Category Archives: visual literacy

‘Proverbs and sayings’ by Irene Vlazaki

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Proverbs are an important part of peoples’ different cultural capital filtering it into common sense truth. This lesson plan by Irene Vlazaki combines a variety of learning strategies using proverbs in the background. Learners will express themselves linguistically and artistically in a process of understanding how values can connect us.

You can find her lesson plan here Proverbs and sayings lesson plan_VAC

You can find her Power Point Presentation here proverbs_ VAC

You can find her worksheet here Proverbs_worksheet VAC

Bio 
irene-vlazakiIrene Vlazaki has been a teacher of English in Greece for 25 years currently working in a state primary school in Thessaloniki. Before settling in Primary classrooms she has had a significant amount of experience in all grades and levels of ELT. She is currently an MA student in intercultural studies and Pedagogy in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and strongly believes in the mediating power of English Language and the bridging of cultures it can initiate. Being a project coordinator in two Erasmus programs made it possible to see how problems can be solved through interaction and respect. ELT can be used in the most unconventional ways if students enjoy and learn and State schools are still in Greece a wonderful place for experimentation and creativity despite the many difficulties and lack of recourses.

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Visual Arts Symposium: Street art in EFL classroom by Magdalena Brzezinska

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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.

 

ART & LANGUAGE LESSONS

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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.

Art & Language Lesson 1

Charis Loke and the ‘Sorcerers Royal’

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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.

Aim of the Charis Loke lesson plan

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.

Range of topics to explore during this lesson

  1. The visual world of the illustration
  2. The creative process of the illustrator
  3. History: Regency Era
  4. History and Geography: Globes and maps, exploring the world
  5. Literature: Magic and fantasy novels

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.

 

Anna Whitcher & Kieran Donaghy: GISIG & Visual Arts Circle Joint PCE

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Social Justice and ELT through the Visual Arts

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.

 

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These are the resources presented in the session:

 

 

 

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Judy Boyle – The NO Project

 

 

The No Project

 

http://www.thenoproject.org/

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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.

 

Naomi Epstein – Visualising Ideas

 

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https://visualisingideas.edublogs.org/

 

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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.

 

 

Chrysa Papalazarou – Art Least

 

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https://chrysapapalazarou.wordpress.com/

 

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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

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Linda Ruas – Easier English Wiki

 

https://eewiki.newint.org

 

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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 – Film English

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http://film-english.com/

 

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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.

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The Image in English Language Teaching (ELT Council)

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 ELT

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:

 

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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

PDF PCE VAC Social Justice and Visual Arts in ELT