The Language Teacher
July 2000

A Multi-Dimensional Approach

Brian Tomlinson

When reading or listening in our L1 we do not understand the meaning of an utterance or a text just by understanding the meaning of its words. In fact we do not understand the text at all but rather our mental representation of it. For this representation to become meaningful and memorable we need to make use of all the resources of our mind. We need at least to:

achieve sensory and affective experience of the text;
connect the text to our previous experiences of language and of life;
fill in the gaps in the text to achieve our own continuity and completion;
relate the text to our own interests, views and needs.

In other words we need to achieve multi-dimensional representation of the text in order for us to give it meaning and for it to achieve a durable impression on our minds (Masuhara, 1998, 2000).

If this is true in the L1, it is even more important when listening or reading in the L2. In order to interact effectively with the speaker or the writer (and to utilise the opportunity for language acquisition), we need not only to decode the words but to represent them through sensory imagery, inner speech and affective responses in our minds.

The role of multi-dimensional representation is just as important in language production. Prior to, during, and immediately after speaking or writing, we represent mentally what we want to say publicly through a combination of sensory images, inner speech and affective impulses. The words we then use are a means of trying to represent to others what is in our minds.

A multi-dimensional approach aims to help learners to develop the ability to produce and process an L2 by using their mental resources in ways similar to those they use when communicating in their L1. Doing so not only helps learners to maximise their brain's potential for communicating in an L2 but it also maximises their brain's potential for learning. We seem to learn things "best when we see things as part of a recognised pattern, when our imaginations are aroused, when we make natural associations between one idea and another, and when the information appeals to our senses." (Berman, 1999, p. 2). In other words, using affect, mental imagery, and inner speech is not only what we do during language use but also what we do to learn.

The Principles of a Multi-Dimensional Approach

My Multi-Dimensional Approach is based on the following principles of learning and communication.

Affect is the key to understanding and to learning. An "experience with a powerful attachment to emotions or feelings is more likely to be retained in the long-term memory" (Berman, 1999, p. 4), and so is an experience which we have positive attitudes towards and which helps to raise our self-esteem. Such experiences are likely to be more meaningful and more fully understood than experiences in which affect is not involved. Affective appeal is therefore a pre-requisite for effective communication and for durable learning to take place.

Making connections between a new experience and previous experiences is necessary both for communication and for learning to take place. Such connections are made by firing neural paths in the brain and are stimulated by sensory, motor, cognitive and affective associations.

Relevance is a key factor in the gaining and paying of attention and in contributing to the deep processing which is essential for long term learning to take place. Relevance is achieved through the stimulus of affective responses and the making of multiple and salient connections.

Sensory imaging plays a vital role in the creation and understanding of language use and is instrumental in the making of connections and the achievement of relevance. During language use in the L1 we touch, smell, hear and, above all, see things in our minds. If we do not experience such images whilst learning an L2, our learning will be impoverished and our ability to understand and produce the language will be impaired (Sadoski and Paivio, 1994; Tomlinson, 1998a).

The inner voice is used in the L1 to prepare for and to interpret outer voice communication. Developing an L2 inner voice not only helps learners to understand and to make themselves understood but it helps them to make the connections and to achieve the relevance which are crucial for learning to take place (Tomlinson, 2000a, 2000b).

Paying attention to language use helps learners develop language awareness and users of a language to achieve effect. This is particularly so if they have been engaged affectively and have managed to achieve connection and relevance.

The Objectives of a Multi-Dimensional Approach

My Multi-Dimensional Approach aims to help learners to

make full use of their mental resources in the process of learning to use an L2.
learn an L2 in both experiential and studial ways.
learn an L2 by utilising the same mental processes as they use when communicating in their L1.
develop the ability to make full use of multi-dimensional representation when understanding or producing the L2.
become accurate, fluent, appropriate and effective users of the L2.

Some of the Procedures of a Multi-Dimensional Approach

Engaging Affect -- The three aspects of affect (i.e. emotional involvement, positive attitudes towards the learning experience, and self-esteem) can be engaged by

encouraging learners to remember and recount relevant emotive experiences in their lives prior to or after participation in an activity.
encouraging learners to think about and articulate their views about a relevant issue prior to or after participation in an activity.
providing reading and listening experiences which have the potential for involving the learners emotionally. "It is emotions, not logic, that drive our attention, meaning-making and memory. This suggests the importance of eliciting curiosity, suspense, humour, excitement, joy and laughter. Story telling can provide an ideal means of achieving this" (Berman, 1999, p. 2).
encouraging learners to express their views, attitudes, opinions and emotions in writing and speaking activities.
creating an environment in which learning is a stimulating, enjoyable and successful experience (by, for example, avoiding activities which are mechanical, bland, trivial, or designed to trap, and by using activities which start from what the learners understand and then help them to deepen their understanding) .
providing activities which offer an achievable challenge.
catering for differing preferred learning styles by providing a varied choice of activities.

See Arnold (1999) and Tomlinson (1998c, 1999) for other suggestions.

Imaging

An "overwhelming amount of empirical evidence seems to show that imagery is a remarkably effective mediator of cognitive performance, ranging from short-term memory to creativity." (Kaufman, 1996, p. 77). It is also a means of stimulating and responding to affect, of connecting with prior experience, of predicting the development of a text, of achieving mental representation and of "accessing the right side of the brain, where creativity, intuition, spontaneity, and even healing capacities are said to reside." (Berman, 1999:3)

Learners can be encouraged to create mental images through

imaging activities in which the teacher guides the learners to see, smell, hear or touch things in their minds.
imaging instructions for language activities (e.g. "As you read the article try to imagine what the Maldives look like now and what they might look like if the seas continue to rise."; "Try to see your ideal house in your mind. Then describe what it looks like to your partner.").
activities which involve imaging as an initiating move (e.g. drawing what happens in a story, miming the actions in a story you are listening to, following a recipe, following instructions in order to play a new game).

See Tomlinson (1998a) for other suggestions.

Using the Inner Voice

Knowledge of a language is the ability to use that language; and the primary use of language is in thought. Knowing a language is being able to think in it. Learning an outer language involves the incorporation of that language into one's inner language. (Harman, 1981, p. 38)

On many language courses learners never really develop an inner voice in the L2 because they are constantly being urged to produce in the outer voice, because they are rarely given the time or the incentive to think in the L2, because many of the activities they take part in require little mental preparation or response, and because they often focus all their processing energy on perfecting their utterances in their outer voice.

Learners can be helped to develop an L2 inner voice by

postponing language production activities until the learners have had the opportunity to start to develop an inner voice through comprehension activities which require mental and physical responses.
providing activities which require learners to talk to themselves before talking to others.
providing activities which require learners to talk to themselves whilst listening or reading.
encouraging learners to talk to themselves in the L2 for "homework."

See Tomlinson 2000a and 2000b for other suggestions.

Kinesthetic Activities -- Early stages of my Multi-Dimensional Approach use Total Physical Response (TPR) to provide learners with meaningful experience of the language in use. The learners follow spoken instructions to perform actions, play games, mime stories, make models, make meals etc. That way they do not have to worry about producing correct language before they are ready and they begin the process of multi-dimensional representation as they represent the instructions in their minds before trying to carry them out.

Once the learners are ready to start producing language in the L2, TPR Plus activities are introduced in which the first phase of some lessons consists of a physical response activity, and the subsequent activities build on from it. Thus, a lesson might start with the miming of the first scene in a story from the teacher's reading of it. Then the learners might develop their second scene and write or act it. And finally the learners might read the story.

See Asher 1994 and Tomlinson 1994b for other suggestions.

Connection Activities

These are simply (but usefully) activities which ask students to think of connections between a topic, theme or text and their own direct and vicarious experience of life. They can be done as pre-, whilst- or post-reading/listening activities and can be private mental activities or pair or group discussions.

Process Activities

Instead of being given a text to read or listen to carefully in order to answer questions on it, the learners are helped to create a version of the text themselves. Some of the procedures which can help them are:

Shouting out the next word when the teacher stops whilst reading a story.
Writing the next word of a text as the teacher builds it up word by word on the board or OHP.
Filling in blanks in a text by choosing from a number of acceptable alternatives.
Writing a text as a dictation and then writing the next line in a group whenever the reader stops.
Reading a story page by page and drawing a picture to illustrate their predictions for each next page.
Miming a scene from a text as the teacher reads it and then in groups preparing and miming the next scene.

All the activities above are designed to activate the minds of the learners and to ensure that their eventual experience of the original text will be multi-dimensional rather than decoding focused.

Inferencing Activities -- These are activities in which learners are presented with a gap which has been left by a writer or speaker for the receiver(s) to fill in. The gap can initially be filled in through sensory imaging and inner speech and then articulated through discussion or writing.

Awareness Activities -- These are activities in which learners are helped to experience a text through multi-dimensional representation and are then asked to discover things about how the language has been used to achieve accuracy, appropriacy or effect. Such activities can involve investigating features of grammar, vocabulary, pragmatics, discourse, style, genre or text type. These are cognitive, studial activities but they succeed best if they have been preceded by activities which stimulate affective, experiential responses to the text.

See Tomlinson (1994a) for a discussion and an example of this approach.

Conclusion

A multi-dimensional approach does not need any special materials or techniques. It can be used very effectively by collecting a bank of potentially engaging reading and listening materials (perhaps selected from a coursebook) and then designing activities which involve multi-dimensional responses to them. The following flexible framework has been used to develop a principled and connected series of multi-dimensional responses to a text:

Readiness Activities (i.e. imaging, inner speech and connection activities aiming at activating the mind in readiness for experiencing the text).
Experiential Activities (i.e. experiencing the text through visualising, inner speech, affective associations etc.
Intake Response Activities (i.e. expressing affective responses to what has been taken in from the text; sharing mental representations with other learners).
Development Activities (i.e. language production activities which use the text as a base -- and thus also deepen understanding of it).
Input Response Activities (i.e. interpreting the intentions of the speaker/writer).
Awareness Activities (i.e. making discoveries about salient linguistic, pragmatic or stylistic features of the text).

For other discussions of aspects of a multi-dimensional approach see Masuhara, 2000; Tomlinson, 2000c, in press.

References

Asher, J. (1994). The Total Physical Response: a stress free, brain compatible approach to learning. SEAL, Autumn, 21-26.

Berman, M. (1999). The teacher and the wounded healer. IATEFL Issues. 152, 2-5.

Cornoldi, C. and Logie, R. (1996). Counterpoints in perception and mental imagery: Introduction. In C. Cornoldi et al.

Cornoldi, C, Logie, R. H., Brandimote, M. A., Kaufman, G and Reisberg, D. (1996). Stretching the Imagination: Representation and Transformation in Mental Imagery. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harman, G. (1981). Language learning. In N. Block (Ed.) Readings in Philosophy of Psychology. Vol. 2. London: Methuen.

Kaufman, G. (1996). The many faces of mental imagery. In C. Cornoldi et al.

Masuhara, H. (1998). Factors influencing reading difficulties of authentic materials for advanced learners of EFL. PhD Thesis. University of Luton.

Masuhara, H. (2000). Is reading difficulty a language problem? Implications of neuro-scientific research findings for reading pedagogy and materials development. The Language Teacher. 24 (2).

Sadoski, M. and Paivio, A. (1994). A dual coding view of imagery and verbal processes in reading comprehension. In R. B. Ruddell, M. R. Ruddell and H. Singer (Eds.) Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading (Fourth Edition). Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association, pp. 582-601.

Tomlinson, B. (1994a). Pragmatic awareness activities. Language Awareness, 3 (3/4), 119-129.

Tomlinson, B. (1994b). TPR materials. FOLIO. 1(2), 8-10.

Tomlinson, B. (1998a). Seeing what they mean. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.) Materials development in language teaching, pp. 265-278. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tomlinson, B. 1998b. And now for something not completely different: An approach to language through literature. Reading in a Foreign Language, 11(2), 177-189.

Tomlinson, B. (1998c). Affect and the coursebook. IATEFL Issues 145, 20-21.

Tomlinson, B. (1999). Adding affect to ESP (English for Special People). ESP SIG Newsletter. 15, 26-34.

Tomlinson, B. 2000a. The inner voice; a critical factor in L2 learning. The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning. Vol. VII.

Tomlinson, B. 2000b. Talking to learn: the role of the inner voice in L2 learning. Applied Language Learning. Special Millennium Issue.

Tomlinson, B. 2000c. Materials for cultural awareness: combining language, literature and culture in the mind. The Language Teacher, 24 (2).

Tomlinson, B. In press. Connecting the mind: a multi-dimensional approach to teaching language through literature. The English Teacher.

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The Language TeacherJuly 2000