Abstract:

The use of vivid images, going beyond just sight and making use of all five senses, has been well documented as part of the self in the field of psychology (e.g., Markus & Nurius, 1986) and in second language acquisition as part of Dörnyei’s (2005) L2 self system. In order to better facilitate students’ writing, teachers often provide example compositions or show images to help trigger responses from students. The literature on the effectiveness of using the senses to improve linguistic proficiency is, however, very light. Because the sense of smell is highly effective in triggering memories and emotions (e.g., Gaines-Lewis, 2015), the authors of this study conducted a quasi-experimental study to investigate whether training the sense of smell would be effective in improving students’ writing proficiency. With one group of students, the researchers used a Le Nez du Vin scent kit to help trigger memories and emotions from past experiences. Another group of students, acting as the control group, were simply shown various images. Both groups of students were asked to write short stories about past experiences. Students’ proficiency in writing was analyzed using the online tool Grammarly and also compared for readability (e.g., Fog Scale). The results showed that students writing stories with the aid of scent kits produced better stories than the students who were simply shown images (p < .05). These results suggest that giving students the opportunity to use their other senses, especially their sense of smell, can increase the quality of their writing.

Keywords:

Writing, self, senses, foreign language education.