We have the pleasure to share the announcement of a GISIG/MawSIG joint competition which invites entries for the project ‘Cinema Inspirations’.
Submit an ELT lesson plan based on a film (trailer or clip) related to global issues, and you could win free entry to the MaWSIG or GISIG 2019 PCE in Liverpool! The deadline is November 30th 2018
In our series of ART & LANGUAGE lessons we invite you to explore the world of contemporary artists in the classroom. They are all members of the Visual Arts Circle, and they have given us exclusive permission to use their artwork to create lessons for the Visual Arts Circle website.
In our first lesson we take a journey through Charis Loke’s illustration, a cover for a fantasy novel. The title of the artwork is ‘Sorcerers Royal’.
Charis Loke is an illustrator, visual storyteller and visual art teacher. She is based in Malaysia, and she also works on community arts and culture projects with Arts-ED Penang.
The aim of this lesson is to explore a book cover visually and use it as a starting point to find out more about the story it illustrates. We start with the image as it is easily accessible for most students. By looking closely your students might come up with ideas which are surprising and unexpected for you, and we believe that real discussion starts like that.
Here you can download the slides of the lesson plan in PDF format:
You can also download the Teacher’s Notes in PDF here:
We hope you will enjoy this lesson!
This lesson plan was written by Nora Nagy , Arts & Pedagogy Coordinator of the Visual Arts Circle. Nora works as a blog writer (Helbling Readers Blog). She is also a PhD student in Applied Linguistics, and she’s writing her dissertation about multimodal literacy development. She teaches at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary.
Last March, Anna Whitcher and Kieran Donaghy presented at the GISIG and Visual Arts Circle Joint PCE. In this session , they looked at a number of resources such as projects, resource websites, lesson plans and publications which promote social justice in English language teaching, created by members of the Visual Arts Circle, a community of practice of language teaching professionals with a shared interest in the value of using the visual arts in language education.
These are the resources presented in the session:
Judy Boyle – The NO Project
The NO Project is an award-winning, global, educational anti-slavery campaign that specifically targets youth awareness of modern slavery and human trafficking through film, music, art, dance, theatre, journalism, creative writing, education and social media. The project was set up and run by Judy Boyle.
https://visualisingideas.edublogs.org/
Naomi Epstein is a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children in a secondary school in Israel. She created her website Visualising Ideas to share her materials and ideas on how to use the visual arts with deaf and hard of hearing children in the language classroom.
https://chrysapapalazarou.wordpress.com/
Art Least is a site created by Chrysa Papalazarou, an English teacher from Greece who works in a state primary school. Her site explores ways of using art in English language teaching and learning, promoting social justice, and a more thoughtful and creative flow in the English classroom
Linda Ruas – Easier English Wiki
Linda Ruas is a trainer of ESOL teachers and an ESOL teacher at a London college. She is also Joint Coordinator of IATEFL Global Issues SIG.
The Easier English Wiki provides the same texts and photos that New Internationalist magazine offers, but with easier vocabulary and grammar. This content covers the issues many English language students are living with or experiencing, or issues that are vital to understand in today’s world. Learners can learn English, reading the simplified article and then the original, develop critical thinking and visual literacy skills, and break down barriers at the same time.
Kieran Donaghy is a teacher, trainer and writer based in Barcelona. His website Film English has a large number of lesson plans designed around short films which promote social justice and universal values such as compassion, kinness and equality in the language classroom.
Edited by Kieran Donaghy and Daniel Xerri
The book can be downloaded for free:
https://visualartscircle.com/the-image-in-elt-book/
The Image in English Language Teaching is the first publication of the Visual Arts Circle in collaboration with the Maltese ELT Council. It’s a collection of 18 chapters inspired by talks at the first five editions of the Image Conference. Two chapters are on how art can be used to promote peace and social justice in the language classroom:
Peace art: words and images interwoven
by Magdalena Brzezinska
Images on canvas: art, thinking and creativity in ELT
by Chrysa Papalazarou
For anyone interested, here is their powerpoint presentation and description.Social Justice and the Visual Arts in English Language Teaching Handout
Visual Arts Circle 