10th Virtual Round Table
On April 27, the Visual Arts Circle went live on the 10th Virtual Round Table. Among the people who participated were Kieran Donaghy, Rob Howard, Magdalena Brzezinska, Magdalena Wasilewska and Valeria Benevolo Franca.
One of the VAC Circle’s members who presented, Magdalena Brzezinska, talked about the use of street art in the EFL classroom with teens. Her session was especially designed for the Visual Arts Circle symposium at the 10th Virtual Round Table (VRT) Web Conference and 9th vLanguages Conference.
Mura-love : Street art in EFL classroom
In her talk, Magdalena shared with the participants her love for street art, and she offered some specific tips on how such art can be successfully used in an EFL class to improve students’ knowledge and skills and to inspire learners to create.
The activities presented varied from simple pen-and-paper ones to high-tech online ones. Discussion incorporating certain MoMA’s art and inquiry techniques was introduced. Some other activities included :
- a debate;
- street-art-inspired creation of headline poetry, stencils, or students’ own graffiti;
- designing a social campaign; and creating a virtual interactive walk.
There followed a sub-section devoted specifically to Banksy’s peace art and Banksy-inspired stickers and tattoos, where such techniques as impersonation, focus on the senses, and designing one’s own peace sign/symbol were examined.
You can download Magdalena’s slides Magdalena Brzezinska VAC Mura_love Virtual Round Table.
Visual Arts Circle 
I have just downloaded Magdalena’s material. It provides such varied activities to a topic which is close to our students’ hearts and one of the best ways for them to express their thoughts and feelings. Thank you and greetings from Portugal.
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Thank you so much for your comment and for appreciating the activities, Maria. I hope they serve you well. Enjoy using street art in your class!
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I think another street artist who you can add to people to look at is eL Seed, who makes beautiful calligraphic murals across buildings: https://www.ted.com/talks/el_seed_a_project_of_peace_painted_across_50_buildings
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Thank you for your excellent suggestion, Emma.
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Dear Magdalena, I found your talk truly inspiring, thank you! Your passion for teaching is clear as you describe each process, tool and activity in this project. I love street art as well, and I’d also like to suggest one artist whose philosophy around street art blew my mind: My Dog Sighs, from UK. Besides painting amazing giant eyes on streets, he works on objects such as tin cans and places them back into society for strangers to find.
You can watch his TEd talk here: https://youtu.be/xaTNwJL0BiA
Another beautiful artist is Mona Caron…You will LOVE her murals. Here, a stop motion video of her art: https://youtu.be/5Hp7CNzKUss
best regards,
Afra
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