Visual Aids In Learning English Language

The increasingly growing importance and use of English language has opened up doors of the continents and widened the horizons for ample of opportunities. Learning the language has become obvious for aspiring minds. The advent and advancement of technology has made it possible to transform English language lab into a mini theatre where visual clips or films can be shown. The soothing impact of visual aids is now recognized all over the world. The idea of using visual aids in ESL classroom is a kind of challenge to educate learners as it demands attention and interest. It is a new concept and is highly required keeping in mind the learners. Using visual aids can get unflinching attention and interest of the learners. Professional programs like

It is one of the popular language teaching approaches in the recent time. It was introduced in the early 1980s. The approach aimed at the practical use of language in everyday communication. In this approach, the use of authentic materials is highly emphasized. Teachers are encouraged to use different audio-visual aids such as pictures and videos in a classroom to make the class interesting and authentic. The use of authentic materialsallowed the class activities that are related to real communication. As a result, the learners are shown different visual aids like map for giving direction, picture for describing any place or person and so on.Kleinman and Dwyer (1999) examined the effects of specific visual skills in facilitating learning. Their findings indicate that the use of color graphics in instructional modules as opposed to black and white graphics promotes better achievement in the learning of

Pictures are the simplest and commonly used. Pictures are very effective. Pictures provide associations for the learning of new words. But we cannot use pictures for every unknown or abstract words as they cannot be illustrated easily. The more concrete a word is, the easier it is to find and uses a picture for its illustration (Anderson &Shifrin, 1980).Research has been done in use of pictures in area of second language learning. Underwood (1989), as cited in Chun and Plass (1996), has concluded that ―an ordinary principle and opinions for human learning is visual memory‘. Koren (1999) points out that learning foreign words with associated of words alone can be easier than words without these associations. Photo dictionaries are widely used to increase the vocabulary and speaking skills of learners. Charts, maps and diagrams are other common visual tools used for learning purposes. Myatt and Carter (as cited in Heinich et al., 1999) in their study suggests that most learners prefer color visuals to black and white visuals, but that no significant difference in the amount of learning occurs except when color is related to the content to be