Author: Karen Faulds, SCILT
In collaboration with Dobrochna Futro and Bilingualism Matters, SCILT has been exploring an innovative approach to using art as a medium to support language teaching (Polish) with teachers across Scotland. This project involves teachers working in mainstream schools (primary) and in Polish complementary schools.
Dobrochna is currently undertaking a PhD in which her research focuses on multilingual practices of contemporary artists and their implications for language pedagogy. Dobrochna has developed a series of workshops for teachers pertaining to this. These workshops have enabled teachers to learn and investigate how using art to support language teaching can be implemented in the classroom.
The first of the workshops featured a presentation from Professor Antonella Sorace, founding Director of Bilingualism Matters and Professor of Developmental Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. Professor Sorace shared her extensive knowledge and expertise on bilingualism in the wider context and its significance in schools in a diverse and multicultural Scotland. In the second workshop, examples of using art to support language teaching in the classroom were shared. These examples included the use of language portraits, zines, multilingual comic strips and Chagallian idioms, with the latter supporting the artistic expression of idioms in various languages. Participants had the opportunity to create their own pieces of art based on the examples and share these with the group.
All participating schools are currently at the stage of planning how they are going to implement this approach with learners in their settings.
Dobrochna states: ‘This amazing collaboration of teachers from both mainstream and supplementary schools, complemented by the involvement of SCILT and Bilingualism Matters team members, allowed us to bring together vast practical and theoretical expertise in language teaching and learning. I very much hope that this project will let us further develop and share with others knowledge, tools and resources informed by both research and practice, that would be of use to language teachers and learners in Scotland and beyond.’
Following on from the implementation stage, teachers will engage in a knowledge exchange and evaluation session at a final workshop in January. From this, SCILT intends to hold an online event and exhibition of the children’s artwork when pupils will have the opportunity to share their learning of languages through the medium of art.
Credit for images: Artworks created by primary school age children who researched art-based multilingual approach to language learning and teaching with Dobrochna in 2019