Development of Viewing as Macro Skills in English

CONTEXT AND RATIONALE

Situational Analysis

In today’s generation of digital natives, students find it unexciting to sit down and read

literary texts in its entirety. Thus, students nowadays hardly understand and appreciate literature

as a subject. This calls for additional challenge to teachers who had been used to deliver their

lessons or any subject matter in traditional ways (Guieb & Ortega-Dela Cruz, 2017). Face with

this situation, educators should take it upon themselves to facilitate the development of viewing

skills or visual literacy of our young learners (Gabinete, 2017). Viewing is the latest addition to

the macro-skills of English language which is catered using different materials that are print and

non-print forms. (Carolino & Queroda, 2020).

The New Curriculum Standards (2017) points out that "Viewing in language skills usu-

ally refers to the skills of understanding meaning by using figures, tables, animation, symbols

and videos in multimodal discourse. Viewing a way of portraying information in the record, thus,

giving more emphasis on the importance of mental faculty that allows a perceiver to give details

about a target that is difficult. Also, viewing involves interpreting images for which word stand,

and connecting visual images in videos, computer programs, and websites with accompanying

printed or spoken words (B.D. Roe, E.P. Ross 2010). According to Ignatius Joseph Estroga

(2012), a language professor at Liceo De Cagayan University, viewing enhances listening skills

when students attend to non-verbal communication and visual elements of performance, video,

television, film and multimedia presentation. Also, viewing enhances reading when students at-

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Development of Viewing as Macro Skills in English

tend to visual accompanying print, specific textual techniques, and the assumptions, perspec-

tives, and quality of a variety media.

According to Woottipong (2014), viewing enhances listening skills when students attend

to nonverbal communication and visual elements of performance, video, television, film, and

multimedia presentations. It enhances reading when students attend to visuals accompanying

print. Tigo (2014), defines viewing as a process that supports oracy and literacy, and is a part of

an integrated language program. According to her, viewing skills broaden the ways in which stu-

dents can understand and communicate their ideas. In conformity of the aforementioned

conceptual definition of viewing Carolino & Queroda (2019) enforces further that viewing as

macro skills involved perceiving, examining, interpreting, and construction meaning from vis-

ual images and is crucial to improving comprehension of print and non-print materials.

In the United States, new research states that students engage with images and visual ma-

terials throughout the course of their education. Although students are expected to understand,

use, and create images in academic work, they are not always prepared to do so. Scholarly work

with images requires research, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation skills specific to visual

materials. These abilities cannot be taken for granted and need to be taught, supported, and inte-

grated into the curriculum. Notably, some K-12 and higher education standards include visual lit-

eracy as one of several key literacies needed for success in contemporary society. Many discus-

sions of transliteracy, metaliteracy, and multimodal literacy also include visual literacy among

the literacies important for today’s learners. (Hattwig et. al, 2022)

The New Curriculum Standards (2017) discovered that according to the actual situation

of students, shows that learners receiving both visual and auditory stimuli can significantly im-

prove their understanding of the target language. Based on this, in senior high school listening

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Development of Viewing as Macro Skills in English

teaching in China, teachers should choose appropriate visual materials to help students coordi-

nate vision and hearing to enhance information understanding and internalization. The input of

information through images, charts, video screens, etc. can not only reduce students' expression

anxiety, but also help activate their thinking and improve their expressive skills in active partici-

pation. This points out the behavior and purpose that students use "viewing" skill to achieve,

which helps us to build a better evaluation system based on this to systematically evaluate "view-

ing", develop a scientific and operable indicator system, and timely understand the gains and

losses of teaching. However, the Course Standards does not specify the specific content require-

ments and objectives of "viewing", which requires teachers to exert their subjective initiative and

further innovate the evaluation system. In senior high school English teaching in China, teachers

should not only realize that the application of "viewing" is everywhere, but also consciously use

various visual means to activate students' knowledge schema and help students develop "view-

ing" macro skills.

Visual Literacy Task Force (2010) observed that students in higher education can create

and share visual contents by means of new digital technologies. However, that prevalence of

widely distributed visuals and wide-spread visual media does not mean that all individuals are

able to create visual content, use or criticize visuals. Individuals should improve these skills in

order to keep up with the visually focused society. Visual literacy skills will enable full participa-

tion of individuals in the visual culture. As a result of the study, the Visual Literacy Task Force

text has been created based on the Information Literacy Standards and a first draft was published

in 2011. The Competency Standards have been developed with an interdisciplinary approach,

filling in the gap of visual literacy in higher education. Presently, even students can utilize visu-

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Development of Viewing as Macro Skills in English

als for class, projects and academic studies; yet, there is no standard that can be taken as a refer -

ence. With realized studies, visual skill fields have been developed.

In related studies, visual-spatial intelligence is always mentioned in conjunction with acts

of perception and creation. The creative sub-skills connected to visual-spatial intelligence were

first reduced to representation, then creative use of visual language (e.g., symbolization and ex-

pression of moods, feelings, and thoughts) were identified as important manifestations of this in-

telligence (Winner et al. 2013). More and more studies on the development of certain visual

skills were published and the need for a common framework to guide research for curriculum de-

sign was voiced. (Boughton 2013; Winner et al. 2013).

Based on various studies, students remember information better when it is represented

both visually and verbally. These strategies help students of all ages to better manage learning

objectives and achieve academic success. Various studies report that 75 of all information pro-

cessed by the brain is derived from visual formats. Furthermore, visual information is mapped

better in students’ minds (Williams, 2009). The development of visual thinking skills requires in-

formation that is designed for, and supported by visual tools.

According to the findings of Kędra & Žakevičiūtė (2018), contemporary literacy can no

longer be characterized by just writing and reading but combines multi-literacies, including vis-

ual, digital, multimodal, and other literacies. Among them, competency in visual literacy has al-

ready become crucial as visuals are ubiquitous in our technology-rich world. An important obser-

vation is that in cases when the representatives of Generation Z are unfamiliar with some phe-

nomena, they first rely on visuals by either using the function of images provided by Google or

by using YouTube videos. Most of them are usually more successful in expressing themselves by

being able to use visuals. However, teaching and learning in higher education still relies too

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Development of Viewing as Macro Skills in English

much on spoken and written forms of communication and therefore several researchers conclude

that educators need to revisit their teaching practices to make them more visually oriented and at

the same time offer more opportunities to develop visual literacy.

In countries like South Africa and Australia, the teaching and assessment of visual literacy

have been of valuable concern owing to the proliferation and increasing consumption of

multimodal texts. Teachers of the two countries are challenged by the existing practices and re-

flect on ways to replace the ineffective ones with more adequate alternatives. Mbelani (2008)

challenged his classroom assessment practices and thought of alternative ways to bridge the gap

between the National Curriculum Statements (NCS) of South Africa and what was capable

of being done as a result of his apartheid learning and teaching experience.

A number of studies suggest that the balance between words and images has shifted considerably

calling for new forms of literacy (Brumberger, 2011). Unfortunately, visual literacy receives rel-

atively little attention in today’s curricula (Brumberger, 2005; Yeh & Lohr, 2010). The ever

growing use of visuals accompanying new technologies means that visual literacy skills– being

able to understand the how and why of visuals–are needed now more than ever. However, the re -

search on the connection between the design of information, visual literacy, and education is lim-

ited. Therefore, it is necessary for everyone–especially students in schools–to acquire an under -

standing of what we see, and how it affects our learning and communication; in other words,

“what we see, and why it matters.” (Brumberger, 2011).

According to the findings of Carolino, C. J. C., & Queroda, P. (2020), the English teachers of

Anda, Pangasinan are on the verge that they need to be versatile and knowledgeable about teach -

ing viewing. Just like teaching the traditional macro-skills, educators encounter difficulties in

teaching viewing. Several factors may hamper them to teach the competencies under this skill ef-

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Development of Viewing as Macro Skills in English

fectively. Some national high schools, integrated schools, and private schools in Anda experi-

ence unstable Internet connection that hurdle teachers and students to access websites, social me-

dia sites, and video sharing sites strongly. Teachers also struggle on how to teach viewing as a

macro skill due to limited multimedia resources.

With these situations, it is important to determine the practices of secondary school teachers of

Anda in teaching viewing despite the problems encountered.

With the recent integration of viewing in the language macro skills simultaneous with the

implementation of K to 12 in the Philippines in school year 2013-2014 and the proliferation of

multimedia technology, the challenge to guide our students to select, validate and interpret

these visual images are the many arduous tasks teachers have to face and succesfully accom-

plish. Face with this situation, educators should take it upon themselves to facilitate the devel -

opment of viewing skills or visual literacy of our young learners. A dearth in literature that

explores Filipino Language Arts teachers’ ability to teach and assess this fifth macroskill is

noticeable. (Gabinete, 2017)

Action Research Questions

1. What are the factors affecting the development of viewing as macro skills to be translated

in learning?

2. What are the strategies, innovations, and interventions that can be recommended to im-

prove viewing skills in translating to learning?

Methodology

Method and Procedures

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Development of Viewing as Macro Skills in English

This chapter describes the operational plan of work or strategy. A number of activities in

the plan of work include the following operations: a) research designs b) population and locale of

the studies c) data gathering tools; d) data gathering procedures.

Research Design

The study will use qualitative research design. It is used to understand underlying reasons.

It focuses on the lived experiences of the high school students in terms of teaching and how is

their development of viewing as macro skills in English.

The survey research is one in which a group of people is studied by collecting and analyz-

ing data from a few people as a representative of the entire group.

This study will use a case study research design. It uses an unstructured interviewing and

direct observation where in researchers uses direct interaction to the respondents or distinguished

from participant through observation to get information.

Population and Locale of the Study

The study will be conducted at Northern Luzon Adventist College. The respondents are

Junior High School Students. Researchers will have a few respondents and will be interviewed

through direct interaction. This study will contain respondents in Grade 10 (5 female, 5 male)

Northern Luzon Adventist College in the Junior High School.

Data Gathering Tools

The questionnaire will started as the major data gathering tool instrument in the study so it

is a secure despondence to certain question. The questionnaire that is used in this study designed

to obtain information on what are factors affecting their development in viewing. In addition re-

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Development of Viewing as Macro Skills in English

searchers will use recording tools like phones during the interview and pencil and papers to write

what they will say.

The questionnaire will be prepared by the researchers developed from reading reference

materials and related about the research study.

Data Gathering Procedure

The researchers made a consent and let it be signed by the department coordinator, the de-

sign coordinator, the design subject teacher and all the group members to ensure that the inter-

view and interviews during their free time and place they transferred to be interviewed. Some of

the teachers are recording, others are taking down notes and one of them is the interviewer. As

agreed, interviewees can answer the question in their owned dialect and to be translated by the

researchers. All the information given by the respondents are well-documented.

The data that were obtained from the precious interviews were organized and classified in-

cluding the themes. The researchers conducted combined and full analysis of reflects on the par-

ticipants want to expound during the interview without prejudice. The data gathered will remain

confidential.

Citations:

Arslan, R., & Nalinci, G. Z. (2014). DEVELOPMENT OF VISUAL LITERACY LEVELS

SCALE IN HIGHER EDUCATION. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology,

13(2), 61–70. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1022906.pdf

Bullecer, W. C. (2017). Viewing Skills: Understanding the Word and the World. Asia Pacific

Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 5(3), 88.

http://www.apjmr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/APJMR-2017.5.3.2.12.pdf

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Carolino, C. J. C., & Queroda, P. (2020). Instructional strategies and materials utilized in teach-

ing viewing as Macro-Skill by English teachers. ResearchGate, 2.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340021313_Instructional_Strategies_and_Materi

als_Utilized_in_Teaching_Viewing_as_Macro-Skill_by_English_Teachers

Gabinete, M. K. L. (2017). TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES IN ASSESSING THE

VIEWING SKILL OF ESL LEARNERS. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1),

19. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v7i1.6854

Guieb, M. D. S., & Cruz, R. a. O. (2017). Viewing teaching techniques in enhancing viewing

comprehension skills of undergraduate students in literature. International Journal of Lan-

guages’ Education and Teaching, 5(2), 271–279. https://doi.org/10.18298/ijlet.1762

Jaleniauskiene, E., & Kasperiūnienė, J. (2022). Visual literacy development through infograph-

ics. In Springer eBooks (pp. 189–200). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99885-1_17

Raiyn, J. (2016). The role of Visual Learning in improving Students’ High-Order Thinking

skills. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(24), 115–121.

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1112894.pdf

Simon, T., Biró, I., & Kárpáti, A. (2022). Developmental assessment of visual communication

skills in primary education. Journal of Intelligence, 10(3), 45.

https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence10030045

Tillmann, A. (2012). "What We See and Why It Matters: How Compe-

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Yang, T. (2023). The Teaching Strategy of “Viewing” in Senior English Teaching under the

Background of the New Curriculum Standards. The Education Review, USA, 7(4), 526–

530. https://doi.org/10.26855/er.2023.04.025

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