Daily Archive for August 12th, 2008
The expression “A picture tells a thousand words” means that a picture can provide the same amount of information
about something as one thousand words. This week at LanguageLab we returned
to the art gallery and put that expression into practice.
It’s fantastic having the opportunity to teach and/or participate in a lesson in a virtual world written by a qualified, experienced
teacher who has thought about how to really get the best out of a virtual world.
Paul Swindells wrote this week’s lesson. He’s also known by his online
avatar’s name of ‘Zakarias Trenchcoat’. You’ve probably
met him in class or hosting one of LanguageLab’s specially organised student
events.
The gallery was full of paintings that exemplified the
past 500 years of Western Art. There were loads of interesting activities designed to help students, not just to increase
vocabulary and practice talking about art but to be able to describe things in detail and express opinions about the meaning
and central themes of the paintings.
My favorite activity was studying a painting for one minute then turning our backs to it and trying to describe it to our
partners in as much detail as possible without looking at it. It was interesting to talk about the western art tradition and
I learned some fascinating things from hearing the students’ presentations. I hope we can come back soon to practice English
and discuss art from other cultures.
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