Visuals for language discusses the role of visual support in grammar instruction. We introduce a consistent visual system developed for German as a Foreign Language (DaF) which associates visual features to grammar categories in order to reveal relationships within structures and foster comparison throughout all representations.
Visuals for language is a research project focused on how visual techniques such as highlighting and encoding can be combined to explain grammar rules and structures to non-native speakers. We present a consistent visual system developed for German grammar, which combines text appearance and symbols to reveal multiple grammar categories relevant for non-native speakers, such as grammatical gender, case, declension, verb tense, verb position, comparison and more. By maintaining a consistent visual character, such support fosters structure recognition and comparison as well as pattern identification throughout all grammar representations. Initially developed for the German language, this systematic approach of associating grammar categories with visual features could be adapted to create new systems for other languages.