‘How can you hate me, when you don’t even know me?’ The potential for fostering young EFL learners’ understanding and empathy through critical engagement with representations of the Other in three selected picturebooks.

Abstract

This paper examines ways in which picturebooks can be used in the EFL classroom to create awareness of Othering. The paper examines what Othering entails, and the interrelated topics of prejudice, stereotypes and intercultural education. Considering picturebooks multifaceted ways of conveying meaning, through different components in verbal and visual text, they are regarded as multimodal texts. Because of this, with special attention drawn towards picturebooks’ utilisation of the visual aspect in their illustrations, learners need a set of tools for comprehending the visual components presented to them through illustrations that differ from those needed in comprehending verbal text alone, referred to as having visual literacy. To understand how picturebooks can convey Othering, learners also need to take a critical stance when deciphering illustrations in picturebooks, and, as such, this paper also discusses critical visual literacy. Understanding critical visual literacy is necessary if learners are to understand how Othering can be portrayed, as image makers hold great power in how they choose to represent characters and objects in images (the represented participants), and how the image makers position the viewer and image maker (the interactive participants) in how they are supposed to interact with the image. The viewer of images is therefore required to take a critical stance, to question the myriad of choices image makers make when constructing images, and how these choices try to position the viewers understanding of what they are seeing in the images. Othering is explored through three selected picturebooks, The Island by Armin Greder, Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne and Hattie & Hudson by Chris Van Dusen. By using the three structures of visual literacy provided by Serafini (2011), these picturebooks are analysed in how they portray Othering through composition, perspective and visual symbols. Lasty, the paper suggests, through a framework provided by Janks et al. (2013), ways in which educators can work with picturebooks through critical visual literacy, including a set of proposed activities, to foster understanding of Othering.

This paper examines ways in which picturebooks can be used in the EFL classroom to create awareness of Othering. The paper examines what Othering entails, and the interrelated topics of prejudice, stereotypes and intercultural education. Considering picturebooks multifaceted ways of conveying meaning, through different components in verbal and visual text, they are regarded as multimodal texts. Because of this, with special attention drawn towards picturebooks’ utilisation of the visual aspect in their illustrations, learners need a set of tools for comprehending the visual components presented to them through illustrations that differ from those needed in comprehending verbal text alone, referred to as having visual literacy. To understand how picturebooks can convey Othering, learners also need to take a critical stance when deciphering illustrations in picturebooks, and, as such, this paper also discusses critical visual literacy. Understanding critical visual literacy is necessary if learners are to understand how Othering can be portrayed, as image makers hold great power in how they choose to represent characters and objects in images (the represented participants), and how the image makers position the viewer and image maker (the interactive participants) in how they are supposed to interact with the image. The viewer of images is therefore required to take a critical stance, to question the myriad of choices image makers make when constructing images, and how these choices try to position the viewers understanding of what they are seeing in the images. Othering is explored through three selected picturebooks, The Island by Armin Greder, Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne and Hattie & Hudson by Chris Van Dusen. By using the three structures of visual literacy provided by Serafini (2011), these picturebooks are analysed in how they portray Othering through composition, perspective and visual symbols. Lasty, the paper suggests, through a framework provided by Janks et al. (2013), ways in which educators can work with picturebooks through critical visual literacy, including a set of proposed activities, to foster understanding of Othering.