Developing Visual Literacy in the English Home Language Classroom Using a Documentary on Wildlife Conservation
Date
2023-10
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Abstract
Visual literacy is considered as a set of analytical visual competencies that are developed through the seeing as the same time as experiencing other sensorial exposure (IVLA Conference, 1969). An increasingly visual world (Hill Bulman, 2017) demands for increasingly visual literate individuals. Current technological developments have subsequently led to the fast production of complicated, dynamic verbal, musical and visual texts. Such ensembles penetrate the lives of learners and yet national visual literacy High stakes assessments display a remaining repetitive nature of text-based sources – a preference some have argued to filter through to visual literacy teaching practices as well (Moodley, 2015). Present visual literacy research in education stresses the demand for visual literacy as a critical analytical skill (Matusiak, Heinbach, Harper & Bovee, 2019), however, little research refocuses the consideration of text choice in the teaching thereof. Documentary film is a text source included by the curriculum in the outcome of reading and viewing. As a text, documentary film arranges meaning-making tools: speech, music, images and more to organize viewer perceptibility. Through an interplay of information, account, feeling and imagination (Bondebjerg, 2014b) filmmakers of this genre create multi-sensorial experiences (van Munster & Sylvest, 2013). Although a form of diegesis, a documentary film remains fundamentally committed to the portrayal of truthfulness (McLane, 2012), however, it remains a re-representation of events. Such re-representations are powerful in their display (Bondebjerg, 2014b; Nichols, 2010) and McLane (2012) argues that such exclusive influence is accomplished through employing the following: 1) subjects and ideologies; 2) purpose, viewpoint, and approach; 3) forms; 4) production methods and techniques; 5) the experience they offer. Not only are documentaries the fastest growing genre (Torres, 2022) but they are also uniquely manipulatory – reasoning it as a vital text to include in the teaching of visual literacy. Through a qualitative content analysis, this study will show how visual literacy can be developed through a documentary on wildlife conservation. Subsequently, it indicates how non-speech sound is incorporated in the overall promotion of the documentary’s message and how verbal and visual aspects are used as rhetoric. The work hopes to add to the field of language learning and qualitative content analysis. In addition, it hopes to contribute to the academic study of meaning-making in filmic productions and the expansion of visual literacy text inclusion.
Description
This is submitted in the fulfilment for the degree MEd in Education by to the Faculty of Humanities, Wits School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023.
Keywords
Visual literacy, English home language, Documentary, UCTD
Citation
Terblanche, Elizabeth Maria. (2023). Developing Visual Literacy in the English Home Language Classroom Using a Documentary on Wildlife Conservation. [Master's dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg]. https://hdl.handle.net/10539/41490