Bringing art into the language classroom

For the mid year meeting in KL this past weekend (Yes, I know halfway through already!) we were all asked to write an article on one of the activities we are most proud of at school. So here for your reading pleasure is the article I wrote:

Form 1 students painting a mural for Earth day.

How do you teach a language when the teacher and the students can’t communicate? There are probably many answers to this question, but my answer has been to rely on my strengths- art.

Soon after I walked into my first class I realized that many of the tactics my teachers used in my high school Spanish classes were not going to work here. There just wasn’t the technology or the resources I was used to having in a classroom, and more importantly I don’t speak the students’ language.

I quickly ran into problems trying to explain myself in classes, but after a few trials and errors I began to rely on my training as an art student. I started to draw visuals to go along with my English to more clearly communicate with my students. This tactic has been especially useful with my students who are illiterate in Bahasa Melayu let alone English. One of the teachers at my school after a successful lesson once told me, “those four girls fail Bahasa Melayu but now they are speaking English.”

 I have found that incorporating art projects with my lessons has also been particularly successful with my youngest students, 12 years old. These kids have extreme amounts of energy and have very few opportunities to use it during their listen, copy, worksheet classes. Including art has given them a way to release some of their energy through creativity as well as allowing themselves to express themselves further than their current English ability allows and helps to ingrain new vocabulary into their memory. I have also noticed that lessons that include creative projects have helped me with discipline in my youngest, rowdiest classes.

 For Earth day I was looking for a project to do with my students to remind them of how important it is to take care of our environment. I floated the idea of a beach cleanup with the students,  but received a lackluster response. Our project instead turned into a mural entitled “we’re all connected” on a wall in the school. As we painted we were able to talk about the environment, climate change, and what the students could do to help. We were also stopped by several curious students who wanted to know why we’re painting the mural. I was very impressed as I heard my painting crew explain to the passerbys about Earth day and our mural.

The headmaster at my school seemed impressed with our work and put in a request for a Teacher’s day mural we have been working on. And as a result we are forming a Mural Club at school where we work to brighten up the old, bland school walls.

Half way through the school year and I have only made a little progress on my Bahasa Malayu skills, but I have made a lot of progress with communicating with my students. Through my broken Bahasa Melayu, their English, and our art we are able to figure each other out and after all that is the point of learning a new language. Is it not?