Vocabulary Learning Through Cooperatively Structured Art-Based Tasks

Abstract

This study is a multi-method exploratory quantitative and qualitative examination of the degree to which students produce, share, and learn vocabulary and cooperative skills as they carry out three types of individually and cooperatively structured art-based tasks regarding carefully selected and sequenced artworks. The artwork was selected from, and the tasks were adapted from Visual Thinking Strategies, an approach for teaching art appreciated and critical thinking skills. There has been little research that reports the degree of vocabulary through the use of images in general, very little research on cooperative learning and language learning, and an extremely limited amount of research on cooperative learning carried out in the field of foreign language learning through the use of artwork in the Japanese context. This study aims to fill these gaps. There were five main purposes of this study. The first purpose was to explore the range of vocabulary elicited through the cooperatively structured art-based tasks regarding the artworks. The second purpose was to measure students’ learning and use of two cooperative skills as they carried out the art-based tasks. The third purpose was to examine the implementation of the art-based tasks adapted for language learning in the Japanese college context investigated in this study. The fourth purpose was to explore the degree to which vocabulary is produced, shared, and learned in the adapted art-based tasks. The fifth and final purpose was a qualitative and quantitative examination of students’ attitudes towards the art tasks and towards working cooperatively in groups. To answer questions based on the purposes listed above, AntWordProfiler was used to analyze students’ production of vocabulary as they wrote their individual comments about the artworks and the RANGE feature of AntWordProfiler was used to analyze the frequency of particular vocabulary within and across groups in the group activities. The degree of learning was measured through pretests and posttests adapted from the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale. Finally an ANOVA was used to compare the vocabulary learned in the individual and cooperative drawing tasks following a Latin Square design. The qualitative study involved examination of many sources of data, including the worksheets students filled out as they carried out the art-based tasks, the artwork they drew, and audio recordings. Finally, a combined qualitative and qualitative survey at the end of the semester allowed an exploration of students’ opinions regarding art-based tasks, working and learning in groups, and the class as a whole. The results to the 12 research questions showed very little predictability in the specific vocabulary elicited, but did find patterns in the frequency of vocabulary elicited through the artworks, especially in terms of the percentage of vocabulary elicited. Students showed a significant increase in vocabulary knowledge between the pretests and posttests on all tasks, although there was a significant difference in vocabulary learned by students who did the drawing task individually for one artwork over those who drew that artwork in cooperative groups. A frequency analysis of student self-reports of their use of the cooperative skills they were taught and an examination of audio recordings showed they used and processed their use of the skills in ways that cooperative research suggests are beneficial for learning. Finally, the results of the quantitative and qualitative course-final survey showed that students had generally positive attitudes towards both the learning vocabulary using artwork and working in groups and that students enjoyed interacting and learning from fellow group members. There were some negative views of the cooperative tasks that need to be addressed in future use of these tasks, primarily making students aware of the reasoning behind the way they were being asked to carry out the tasks. The findings showed teachers can use artwork with confidence that students will learn vocabulary and that students are generally positive to the cooperatively structured art-based tasks. Future research needs to be carried out with other artwork, in different contexts, with students at different levels of language ability, and with additional art-based tasks.