Art

Lesson Plan for Connections: 

Standards:

  • Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language. (Art History)
  • Students acquire information and recognize the distinctive viewpoints that are only available through the foreign language and its cultures. (Viewpoint represented by the genre of this painting)

In this lesson plan the teacher uses a technique to introduce art appreciation in conjunction with language learning that was developed by the Museum of Modern Art. This technique emphasizes a personal, emotional reaction to a piece of art instead of factual knowledge about the art.

After this activity, the professor can follow up with factual and contextual knowledge if desired, thus leading to a more ‘cultural’ focus.

Time: 100 minutes (2x 50 mins)

 Proficiency level: Varied

Objectives:

Novice students can:

  • use basic vocabulary and description with simple sentences

Intermediate students can:

  • add interpretation to description and can write and act out narratives based on the painting

Advanced students can:

  • provide more hypothetical interpretation and more sophisticated vocabulary and can learn more content knowledge about the history and techniques of this type of painting

Learning Scenarios:

  1. 10 minutes – Teacher projects the image of the art and / or pass out copies of the artwork to students. For beginners, vocabulary is elicited from the class or provided by the teacher to describe the objects and activities in the picture. These words are written on the board and serve as a reminder throughout the lesson.
  2. 10 minutes – If the purpose is to teach descriptive language, the teacher can pass out a handout that explains the language that can be used to describe position: in Urdu, post-positions of place, but also the language used to describe art, such as foreground, background, and focal point. This can be combined with a discussion of ‘composition’ of art – ask the students why the artist placed the objects and people in the picture that way? Where does the artist focus attention? What feeling does this give?
  3. 15 minutes – Description can also be used to teach the following language –related skills: post-positions, adjective – noun agreement, gender agreement, and present tenses. After describing the picture thoroughly as a group and introducing any necessary the task of the student is to write a detailed description of the picture following the practiced model.
  4. 25 minutes – For more advanced students, the purpose of the lesson is to encourage interpretation of the picture without being given any contextual knowledge. The purpose is to use hypothetical language and evidentiary reasoning.       So, for example, the teacher can say “What is happening in the picture?” A student may respond, “A man and a woman are in love and they are meeting in the forest.” The teacher asks, “How do you know they are in love? What do you see in the picture that is evidence for that?”       Encourage the students to use more complex constructions like, “It could be…” or “The man might….” If they are guessing. This pushes the students to start to notice small details and challenges the assumptions they are making if the art is unfamiliar.       The teacher’s job at this point is to solicit responses, not to confirm or deny their validity. If necessary, the teacher can review the necessary grammatical structures to talk about interpretation and giving options. After the discussion, students can work individually or in pairs or small groups to produce a paragraph in which they give their interpretation and describe the visual evidences that supports their assumptions.
  5. 10 minutes – The teacher may need to model the language necessary to write the paragraph: write a sentence on the board like

“The man is in love with the woman, but the woman is shy. I think this because the man has a nice expression on his face and he’s looking at the woman, but the woman is looking down.”

Or, to use more complex language:

“The man might be in love with the woman, but the woman appears to be shy. This could be because the man is shown with a nice expression, while the woman is looking downward.”

6. 15 minutes – Personal Reaction: The picture can also be used to elicit feelings from the students. How does the picture make them feel? What does the artist do to convey that feeling? Does the picture inspire any memories or ideas about the world or human existence? Students can write about the picture on this level after a discussion.

7. 15 minutes – The writing can serve as both grammar and vocabulary enforcement and can be rewritten. This activity is an excellent pre-task to a visit to a museum where students can see the work of art or similar works of art, and also as a pre-task to further reading or a lecture on factual knowledge about the style of art, its history, and its connection to culture. For example, the following painting is related to a folk song, which the teacher could play and teach the story to the students.

Based on a lesson developed by Tasha Darbes for STARTALK@NYU