Claire Steele and Sarah Smith from ELTONIX (https://eltonix.com/) believe that art has an important role as a useful resource and tool across all subjects, including primary English language teaching.
Their October mini course, which was run together with the IATEFL YLTSIG, was packed with creativity and inspiration!
Here are some of the activities that Claire and Sarah shared with us!
1. What's your bedroom like?
Steps:
- Draw your bedroom in advance.
- In pairs, children describe how the two bedrooms are different.
Follow-up:
- Children draw their own bedroom and describe how different it is from Van Gogh's bedroom.
Language:
- furniture
- adjectives
- prepositions of place
- there is / are
- question forms (Where is the...? / Is there a...?)
2. Close up pictures
(It's a mushroom!)
Steps:
- Project a close-up photograph of something.
- Children guess what it is.
- Children take a close-up photograph of something in their bedroom and bring it to class for their classmates to guess.
Claire and Sarah suggested providing the children with some useful phrases when guessing. For example,
Language:
- modals of certainty
- possessives
- animal body parts
- adjectives for textures
Alternative:
Students choose a photograph or painting that they like and zoom in on one small part. They sketch this part.
3. Graffiti
How many monsters can you see? What colours are they? Choose your favourite monster and keep it secret!
In pairs, children describe their secret monsters.
Language:
My monster is... (blue and red)
It's got... (one eye, a red mouth, and two teeth)
It can... (fly)
Follow-up:
Children copy their favourite monster (and add a written description of it).
4. Kandinsky
Project pictures of the seasons and identify their colours. For example, these are the colours of summer:
Children create their own seasons!
For example,
Language:
My season is...
The colours are...
I like (the season) because...
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