Stage drama and drama in the classroom both demand a great deal from students. They need to be alert whenever they are on stage, and they need to convey strong, clear relationships between the characters, who may at all times be in sight of viewers who have different sightlines. Drama is a very powerful medium for exploring language in all its aspects, especially in storytelling and in interpreting character.
Move It - and Don't Forget Your Lines
Movement is fundamental to conveying meaning through drama. Performers must physically express their adopted characters consistently in their facial expressions and in every body movement, from entrance to exit.
Every movement on stage has a motivation and purpose, maintaining the narrative of the play and communicating response, mood, and new information to the audience. The playwright may have indicated the stage directions most important to these movements. Each movement is performed on cue, that is, on the verbal or physical signal for a performer to take some action or for a lighting or sound effect to be carried out. In case a performer forgets a cue or line, a prompter is always appointed to prompt by supplying the missed cue as unobtrusively as possible.
When presenting, inexperienced students may understand their role and relationship to others and be able to deliver their lines quite appropriately, but they may find it more difficult to move in role at the same time - they may well tend to move in the way they usually do. Accordingly, the producer (student or teacher) will assist the student to gain confidence in their characterisation by blocking the movements, arranging and walking through the part with minimal words to help them to interpret and visually communicate meaning.
Delivering the Lines
Audiences make meaning from the way the text is delivered. That delivery can be very challenging and complex. There are many ways of delivering a line and sometimes many different subtleties of meaning in each different delivery. The information in the Oral Language section, particularly that on intonation, is relevant to performing in role and drama.
Drama is rich in subtext, both in the words and their delivery, and in the visual information. Desdemona's dropped handkerchief in Othello contributes a subtext that drives both the subplot and the main plot of the whole play. Performance demands close reading of the script so that the performers are fully aware of the play as a whole and recognise the impact of each element of subtext so that proper weight is given to conveying the meaning. Words such as, "The summer is really over now" might refer not just to weather and seasons but also to the ending of a relationship or of some significant time of happiness. The performer chooses how to move and to deliver the words to communicate their implications.
The Stage
The type of stage and the use made of stage space are important elements of visual language, communicating immediately to the audience an understanding of the conventions that will be used in the performance. A classroom production may be constrained by the physical boundaries of the room, or students may have access to a drama room or theatre stage.
Most school assembly halls have a traditional proscenium stage that may be used for drama. All the audience sit in front of this stage, with distance between them and the performers, often framed by a curtain. The audience is therefore at once partly detached from the action. A thrust stage projects into the auditorium so that the audience can sit on three sides, and this arrangement changes the dynamics of communication. Theatre in the round provides an acting space with the audience on all sides, bringing the audience into the action and often involving them when performers move to and from the acting area.
Open-air staging can make good use of a natural setting outside the classroom, but a defined space marked by such parameters as a bank or backdrop of trees is necessary if the audience is not to lose touch. The performers often need to work hard to ensure that significant but subtle meanings are conveyed.
Performers make their entrances and exits from and to an area to the side of the stage known as the wings.
Suspension of Disbelief
When a traditional proscenium stage is used, the audience observes a convention or custom where performers and audience assume that the audience is watching the play through a "fourth wall". The other three walls of the stage, which define the performance space, may represent a room or similarly specified location. This convention is an example of how stage drama relies on the audience's suspension of disbelief.
We suspend our disbelief at the theatre or in the classroom when we are able to assume that there is a door through which a character enters, or an active light switch by which a character lights the stage, when there is actually neither door nor light switch. We suspend our disbelief when we accept that two or three trees constitute a forest.
The use of time, space, and action; sound and silence; movement and stillness; light and dark are elements of the language of drama. Many conventions associated with these elements we take for granted in mime, performing in role, or drama. A flashback or a flashforward may move the time; a sleeping or helpless character huddled in a corner may define the significant space; and slow motion may recreate a moment of tragedy or crisis.
Suspension of disbelief and its conventions are important in communicating and responding to meaning and are part of the context in which we explore visual language.
Positioning
The traditional proscenium stage has provided a standard terminology for positioning and moving performers within a nine-part grid, each part named by its position in relation to the audience.
Downstage is usually a more dominant position than upstage. The strongest position on the stage is downstage centre.
However, a performer who is downstage centre and therefore nearer the audience is not always more important. The performer at downstage centre may look towards a more distant character, focusing the attention of the audience on the latter and signalling a shift in action. To convince the audience of the realism of the scene, performers may address each other in part profile rather than delivering lines towards the audience.
The positioning of characters is important in communicating relationships: the whispering conspirators in their furtive closeness contrast with open positioning, where performers convey confidence and appear to be of similar importance. The positioning of a number of characters is planned to enable the audience to read and respond to the meanings of their groupings.
An apron, that part of the stage in front of the proscenium arch, provides a space for a performer to communicate closely with the viewers. It was from this position that Shakespeare's actors usually delivered a soliloquy, "thinking aloud" or confiding in the audience. Upstage areas are usually weakened further when furniture is placed on stage, but they can provide vital subtexts when a character enters without other performers appearing to be aware of the newcomer. In this situation, however, the audience is "omniscient" and able to interpret the irony, mystery, or impending crisis from visual elements. Poor use of the upstage area can distract the audience - the term "upstaging" derives from inappropriate stage positioning. The aim of staging is to enable the performers to communicate most effectively with each other and the audience. Rostra, or raised platforms, can give more choices for positioning, providing prominence for performers and for parts of a stage.
Make-up and Costume
Make-up and costume provide important visual clues that enable the audience to interpret the roles of performers from their appearance. Shading and highlighting in make-up can communicate age, health, and wealth; hair can be greyed with talcum powder, or wigs can be used to convey information quickly. Costume can also enhance appearance in role and provide an effective means of communicating the period and setting of the play as well as a character's sense of fashion and social and economic status. We read all these visual clues whenever we view any performance.
However, these elements of visual language, useful though they are, are effective only if they are consistent with the way the student interprets the role. Students in the classroom may not have, or need, access to make-up, wigs, or costumes. Some items, such as scarves, a cloak, or symbolic hats, can help students "feel their way" into a character, but full costume can be distracting for young performers.
Lighting
Lighting is important in a full stage or screen performance and production, focusing the attention of the audience and defining the most important performance space on the stage at each moment. Lighting can indicate the time of day, indicate a fire, or suggest cold and cloudy weather. And lighting can convey different moods, ranging from happiness and joy to depression and sadness, by the use of bright yellow lighting compared with amber or blue lighting.
These visual clues help convey meaning whenever we view a production and performance. However, although lighting can support interpretation, classroom drama or role-play does not require lighting other than that normally and naturally available.
Production Design
Make-up, costume, and lighting are part of the general design of any stage production or film. The term production design refers to the overall design of the set or sets in which the action of a stage play takes place, or where a film is shot in a studio or on location. The set is made up of the furniture, buildings, and scenery on the stage or in the studio where the action is shown as taking place. The term shot on location indicates that a film is shot, and the action is shown as occurring, at an already existing place that is away from the studio.
The properties, commonly referred to as props, are any items or articles used by the performers on the set or location other than costume or scenery. They may include plates, cutlery, glasses, a dagger, a gun, or a walking stick. Props may or may not be used in performing in role or in classroom drama. Where they are chosen, they can be few in number and selected for their symbolic importance, as in the wearing of a crown.
Exploring Language contents page
"Moving images" are literally images that move. The term "moving images" refers to the images that move in drama performance, and on the film, television, and computer screen.
A movie (or motion picture) consists of thousands of frames. When a film runs through a camera, each frame is exposed for a twenty-fourth of a second and records a fractional moment of movement. When the edited and completed film is projected at the same speed, our eyes are unable to distinguish between each frame, and so the individual frames or photographs appear to us as one continuous, uninterrupted movement. The terms "motion picture", "movie", and, to some extent, "moving images" reflect this phenomenon.
The more recent technology used to record and screen video or television is different from film, but many of the terms - such as "frame" as in "freeze-frame"- and production techniques and skills are common to both film and video or television. The language used to describe the processes of making film, video, or television is therefore very similar.
In the same way as we acquire and use spoken and written language without describing its individual parts, so we come to understand the visual language of moving images without being able to describe the particular elements that make a film or television programme and that enable it to communicate meaning. We interpret and make meaning from close-ups, high-angle shots, and fade-outs before learning their names. However, our understanding is enhanced by learning how the language of film and television works, by making our implicit knowledge and understanding explicit, and by acquiring the terminology that enables us to describe, discuss, analyse, and evaluate film or television.
There are a lot of what are sometimes called filmic terms, but they are not all peculiar to film. For example, some of the following terms are specific to film, but others are used elsewhere: narrative, characters, setting, production design, composition, shape, texture, space, depth, make-up, costume, music, sound effects, frame, shot, scene, sequence, movement, lighting, colour, script, animation, editing, and cutting.
When we read film or television closely, we also gain some of the tools that help teachers and students to present ideas and information using moving images in these media.
Presenting material using video, computer graphics, CD-ROM, or any other form of interactive audio/video technology, including digital technology, is an excellent means of exploring visual language. This, in turn, enhances viewing skills and abilities.
Purpose: Exploring Written Language
Strands: Reading and Writing
Levels
Possible Contexts Shared, guided, and independent reading time.
Reading and writing conferences.
Working with focus groups.
Topic tasks and discussions.
All curriculum areas. Shared, guided, and independent reading time.
Group and whole class investigations.
Topic studies.
All curriculum areas.
Within writing programmes. Instructional, guided, and independent reading.
Writing for a range of purposes and in different contexts.
Focused study of genre: how writers adapt to audience and purpose. A language research project, such as:
Suggested Activities Students encounter a wide range of text types as models.
Teacher uses, and encourages students to use, appropriate terminology to describe and discuss written texts. For example, in reading: "I know he is old by the adjective 'craggy'"; in writing: "I like the use of the five adjectival phrases in your report."
Teacher and students explore and compare language features in a wide range of text types. Students encounter different text types in reading and writing and use them as models for their own writing.
Teacher and students log the variety of written language used in a day.
Tasks are designed to give students experience in using a range of text types. For example, in a study of native plants, students:
Students research derivations and changes in selected English words.
Teacher and students:
Teaching English in a way that is responsive to the diversity in our classrooms has the most profound effect on our learners. Strong school–whānau relationships, culturally responsive classrooms, and the deliberate use of effective teaching strategies can help Māori learners succeed as Māori.
Supporting Māori learners with the English curriculum area
“Cultural responsiveness is much more than introducing myths or metaphors into class. It means interacting with their families to truly understand their reality; it means understanding the socio-political history and how it impacts on classroom life; it means challenging personal beliefs and actions; and, it means changing practices to engage all students in their learning and make the classroom a positive learning place for all students.
Culturally competent teachers are able to use the learner’s culture/s as a building block to learn and teach. They understand how to utilise the learner’s culture/s to aid the teaching and learning process, as well as to facilitate relationships and professional growth.”
Bishop et al., 2007, in Tataiako – Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Māori Learners (PDF)
There are a range of resources and readings to help us begin to understand and use appropriate pedagogies that will enhance learning for Māori, and all learners, when engaging with the English Learning area in The New Zealand Curriculum.
Using Storybird to improve literacy skillsSusan Lee, teacher at Te Kura o Kutarere shares how using Storybird, a free digital story writing tool, in her classroom has made a significant impact on the literacy development of her students. She describes how students have become self motivated and proud of their work. Using Storybird has meant reluctant writers are now, "constantly reading their own work and reading other students stories and the writing is just flowing."
Snapshot 1: Ngā hau e whaThis snapshot, from the Senior Secondary English curriculum guide, describes how a school used close reading of Māori and Pasifika poetry to address the diverse needs and interests of its students.
The impact of using Google Apps on literacy learning in the classroomLiz Maclennan from Breens Intermediate shares how she is using Google Apps with her students to raise literacy levels, particularly for Māori and Pasifika students, in her classroom. Through the use of Google docs, Gmail, and blogger students are able to share their work with parents, their teacher, and their peers.Allowing students access to lesson plans enables students to refer back to learning intentions, assessment rubrics, and key ideas whenever they need them. Using Google spreadsheets allows teachers to share and access assessment across their team.
Jane's storyJane's story is a great example of how changing the way your class is run can have a dramatic effect on both the students and the teacher. Jane, a Year 9 English teacher, talks about how she has encouraged her Year 9 class to take ownership of their learning. Through the shared learning relationships students learnt to contribute to their own learning and the learning of others. They built a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities teachers and learners and how to work effectively as a group.
A Māori focused resource for English teachers (Word 2007 40KB)Jenny Webb, from Queen’s High School in Dunedin, uses student voice, expert evidence, and classroom experience to investigate how the learning and improvement achievement of Māori students in English classrooms could be enhanced. As well as a detailed discussion of the findings, this resource also has a list of Māori Resources for English Teachers.
Supporting inquiry learning in a Māori contextOn this National library site you'll find information and resources to help you develop a school-wide information literacy programme using an inquiry learning approach.
Focusing on the studentsA focus on culturally responsive pedagogy in the English learning area. Although originally written for senior secondary level, this pedagogical base could be applied to a number of different contexts.
Learning programme designWhen planning programmes, an English department/faculty needs to have at its fingertips a comprehensive analysis of the diverse learning needs of the students concerned. Although originally written for senior secondary level, this pedagogical base could be applied to a number of different contexts.
Culturally located learning spacesJanelle Riki points to the design of how modern learning environments, modern learning spaces in schools and the ways that they are looking to redefine the learning spaces for students. Janelle asks how can we make these spaces culturally located for Māori students. For example in English medium schools, she believes schools could consider whether or not spaces exist in schools where Māori students are able to learn through their culture and about their culture.
Ka Hikitia — Ka Hāpaitia (the Māori Education Strategy)Ka Hikitia — Ka Hāpaitia is a Ministry of Education strategy, designed to rapidly change how the education system performs so that all Māori students gain the skills, qualifications and knowledge they need to enjoy and achieve education success as Māori.
Te Kōtahitanga: Raising Māori student achievementAn initiative developed to improve teaching strategies and the effectiveness of teachers to increase the engagement and academic achievement of Māori students within mainstream secondary schools. As part of this project, an Effective Teaching Profile has been developed, giving teachers an inquiry framework from which to develop a Culturally Responsive Pedagogy.
Te Mana KōreroThe Te Mana Kōrero series has been developed by the Ministry of Education to help teachers focus on quality teaching practices that can better engage Māori students in learning and improving academic and social outcomes. The film clips from Te Mana Kōrero, along with key questions and reflections are available from the Te Mana Kōrero kete.
Te MangōroaTe Mangōroa is a resource for English-medium schools. It is a portal to stories, reports, statistics, and reviews from across TKI and other sites that reflect effective practices to support Māori learners to achieve education success as Māori.
Te Tere Auraki: Māori students' success in English-mediumTe Tere Auraki is a Ministry of Education professional development strategy focusing on improving outcomes for Māori students in English-medium schools. This strategy supports four main Te Tere Auraki projects: Te Kotahitanga, Te Kauhua, Ako Panuku, and Te Mana Kōrero.
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Reporting, like assessment, happens throughout a teaching inquiry and is not just limited to parent teacher evenings. Students and whānau need to be kept constantly informed about progress and achievement, in language they can understand.
Resources to support conversations with parents, families, whānau, and communitiesLiteracy and numeracy resources to help teachers in their conversations with parents, families, whānau, and communities.
Reporting to parents – examples and templatesA selection of example reports and templates for schools to use or adapt.
School stories specific to reporting to parentsThese Assessment Online school stories may help you when revising your reporting processes.
Introducing the e-portfolioA short presentation designed for those who are unfamiliar with e-portfolios. It defines, illustrates and identifies the impact of e-portfolios on learning with a focus on the 5–18 age group.
Why use ePortfolios?Nick Rate gives this CORE breakfast seminar focused on the potential of e-portfolios to support an assessment-for-learning approach in the primary classroom.
Red Beach School vision In this Ministry of Education seminar, staff, students, and a parent from Red Beach School discuss the use of ePortfolios as a teaching and learning tool.
The Literacy Learning Progressions, is one of the professional tools provided to support the New Zealand Curriculum.It describes the specific literacy knowledge, skills, and attitudes that students draw on in order to meet the reading and writing demands of the curriculum. Teachers need to ensure that their students develop the literacy expertise that will enable them to engage with the curriculum at increasing levels of complexity and with increasing independence. As students progress through schooling, they need to be able to read and write increasingly complex texts and to engage with increasingly complex tasks.
English Language Learning Progressions
Students who are accessing the New Zealand Curriculum as English language learners, may have a different pathway of progress towards competency than their peers. In this case, teachers may find the English Language Learning Progressions useful to sit alongside the Literacy Learning Progressions as learners from language backgrounds other than English work towards proficiency in the same reading and writing competencies as all New Zealand students. However, their pathways and rates of progress will differ from those of speakers of English as a first language.
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