RESEARCH ISSUES TESOL Quarterly publishes brief commentaries on aspects of qualitative and quantitative research In this issue, two sets of researchers discuss picture series, a visual data elicitation tool commonly used in second language research, and provide guidelines for selecting, adapting, or creating picture series and for interpreting data generated by such visual prompts Edited by PATRICIA A DUFF University of British Columbia Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? MARIAN J ROSSITER, TRACEY M DERWING, AND VIVIENNE M L O JONES University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Ⅲ Picture stories have long been used by researchers to elicit language samples from second language (L2) students In our work with L2 learners, we have used several picture stories to study communication strategies, fluency, pronunciation, and vocabulary development Our decision to use these stories was motivated by a desire to maintain some control over the language elicited, while giving learners enough flexibility to provide us with a relatively realistic sample of their speaking proficiency We don’t generally advocate narrating picture stories for teaching purposes, because of the often superficial, inauthentic content, but they are useful in research contexts.1 When we looked for suitable picture stories in L2 texts, we found very few that were appropriate for our needs However, we did locate a few that initially seemed unambiguous Wherever we perceived a potential problem, we enhanced the pictures through coloring, eliminating confusing details, adding elements for clarification, and/or ensuring that representations were consistent throughout (e.g., clothing) In one case we commissioned an artist to produce a picture story that we believed would avoid any cultural misinterpretations However, an examination of 100 L2 participants’ narratives from five different stories revealed a num1 We thank Merrill Swain for this observation TESOL QUARTERLY Vol 42, No 2, June 2008 325 ber of unanticipated factors that contributed to the relative difficulty with which L2 speakers narrated them The most frequent problems encountered were related to the nature of the stories themselves, cultural content, and the clarity of the drawings One of our stories concerned a lost lottery ticket (adapted from Heyer, 1994) The owner went to the local garbage dump to retrieve it, and ended up enlisting the help of others Although we had altered the pictures in advance, by ensuring consistent character representation and eliminating an unnecessary panel (i.e., a single picture frame) and some extraneous details, some learners were still confused They didn’t understand where the people came from—were they already at the dump, or were they friends of the ticket holder (see Evaluation Criteria and below)? Sometimes descriptions of the stories in our research are confusing to journal reviewers An amusing story about two hunters was criticized by a referee for potentially upsetting L2 learners because it depicted rifles (see Criterion 10); however, no animals were hurt in the story, and the rifles were never fired None of our participants expressed dismay, but we are now more careful about how we describe our stimuli A cultural misunderstanding that we had not anticipated concerned a picture of two people who had collided and fallen down They were shown on the ground with stars above their heads; some students thought that they had fallen in love (see Criteria 15, 16) Other drawings were ambiguous, despite our efforts to clarify them A main character in a fourth story (Rollet & Tremblay, 1975) sat in a chair in one picture frame Some learners thought he was a boy or a doll, but actually, he was the same middle-aged man as in the rest of the story Here was a case of proportion—the head was relatively large compared with the body, and because he was slumped, he seemed shorter (see Criteria 20, 26) Based on the analysis of the transcripts, we developed the following guidelines for selecting or creating effective picture stories for L2 research Our goal in suggesting these criteria is to eliminate confusing visual elements so that the participants can focus on the linguistic demands of the story We address such elements as narrative and temporal complexity, cultural bias, and content, as well as layout, drawing style, characters, and other details that may affect participants’ ability to interpret and narrate stories (Levie, 1987; McCloud, 2006) These are only general guidelines; the weight given to each should be in accordance with the type of language phenomenon that the stories are used to elicit, the purpose of the study, and the proficiency and background of the L2 participants For instance, if a researcher designed a story to elicit certain phonological productions, such as consonant clusters, and included objects in the story that required those elements, a lack of vocabulary knowledge on the part of the learners might result in paraphrases that didn’t contain the target sounds An examination of students’ use of verb 326 TESOL QUARTERLY tense, on the other hand, would not be negatively affected by the same picture story In our own studies of L2 communication strategy use (Rossiter, 2003) and pronunciation (Derwing, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998), we took different approaches, using the same picture story In the case of strategy use, students received no help with unfamiliar vocabulary because the researcher wanted to encourage paraphrase, whereas in the case of pronunciation, students were asked to examine the pictures before narrating the story to see if there were any words they didn’t know They were then provided with the appropriate vocabulary (usually no more than one or two words per story) so that their productions would not be adversely affected by picture content EVALUATION CRITERIA A The Story Is the context of the story clear? Do the illustrations have a clear narrative? Is there only one story line? Does each picture frame depict a single event? Is the relationship between each of the panels clear (e.g., logical sequence)? Are the illustrations free of surreal or illogical elements? Does the story happen over a perceivable period of time? Do events follow in direct temporal sequence (e.g., no flashbacks or flashforwards)? Is there an even flow of time? 10 Are the illustrations free of traumatizing elements? 11 Does the story have a satisfactory ending? B Cultural Content 12 Is the picture story free of written text? 13 If there is written text, is it easy to read? 14 Are the illustrations free of word balloons and symbols (e.g., arrows)? 15 Are the illustrations free of cartoon conventions indicating movement, scent, etc.? 16 Are the illustrations free of culture-specific body language and representations of emotional or physical states? 17 Do the illustrations require culture-specific knowledge of customs and images (e.g., flags)? C The Pictures 18 Are the panels the same size and shape with distinct borders? 19 Are the panels in an easily readable order? (Note: Picture stories with 6–8 panels are standard.) RESEARCH ISSUES 327 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Are the proportions and the style realistic? Is the perspective accurate or unambiguous? Are figure/ground distinctions clear? Are characters and objects drawn in their entirety? If not, are the salient details visible? Are the lines and shading definite and clear? Does the use of color enhance clarity? Are there few characters, and are they easily distinguishable (e.g., by gender, height)? Are characters consistently drawn? Are actions clear (e.g., picking something up vs putting something down)? Do the main characters interact with a limited number of objects, if any? Are these objects easily distinguishable from each other and clearly drawn? Are the locations in different panels easily distinguishable from each other? Are there enough details to allow readers to understand the specific setting, context, and action? Are the illustrations free of distracting extraneous details? We have only dealt with issues that arise directly from the visual aspects of picture stories Other researchers, such as Sanchez and Jarvis (this issue), have investigated the influence of first language on picture descriptions, another important consideration for researchers ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for grants to the first and second authors We also what to acknowledge our participants and research assistants THE AUTHORS Marian Rossiter is an associate professor and coordinator of the TESL program in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Her research interests are L2 speaking fluency and immigrant/refugee youth settlement experiences Tracey Derwing is a professor of TESL and co-director of the Prairie Metropolis Centre for Research on Immigration, Integration and Diversity, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada She and Murray Munro have researched the extent to which L2 accents interfere with second language learners’ intelligibility She has also investigated the settlement experiences of refugees in Canada 328 TESOL QUARTERLY Vivienne Jones, a graduate of the University of Alberta’s master’s of education in TESL program, is currently teaching ESL at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada She is also a cartoonist and an illustrator, and she is interested in the use of pictures in all aspects of language teaching and testing REFERENCES Derwing, T M., Munro, M J., & Wiebe, G E (1998) Evidence in favor of a broad framework for pronunciation instruction Language Learning, 48, 393–410 Heyer, S (1994) Easy true stories: A picture-based beginning reader White Plains, NY: Longman Levie, W H (1987) Research on pictures: A guide to the literature In D M Willows & H A Houghton (Eds.), Psychology of illustration Vol 1: Basic research (pp 1–50) New York: Springer Verlag McCloud, S (2006) Making comics: Storytelling secrets of comics, manga, and graphic novels New York: Harper Rollet, G., & Tremblay, R (1975) Speaking and writing with comic strips Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Centre Educatif et Culturel Rossiter, M J (2003) “It’s like chicken but bigger”: The effects of communication strategy instruction in the ESL classroom The Canadian Modern Language Review, 60, 105–121 RESEARCH ISSUES 329