Using Visual Thinking Strategies with English Language Learners

How looking at art can help your learner develop their language skills. 

As a museum educator and former English language teacher, I often think about the overlaps between the two fields. And one educational strategy in particular, called Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), stands out as being incredibly effective in helping English language learners develop their speaking skills.

So what is Visual Thinking Strategies?

VTS is a teaching method and curriculum centered around open-ended discussions of visual art. Although it encourages open-ended discussion, the method of instruction is actually highly structured. Students create meaning by examining and discussing works of art, while increasing their critical thinking, language, and literacy skills. It's a method that's typically used in art museums, but recently it's begun to be used with new audiences such as elementary school students and English language learners with incredible results.

The technique stems from Harvard University psychologist Abigail Housen's Theory of Aesthetic Development. Housen was curious how varying degrees of exposure to art affected people's viewing experience, so in the 1970s she conducted a series of "Aesthetic Development Interviews" to try to determine what was going on inside of people's heads when they looked at art. In these interviews she showed people different works of art and asked them to talk about what they saw. After recording thousands of responses a variety of patterns began to emerge.

Housen grouped these patterns into five distinct stages of aesthetic development, that is, five different categories of ways in which people respond when they view a piece of art. Although they are called Stages 1-5, they are not successive. Rather, Housen argued that people tend to be one of five different types of "viewers." Accountive viewers like to weave narratives into their response to art, using senses, memories, and personal experience to create a story. Constructive viewers create a framework based on logic and reasoning which is highly grounded in their own values and perceptions about the natural world. For these viewers things that don't look like they're "supposed to" are judged as weird or lacking value. Classifying viewers, on the other hand, adopt an analytical and critical stance of the art historian. Similar to accountive viewers, interpretive viewers seek a personal experience when encountering a work of art. They put their critical thinking skills in the service of their feelings and intuitions, and the underlying meaning that they draw out of a work of art typically changes each time they encounter it. The last type, re-creative viewers, have a long history of viewing and reflecting on works of art. Re-creative viewers are usually those who have studied art history and have made examining art a habit over many years.

Housen concluded that the vast majority of people fall into the first two categories, either creating a narrative when responding to works of art or grounding their observations in logic, reasoning, and their perceptions of the world around them. So she decided to develop a framework to help people look at art, and VTS was born.

How does VTS work exactly?

The structure is pretty simple. A VTS session begins with one facilitator and a group of students. The group can be large or small, but it is typically no more than 25 students. The facilitator chooses an image--usually a painting or a photograph--and calls attention to it, explaining to the students that they are going to be looking at the image and talking about it together.

The image might be something like this, for example:

(I won't tell you the title here because it doesn't matter for a VTS discussion!)*

To facilitate the discussion the teacher asks three main questions:

1. What's going on in this picture? 

2. What do you see that makes you say that?

3. What more can we find? 

After the facilitator listens to a student's responses to "What's going on in this picture?" and "What do you see that makes you say that?" the teacher paraphrases the student's comments neutrally and points to any elements in the image that the student might have mentioned. As the discussion continues with "What more can we find?" the facilitator makes sure to link and frame students' comments to one another while remaining neutral and holding back on their own comments. While the discussion is facilitated by a teacher, the content is created entirely by the students.

Watch 4th graders participate in a VTS session below to get a better sense of how it works:

But what are the benefits of using VTS with English language learners? Turns out there are a lot. 

VTS addresses rich and complex issues that students can relate to their own lives. The open-ended questions let students find their own entry point to join the discussion, and listening to others' responses allows them to become interested in and learn from other students' cultures and experiences. The technique also establishes higher order thinking skills such as understanding metaphors, thinking abstractly, speculating, and inferring. It also helps them practice lower ordering thinking skills such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, conversation, and works to "unlock" their tongues so they will be less hesitant to participate in a group conversation and less worried about pronouncing things correctly or using proper grammar all of the time. Linking the students' comments together provides them with the understanding that all points are valid and that there is no right or wrong answer. This helps strengthen their self-esteem and establish their sense of self and development of their own unique voice. 

There are also a number of benefits of using VTS for the facilitator. The technique helps facilitators acquire a new window into their students' minds and lives as they learn from the comments and personal stories that students bring into the conversation while referring to elements in a particular image. VTS also allows for a high-level discussions to take place where they otherwise may not have been possible. This is especially true when considering students with low-literacy levels. And no background in art is required! Because the discussion belongs to the students while the facilitator remains neutral, anyone can participate, even those without an art background. I, for example, work in a science museum and have never taken an art history class in my life, but I often use VTS with students and find it to be one of the best ways to develop critical thinking and enhance students' conversation skills. 

VTS is great in its pure form, but there's also nothing wrong with adapting it to fit your students' needs. With English language learners, for instance, it might be helpful to write new vocabulary on the board as it comes up during the discussion--either from a student's comment or from an element they referred to in an image--and then review it after the discussion. Another variation would be to ask the questions in slightly different ways that would be easier for your learners to understand. For example, "What's going on in this picture?" could become "What's happening in this picture?" 

Although VTS is meant to be used with a group of students so that the comments can build from one another, it can easily be adapted for a one-on-one tutor/learner pair. 

As you introduce the method it will certainly take time for students to get used to it. They may be hesitant to respond at first, but they'll soon learn the routine, lose their inhibition, and have a ton of things to say. 

If you're curious to learn more about VTS check out their website, where you can view some great videos of VTS in action and access a variety of sources on the origins and benefits of the technique and how it's being used across the country in all sorts of settings. 

And if you want to see VTS in person here in Boston I recommend visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The Gardner is a nationwide leader in VTS and their tours are all led using VTS. 

As always, feel free to contact me with any questions about this method or anywhere it's being used. I'd love to talk about ways you can adapt this technique to your tutoring sessions and help you find more places where you can view VTS in action. 

Happy tutoring!

Catherine


Catherine Sigmond 
Project Assistant, English At Large 
MA Candidate, Tufts University Department of Education 
catherine@englishatlarge.org

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*Image is Pablo Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror