Conference Agenda

Some children struggle with difficulties in learning to read and write. Researching teaching methodologies that enable children to achieve academic success are a matter of great importance as learning difficulties, namely, to read and write are common in today's education institutions.

Knowledge of the complete phonemic code, namely grapheme-phoneme correspondence is one of the essential foundational skills for reading success. The domain of the phonemic code is an essential skill that students must develop, to acquire the reading-writing process. Decoding and understanding are crucial to a meaningful reading process, in languages that use the alphabetical principle.

Children with intellectual disabilities, often, have difficulties in intellectual functioning (such as learning, problem solving, judgement) and adaptive functioning (such as communication and independent living) (APA, 2013). One of the three areas of adaptive functioning is the conceptual domain (language, reading, writing, math, reasoning, knowledge, memory). Mild levels of intellectual disability may not be identified until school age, when children show difficulties with academics, namely learning how to read and write. One of the reasons argued for this effortful learning may lay in the nature of the audiovisual process that is recruited for the integration of principle arbitrarily linked elements (Blomert & Froyen, 2010).

There are a range of models, methods, and processes for teaching and learning how to read and write, including multisensory methods. Multisensory methods involve the use of all senses. They focus on using visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile elements. They are based on the belief that incorporating all senses into the learning process activates different parts of the brain simultaneously, enhancing memory and the learning of written language. In traditional methodologies, teaching occurs using vision and hearing. In the multisensory methodology there is a recruitment of other sensory modalities, such as kinesthetic and phono articulatory techniques (Seabra & Dias, 2011).

The multisensory methodologies integrate strategies in its structure that include a greater number of sensory aids, like visual and auditory aids – the most used – as well as kinesthetic and tactile. The increase of this type of aid works as a compensation technique which allows the child to achieve a greater probability of success (Seabra & Dias, 2011). The relation between phoneme and grapheme, during the formal learning of reading and writing is based on a multisensory association. It is taught in a systematic and formal way that allows the manipulation of those segments, without recurring to higher cognitive processes (Blomert & Froyen, 2010).

Studies and reports of the application of this method in children, demonstrate that this is an effective method in learning to read and write skills. Studies in neuroscience and cognition also show that teaching with multisensory methods strengthen neural pathways (Kelly & Phillips, 2016). Through the development and implementation of a multisensory methodology-based teaching program, this research project aims at documenting and understanding improvements in reading and writing learning processes in children with learning disabilities.

This study presents the added value that art journaling has for Education students. Art journaling is a contemplative-pedagogical strategy we used while teaching “Assimilating Arts into Teaching,” an introductory course in an undergraduate program in Israel which emphasizes contemplation and personal growth through the arts (Ankori & Hammer, 2018).

Barbezat and Bush (2013) stated that “reading in college today is more often a race to finish a text than a search for hidden meaning” (p. 112). They described cases of college teachers who were inspired by traditional contemplative religious reading practices and who underwent a reading process in their classes aiming at achieving personal and spiritual insights.

Furthermore, Barbezat and Bush (2013) suggested that contemplative journal writing can encourage students to generate their own fresh ideas rather than limit themselves to the academic analysis of other people’s texts. It helps them explore their emotional, intuitive, and sensorial responses to course material. Many teachers introduce mindfulness meditation practice before, during, and after periods of writing or reading to encourage their students to write mindfully and to “discover direct, honest language, without self-conscious cleverness or display of ego, a language that yearns to reveal, to lay bare the truth of the student’s insight and the details of his or her unique story” (Barbezat & Bush, p. 132).

In recent years, personal blogs have been widely used in higher education to promote reflective thinking (e.g., Garcia et al., 2019; Rennie & Morrison, 2013). Blogs can facilitate student-centered learning, support the development of academic literacies, and foster collaborations (Wankel & Blessinger, 2012). Educational blogs can be seen as an extension of academic journaling: whereas journals are personal documents (typically read only by instructors), part of the thrill of publishing a blog is its public nature (Radclyffe-Thomas, 2012). For many students, presenting their artifacts publicly is a motivational boost (e.g., Radinsky et al., 2001).

In a visual journal, individuals record their experiences using both imagery and written text. Numerous studies have shown that educational journals and blogs promote critical reflection. However, few studies address the potential of visual journaling to facilitate reflection (Deaver & McAuliffe, 2009). Deaver and McAuliffe's participants considered the combination of artmaking and responsive writing to be a particularly effective aspect of their experience.

Contemplative art takes art journaling a step further. The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society (2016) described the creative “branch” (and, within it, contemplative art) as one of the major contemplative practices currently in use in academic settings. The Center stressed that the purpose of contemplative art is to observe the mind while engaging in the creative process. Thus, the process of making artwork overrides the product itself. For instance, people are encouraged to maintain an awareness not just of what they are making and the process of creating it but also how they are feeling and the way the mind jumps from one topic to another.

This study’s goal was to examine the impact of art journaling on students’ emotional and intellectual understanding of theoretical articles and on their ability to appreciate and integrate experiences and insights from theoretical papers into their professional development.

From those goals stem several research questions:

• How would students respond to the request to create art journals while reading theoretical texts?

• Would they be open to sharing their journals with classmates?

• What kinds of art journals would emerge from this assignment?

• What would be students’ evaluations of the extent to which creative art journals enhanced their understanding of a theoretical paper?

• How would students view the potential contributions of art journals to their professional and personal development?

Within the four language skills, writing seems to be the most challenging skill for EFL learners simply because it is a skill that must be learned well.

The focus of this action research was selected to be developing students’ writing skills, because according to the results of the external summative assessment, majority of students could not cope well with the writing assignments. By analyzing the high-school students works we detected some common mistakes that most students made in writing formal essays. Learners might go off-topic providing irrelevant information; superficial coverage of the subject and poor organization made the content unclear; due to insufficient evidence and unclear reasoning their arguments appeared to be weak and not extended, and they also found it difficult to support their claims. Miller & Pessoa (2016) also ascertained that many students at secondary and post-secondary levels, particularly L2 writers, struggle with writing arguments.

To identify the best approaches in encouraging students to strengthen their writing skills, the results of the previous studies were referred to. Researchers acknowledge the significance of argumentative writing in academic context (Lee & Deakin, 2016). In his work Schleppegrell, noted that “the construction of a well-organized text” is particularly important to argumentative writing (2006, p. 136). Hirvela (2017) identified that if learners are effectively engaged in arguing, it will lead them to thinking, searching, and learning.

Majority of researchers found feedback as the best way to encourage learners to enhance their writing. Hyland & Hyland (2006) indicated that feedback is a main form of ESL/EFL writing programs across the world. Ismail, Hassan & Maulan (2008) determined that even minimal feedback will help learners to do self-revision and self-correction. It was also proven that L2 students who receive written corrective feedback on their errors are able to improve the accuracy of their writing compared with those who do not receive error feedback. (Bitchener, Young & Cameron, 2005).

Taking into consideration the results of the previous and latest research works, providing students with oral and written corrective feedback was selected to tackle the problem. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to investigate ESL students’ perceptions and attitudes towards oral and written feedback they received for their essays aimed at developing argumentation skills as well as their reasons they made in response to feedback.

The study addresses the following research questions:

1. What is the relationship between feedback and learners’ uptake in writing?
2. How effective is written and oral feedback in encouraging students to develop their argument-building skills in essay writing?
3. What are the most effective ways of feedback that encourage students to develop their argument-building skills?

Brown’s words clearly underscore the fact that a teacher should be necessarily there if learning is to take place. That is possibly why Brown (2001, p.340) contends that “we are still exploring ways to offer optimal feedback to student writing.” Shintani & Ellis (2013) revealed that uncoded feedback leaves the student to diagnose and correct the error himself. Ahmadi, Maftoon & Mehrdad, (2012) found that in EFL writing classes it is advised to incorporate both feedback types, keeping in mind that there is no single feedback strategy which works for all students, in all situations and with all the variety of errors. Hyland & Hyland, (2019) disclosed that providing feedback to students, whether in the form of written commentary, error correction, teacher-student conferencing, or peer discussion is recognized as one of the ESL writing teacher’s important tool.

Based on research two forms of feedback were considered: written corrective feedback as explicit, implicit and uncoded and oral feedback - Teacher-Student conferencing, Peer review, Whole class discussion.