Reading shelf full of emotions
Teacher Maud Donga investigates the added value of emojis in education. Her emoji reading board and game to understand feelings and emotions are already catching on.
Image: Angeliek de Jonge
A thumbs up, a happy face or a heart: the colorful icons are indispensable in our online communication. “Emojis are the fastest growing universal language, but little attention is paid to them in education,” says Maud Donga, lecturer in trend research at Fontys Academy for Creative Industries. For her master's degree in crossover creativity at the Utrecht School of the Arts, she decided to investigate how emoji language can add value to education. For example, she made her first-year students reflect using emojis. Instead of writing pages of text, she had students visualize a situation, finding emojis and briefly explaining why they felt that way. They then processed this into an insight and a learning goal. “Students often dislike reflecting and sometimes just come up with something,” says Donga. “Now they were excited. They liked to express their feelings in images and to get concrete what it is all about.”
Cool
It turned out to be the beginning of her mission to make everyone digitally, emotionally and visually literate. “In education, the focus is on knowledge, skills and the end result. The pressure to perform is great. Fortunately, the attention for the learning process and social-emotional learning is increasing. As teachers, we will often have to learn to teach and assess the skills that go with this, such as learning to deal with yourself and others. I am convinced that emoji language can help with this.”
The next step in her research was to develop and test the emoji reading board. Instead of 'Aap, Noot, Mies', this shelf contains forty compartments with emotions and feelings. She wrote a lesson and manual for teachers in the upper years of primary education, which the FutureNL foundation offers for free as a digi-doer offers† For example, with the question 'How are you feeling today?' choose three emojis and briefly describe their feelings below. “This helps students understand who they are and how they feel. Everyone can interpret an emoji differently. For example, where a student interpreted the sunglasses emoji as 'calmness', the teacher saw this as 'cool'. This is great because it creates a conversation about feelings.”
Everyone can interpret an emoji differently. For example, where a student interpreted the sunglasses emoji as 'calmness', the teacher saw this as 'cool'.
She also developed the game What do I feel? consisting of 24 cards with emoji faces. Just like the board game Who is it? you have to find out which face the other has chosen by asking questions. Donga tested her game in group 7 of the Sint Antoniusschool in Beesd. “Students really enjoyed it. The goal is to introduce them to the emoji language. So there doesn't have to be a winner, and they liked that too. But it was quite difficult for them. Instead of 'Do I feel happy?' they soon ask about what they see, such as 'Do I have red cheeks?' or 'Do I have one eye open?' So they don't know how to ask questions about feelings yet."
Dolphin
Ideally, Donga would like to start using emoji language as early as possible. She is now in the process of creating multiple versions of the digital emoji reading board. The free digi-doer lesson for secondary education will soon be online. “I also get a lot of questions from the lower classes of primary education. If you start learning emoji language in group 3, you take them with you from an early age. I would also like a modern version of the original reading board
aimed at learning to read. That reading shelf contains universal emojis, such as the D for dolphin and the R for rose.”
The teacher will also have a physical reading board ready for her graduation at the end of this month with which she can go to the market. Donga: “Emoji language is so important that I want it to get professional attention. The added value for education is clear. It is a language that students
speak on a daily basis and that provides access to their world of experience. It makes it easy for teachers to gain insight into how a student is feeling, which is essential in the learning process.”
Are you working on something special, or do you know someone who fits in this series? Let the editors know. Dhis article appeared in the June issue of the Education magazine.
