UTILIZING VISUAL CULTURE AS A CREATIVE TOOL IN ONLINE TEACHING

Many veteran teachers—including myself—have practiced “chalk and talk” methods for most of their careers. Over the last decade or so, these traditional approaches have been greatly enhanced by Moodle and other digital platforms, as well as technological tools such as power point and Googledocs. These changes occurred rather gradually, giving us the ability to reflect, experiment, and adjust without becoming overwhelmed. Yet due to the global coronavirus pandemic, our professional (and personal) lives were turned upside down within a very short span of time, as we were suddenly thrust into the uncharted territory of teaching online. Within weeks, the hours we spent trying to figure things out, either alone or collaborating with our kindhearted colleagues and Chair, grew exponentially. From our first clumsy attempts to master Zoom, we dove headfirst into webinars to acquire new skills and broaden our digital repertoire, including programs such as Kahoots, Zeetings, Mentimeter, Padlet, and Flipgrid. As I was too daunted to learn some things that other teachers were embracing, I turned to a domain I felt comfortable with: visual culture. The aim of this talk is to demonstrate some ideas and pedagogical practices utilizing visual culture that I have adopted recently in my advanced English and academic writing courses. Rather than relying almost exclusively on published texts, I now incorporate them with films and graphic images in Moodle assignments and major online exams. This shift facilitates alternative assessment, heightens creativity, promotes learning, invigorates students’ writing, stimulates class discussion, and reinforces the CEFR goals.