DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The present study investigated a small group of 16 Taiwanese senior high school students’ conceptions of textual and visual connection in English textbooks and the tie between the students’ conceptions and their proficiency levels. The present study offers findings as to how EFL high school students’ conceptualized bimodal connections in textbooks. These findings may provide important pedagogical insights to instructors and future research.

The results of the current study revealed five major conceptions of textual and visual connection: in the order of relevance, Read bi-modally and critically (i.e.

‘Making connections between textual and visual modes’, ‘Evaluating the use of textual and visual modes’, and ‘Organizing contents’), Read bi-modally to comprehend (i.e. ‘Understanding the meanings’, ‘Guessing the meanings’, and

‘Anticipating contents’), Read bi-modally for facts (i.e. ‘Remembering contents’,

‘Recalling contents’, and ‘Retaining contents’), Read with engaging visual aids (i.e.

‘Being attracted by the visuals’, ‘Getting interested in the visuals’, and ‘Feeling familiar with the visuals’), and Read for textual information only (i.e. ‘Textual understanding’, and ‘Words memorization’).

Following the discussion, general pedagogical issues related to the research findings were identified, followed by the limitations and conclusions of the current study.

Bimodal Connection as Promoting Comprehension

Though previous studies (Bezermer & Jewitt, 2010; Guichon & McLoran, 2008;

Mayer & Moreno, 2003) suggested the visual images might not benefit language learning, the current study found that the learners tended to value visual and textual relations in textbooks. Based on Mayer and Moreno’s (2003) study, when multiple

modes co-occurred in the learning environment, split-attention effect was likely to occur. Pictures might divert attention or make readers unable to pay attention to the reading texts (Guichon & McLoran, 2008). Students might selectively focus on one of the modes in multimodal texts and ignored the meanings projected by the other modes (Bezermer & Jewitt, 2010).

However, the current study found that, in general, the students conceptualized that textual and visual connection in textbooks facilitate reading comprehension. In the current research, “Read bi-modally to comprehend”, whose subcategories include

‘Understanding the meanings’, ‘Guessing the meanings’ and ‘Anticipating contents’, is the second highest level conception. This conception constituted 36.9 percent of the total conceptions. It has long been found that the combination of image and words can promote reading comprehension (Ajayi, 2009; Cappello & Walker, 2016; Royce, 2002). Moreover, it is also found that different modes have different affordances. The combination of two modes can better represent the full meanings of texts (Kress, 2000; New London Group, 1996; Unsworth, 2001). The present research extends the previous studies and clarifies how bimodal reading promotes comprehension. Three examples to illustrate the subcategories of the dominant conception are listed as follows:

First, ‘Understanding the meanings’ accounts for 52 percent of “Read bi-modally to comprehend”. For example, Participant 4 stated, “This picture shows three wicked people, so I know they are not getting along well and the three people are bad guys.”

She considered that the pictures in textbooks would provide her with information and that the figures in the pictures were the main characters in textbooks.

Second, ‘Guessing the contents’ makes up 33 percent of “Read bi-modally to comprehend”. With the help of one of the modes, the students could take a guess of the untold message in the other mode. For instance, Participant 6 stated,” I will start

reading the lesson by looking at the pictures first because I can guess what the content is about.” The student used the visual resources in textbooks to take a guess of what the reading was about.

The third subcategories of the dominant conception, ‘Anticipating the contents’, accounts for 14 percent of “Read bi-modally to comprehend”. For example,

Participant 1 said, “Pictures may lead you into the article. It's like the beginning of reading.” She considered that bimodal connection helped when she started to engage in reading a new lesson. In general, the students in the present research tended to emphasize that bimodal relations as well as corresponding connections between texts and images contributed to reading comprehension.

Next, “Read with engaging visual aids” ranks the second highest percentage (22.8%) of the total conceptions. This finding suggests that the bimodal connections should be designed carefully to fixate EFL learners’ attention. Royce (2002) also indicated that multimodal complementarity is the key to integrate meaningful multimodal resources into teaching. Thus, it may be more effective to have more engaging visual aids for EFL learners to visualize the reading contents.

Then, “Read bi-modally and critically”, ranking the third highest percentage of all, constitutes 19.3% of the total conceptions. The students holding this view engaged themselves in critical bimodal reading by analyzing and interpreting the bimodal connections. Such ability to analyze and interpret multimodal texts is crucial in multimodal literacy in which leaners should be able to combine modal resources and personal learning experiences to make meanings (Hibbing & Rankin-Erickson, 2003;

Royce, 2002).

Lastly, “Read for textual information only“ accounts for 8.7 % of the total conceptions, which means that the students holding this conception did not make good use of visual-textual connection to enhance reading comprehension. Possible

reasons are listed as follows. First, the amount of pictures was not enough to be coded by the learners. Since the strugglers might depend heavily on the visual mode to comprehend texts, it might be possible that the more the visuals are used, the better the struggling students learn through bimodal texts (Hibbing & Rankin-Erickson, 2003). Second, the visual and textual modes might not complement each other well. If different modes simply occur in texts and do not work in concert to project coherent meanings, the multimodal texts may lack complementarity for learners to interpret meanings (Royce, 2007). Third, the instructors’ teaching might have considerable influence on the learners’ views of visual-textual connection since the lack of emphasis on explicit discussions regarding bimodal texts might not enhance EFL learners’ reading comprehension (Ajayi, 2012).

Slight Influence of Proficiency on Learners’ Views of Textual-Visual Connection The LG group held more “Read bi-modally and critically” (10.5%) than RSS group (8.8%) and the LG group held less “Read for textual information only” (1.8%) than RSS (7%). Though LG group differed from RSS group in these two conceptions, the conceptions held by LG group and RSS group seemed to have little difference.

The conceptions held by LG group include, in order of percentage, “Read bi-modally to comprehend” (15.8%), “Read bi-modally and critically” (10.5%), “Read with engaging visual aids” (10.5%), “Read bi-modally for facts” (3.5%) and “Read for textual information only” (1.8%). That is, LG group tended to conceptualize textual and visual connection as “Read bi-modally to comprehend”. On the other hand, the conceptions held by RSS group include “Read bi-modally to comprehend” (21.1%),

“Read with engaging visual aids” (12.3%), “Read bi-modally and critically” (8.8%),

“Read bi-modally for facts” (8.8%), “Read for textual information only” (7%). In other words, generally, RSS group tended to hold that bimodal connection helped to

comprehend. In both groups, “Read bi-modally to comprehend” takes up the most percentage while “Read for textual information only” constitutes the least percentage of the total conceptions. Though it is notable that LG group is slightly higher in “Read bi-modally and critically” than RSS group, the two proficiency groups did not

demonstrate salient difference among their textual-visual views.

Similar to Boon, Johnston and Webber’s (2007) research in which a learner’s conceptions, either refined or underdeveloped, may be associated with his/her

learning experiences, in the present study, the higher level conceptions such as “Read bi-modally to comprehend” and “Read bi-modally and critically” accounted for higher percentage of the total conceptions of the LG students, compared to the rest of their conceptions. This may be associated with LG group’s previous learning experiences and in-class tasks where they needed to perform by using more than one mode.

Previous research found that pictures facilitate reading and vocabulary learning.

Yet, in the current research, some of the students did not make use of visual-textual connections to enhance reading comprehension. This may be contributed to three reasons. First, the number of pictures was not enough to be coded. Second, the visual and textual modes might not complement each other well. Royce (2007) pointed out that if different modes simply occur in texts and do not work in concert to project coherent meanings, the multimodal texts may lack necessary complementarity for learners to interpret meanings. Third, the instructors’ teaching might have

considerable influence on the learners’ views of visual-textual connection. In all, the data in the current study indicated no direct connection between the learners’

proficiency and their conceptions of textual and visual connection in textbooks, which may result from the small sample size.

Conceptions in Hierarchical Order

The five conceptions (Read bi-modally and critically, Read bi-modally to

comprehend, Read bi-modally for facts, Read with engaging visual aids, and Read for textual information only) could be ranked in a hierarchical order. Yet, compared to the previous studies (Marton, 1981; Saljo, 1979) that proposed conceptions were

qualitatively different, the results of the present study indicated otherwise. The first three conceptions are bimodally-related but with different cognitive levels whereas the last two conceptions focus on one single mode with little cognition involved.

However, the present research revealed that some learners displayed a mix of advanced and unsophisticated conceptions. In other words, a student could hold a more advanced conception and a less developed conception at the same time. This indicated that the conceptions emerging in the current study might not have strict qualitative differences, compared to previous conception research. Instead, it was observed that the five conceptions are hierarchically ordered based on how they used their cognitive abilities. Thus, it is inferred that the present study may not yield conceptions with qualitative differences. This may be associated with the research scope of the present study. Since the present study explored textual and visual connection in one of the language learning materials, the research scope may be comparatively narrower than conceptions of learning (Saljo, 1979) , conceptions of science learning (Tsai, 2004) and conceptions of language learning (Benson & Lor, 1999; Zhen, Liang, Yang & Tsai, 2016).

Different Media with Different Textual-Visual Connections

Learners’ conceptions may be influenced by the forms of media such as printed texts or multimedia. (Boon, Johnston & Webber, 2007). Different kinds of media display different kinds of textual-visual connections because of different layouts and

proportions of pictures. Boon, Johnston and Webber (2007) found that leaners’

conceptions of information literacy differed in the types of media. Some

conceptualized information literacy as using the Internet whereas others viewed information literacy as reading printed texts, depending on the media of information literacy. The present research focuses on the visual and textual connection in

textbooks, so the conceptions are limited to printed texts.

Previous studies have shown that text-image connection in printed texts promoted reading comprehension. For example, Connors’ (2013) study focused on graphic novels, one form of printed texts and explored how text-image relations influenced language learning. Connors (2013) argued that the visual-textual

connection in graphic novels promotes reading comprehension. The EFL learners read bimodal texts iteratively to interpret and make meanings of the graphic novels. When reading graphic novels, the learners were easily engaged in reading activity (Connors, 2013). In addition to graphic novels, one of the printed texts, Chen (2009) and Tsai (2016) found that there were rich interactive meanings in EFL elementary and junior high textbooks. With rich interactive meanings, the learners could focus on the learning contents better and thus could enhance reading comprehension.

Still, different media come in different target readers. High school textbooks tend to display different kinds of readings with varied topics and genre to enhance high school students’ content knowledge and to expand high school students’ vocabulary (Chen & Chen, 2013). Different lessons come with different visual and textual connections. The findings of the present study were quite different from Chen’s (2009) and Tsai’s (2016) research on junior high school textbooks analysis because of different foci in EFL curriculum of the two educational stages. The textual mode is greatly emphasized in high school textbooks and less proportion is left for visual modes, compared to their junior high school counterparts. The proportions of visuals

and the topics of lessons could have considerable influence on the students’

conceptions. Therefore, when it comes to learners’ conceptions of textual and visual connection, the media with different target readers should be taken into account.

Summary of Discussion

To conclude, the present study yielded a hierarchy of five conceptions with slight qualitative differences. Among the five emerging conceptions, it was revealed that the learners highly emphasized that visual and textual relations in textbooks assisted their reading comprehension. Also, there seemed to be no direct connection between the learners’ proficiencies and their views of textual and visual relations. These results may be related to small sample size and different genre of lessons to which the learners referred.

Pedagogical Implications

Some pedagogical implications can be drawn from the present study. First, since the current study revealed that the students tended to emphasize how bimodal

connections assisted them to comprehend reading texts, bimodal texts with stronger text-image complementary relations should be designed to enhance reading

comprehension. Second, bimodal connections in textbooks were not well explored, classroom activities should be carefully designed to strengthen the tie between textual and visual modes. It is vital for EFL leaners to understand how to read bimodal texts by tapping into the potential of textual and visual relations to enhance reading comprehension. EFL instructors should draw students’ attention to the textual and visual connection in English textbooks for the purpose of boosting their critical thinking abilities. Textual and visual relations are worth exploring, interpreting, and analyzing so as to broaden the scope of reading comprehension and enrich EFL

reading experiences. Thus, EFL instructors should recognize the significance of bimodal reading and encourage discussions of textual and visual relations in class. In light of the advent of multimodal literacy, in which readers are supposed to interpret meanings through different modes, EFL instructors should not only be aware of bimodal resources in textbooks but also guide students to analyze different uses of modes.

Limitation and Suggestions for Future Research

It should be noted that this study has concentrated on only a small number of Taiwanese senior high school students’ conceptions of textual and visual connection in English textbooks. The sample size was the major limitation in the current study. In addition, the students’ prior learning experiences may be linked to their conceptions of reading English textbooks. Thus, the sample size could be enlarged and students in the pure science program should also be recruited to exhibit the variations in the student groups.

Moreover, to extend the research scope and respond to the prevalence of multimodal communications, technology-assisted language learning materials may have potential to be used to probe learners’ conceptions of multimodality in English learning materials. However exploratory, this study may offer some insight into EFL learners’ views of bimodal resources in printed materials, providing interesting issues for future research.

Conclusions

The present study aims to investigate how the students viewed textual and visual connection in textbooks and how language proficiency regulated the students’

conceptions. Among the emerging conceptions, the predominant conception is “Read

bi-modally to comprehend”. The students generally held that textual and visual connection helped to promote reading comprehension. The present study also

concluded that the tie between English proficiency and the students’ conceptions was proved to be moderate. Though LG group held slightly higher percentage of the most advanced conception than RSS group, the textual and visual conceptions held by both proficiency groups seemed to have slight differences in general. Because of the small sample size in the current research, English proficiency levels may not show direct impact on the learners’ views

Although there is much room for the refinements in sampling of participants and data elicitation method, the results of the present study are of pedagogical value, showing a variety of conceptions the students held regarding textual and visual connection in textbooks. It is suggested that visual and textual connections should be strengthened in teaching contexts to promote effective bimodal reading and

multimodal literacy.

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