MOBILITY 4. Creative Methodology for the Language Classroom. Pilgrims -University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. August Falcó. Day 6

Art and literature

 Art gallery 

Spread pictures. Each pair gets three post-it notes. They choose three pictures and write comments people seeing the picture in an art gallery may say. Comments are collected and redistributed and then matched with pictures.

 Preference corners

Put pictures on both walls of all the four corners. Ss go to the corner where they like the pictures the most. They tell each why. They find another picture they all like.

What if?

Ss look at a picture and write ‘what if’ questions in groups or pairs. Then groups or pairs swap questions and answer them. They give the answers to those who wrote the questions and they choose the answer they like the most and read it out as one sentences, not as a Q+A.

What’s the title?

Exhibit pictures with numbers attached to them. Ss in pairs walk around and give titles to pictures. Pairs swap and compare titles. Similar? Different? Why? ► attach original tiles and compare.

 

Speaking from inside a picture         

Ss look at the same picture(s). In turns they volunteer to peak like someone in the picture(s). Ss identify the pictures.

Musical Landscapes

Bring to class reproductions of as many landscapes as there are students in the class and put them on the walls all around the classroom. Ss walk from one picture to another as they hear music. When the music stops, they can run to any of the landscapes they like, but one person per picture. Now ask students to imagine that they are in the landscape. Ask them to imagine their lives as that person. Give them one minute to think and generate ideas. Then ask them to choose someone, and invite that person to their picture, and tell them who they are. Their partner can also ask them questions. Give them one minute. Repeat the process three or four times, asking students to choose a different person each time and giving them longer and longer periods of time to talk.

Description inside out            

S A describes one of the portraits spread on the floor in terms of character and habit without letting B know which portrait it is. S B identifies the portrait, but doesn’t show which one they think of. Instead, (s)he describes how the portrait looks. Then they reveal their choices.

The Portrait’s Diary

Spread portraits on the floor or a large desk. Invite your students to choose a person they think they would have liked to be if they had lived two hundred years ago. ► Ss mingle with their chosen character and form families. Ask them to give their characters names and establish family relations. ► Spread the pictures of old houses and landscapes on the floor and ask your students to choose where they think their family could have lived. ► Ask Ss to imagine their life as that character in that family. Collect typical activities they mention they would have done. ► Get them to read Dorothy Wordsworth’s diary entries and compare their imagination to what it really was like ► Ask your students to write two or three entries of their person’s diary. ► Put portraits and landscapes up on the wall. Collect the diary entries and give them out to other students than the ones who have written them. Students match the diary entries with the portraits and the landscapes. ► Get Ss to pay ‘family visits’ to each other.