Language Teachers or Communication Teachers?
Andrew Wright, Hungary
Andrew Wright lives in Godollo, Hungary, near Budapest. Andrew and his wife Julia run a private language school in Godollo and Budapest doing mainly company teaching. Julia is the director of the company. Andrew spends most of his time writing books and travelling in order to work with teachers. Andrew’s books include: ‘Games for Language Learning’. CUP, ‘Creating Stories with Children’. OUP, ‘1000 Pictures for Teachers to Copy’. Longman Pearson, ‘Writing Stories’. Helbling Languages.
E-mail:andrew@ili.hu, www.andrewarticlesandstories.wordpress.com
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Introduction
Team teaching
Examples of short activities drawing attention to the ‘orchestration’ of languages
Summary
Books and articles by Andrew Wright related to this topic
Further reading and reference
In our materially rich societies, we have first hand access: to print and hundreds of typefaces and page arrangements of picture and text on our computers; sound recording equipment; wonderful still cameras; video cameras and editing facilities.
Every day, we are: photographing, sometimes editing the photos, sending them to friends; combining text and pictures on blogs; making videos and presenting in them.
We are experiencing verbal language as one small part of the whole orchestra of communication.
Actors learn to be more aware and be more skilful in handling all those elements which communicate: words, voice, body, stage management, costume, settings, music and sound effects. They do not only study the words of plays and expect to be an actor!
Film producers and directors use the language of acting but also the language of the camera with its close ups, cuts, panning and zooming and so on.
Graphic designers and typographic designers combine the non verbal languages of page design, typographic design and illustration together with the verbal content.
To make the point now: you are reading this article on the HLT website, which contains all the normal non verbal aspects of the language of graphic and typographic design. Look, for example, at the right hand side of this text! It is ‘aligned’, not ‘ragged’, as it is called in graphic design. Aligned left and right is thought to convey a feeling of discipline and authority. A more informal meaning would be conveyed by aligning left and leaving the text ragged, on the right.
Non verbal languages include architecture and industrial design, fashion design. There is always an element of conveying ideologies or ideas or feelings in what architects and designers produce.
In recent years many of the technologies which rely on all of these communication languages have become a normal part of a child’s daily experience and personal expression. And yet the emphasis in language teaching is still on verbal language as a separate communicative instrument…separate from whatever typeface or page design might be used or whatever vocal or body language might accompany the words being used.
In this short article I want to submit that we, as language teachers, should help to prepare students not only by teaching them English but by helping them to appreciate that English, or any other verbal language, is always experienced through non verbal languages. The students should learn that these non verbal languages are often more powerful than the verbal languages in the communicative effect they have on the receivers. The division of subjects in school is obviously and understandably a reflection of historical developments. Verbal language is separated from the study of other non verbal languages. There is a language teacher, an art teacher, a music teacher and a drama teacher and perhaps an IT teacher. I am submitting that to reflect social developments we need communication teachers. A half way house would be for teachers of language, art, music, drama and IT, to work more closely together.
You may well groan, as a language teacher, that life is difficult enough without trying to teach every communication language from verbal languages to typography to architecture!
Absolutely agree with you.
What I am suggesting, does require time and effort but that applies to every country and social group and individual…to move with the times.
Here are a few practical suggestions for what you might do:
If you are working in a school for students in primary or secondary education there will be other members of staff who do have some training in these other communicative instruments. The most obvious would be: teachers of art and design, drama, music and IT. Team teaching or cross curricular project work would bring in at least some of the expertise needed as well as providing extra lesson time. And, hopefully, more fun and sharing!
Voice
How many ways can you say, ‘I love you.’ What does each way mean if it is spoken like that? Who might be saying it and to whom and in what sort of context? Ask groups to work out some examples and then to demonstrate them to the whole class.
Typefaces
Ask the students to work in groups and to make a collection and a display of different typefaces in use in publications, advertising, comics, printouts from the internet, etc. They should then speculate about why each typeface was chosen according to what effect it was meant to have and on what kind of reader.
In design there are, broadly, three considerations:
- Practicality: What is available? What are the basic physical needs involved, for example, being able to see the text easily.
- The writer and/or designer expressing his or her feelings about the content of the text. Compare the M of McDonalds with the R of Rolls Royce.
- The writer and/or designer expressing his or her identity, social allegiance. Compare a Heavy Metal T shirt with a birthday card for a child.
The students can make a display and annotate their comments as well as give an oral presentation.
Project work
Here is an example of orchestration in a project I have run for several years. I know it works!
In my four day project week with 11 to 12 year old Austrian children we:
- Research information about Oetzi (the man from 3500 BC found in the ice)
- Experiment with grinding corn, making oat cakes, lighting a fire with flints, cooking
the pancakes. Making bows and arrows and shooting at mountain goats drawn on a
cloth.
- Climb a mountain up to the snow line imagining being shot in the back as Oetzi was
and making notes about our feelings and ideas. (Oetzi was found frozen at 3200 meters)
- Draft story line ideas and try them out on other people.
- Draft alternative style opening paragraphs
- Draft the story, submit it to an editor, redraft.
- Learn a bit about typographic design in order to design their story title
- Learn a bit about graphic design, alternative designs within a grid….so they can
combine their written texts and their illustrations in a way which expresses their
feelings about the content.
- Learn a bit about drawing people and animals in a setting…mountains, trees, snow, etc.
- Produce a written, designed and illustrated text which is then published together with
ALL the others in book form. Copies are made for everybody and copies are sent to
the Oetzi museum in northern Italy and elsewhere.
Are the books brilliant in every respect? Of course they aren’t! These are children conducting an orchestra in which they are playing all the instruments. But the next one will be better…probably.
By the way, I never tell them to get the language right! But they queue up to beg me to help them to get it right BECAUSE THEY KNOW IT WILL BE PUBLISHED AND WILL REPRESENT THEM IN SOCIETY OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM!
Words are manifested through non verbal languages, for example, vocal expression and body expression or graphic and typographic design. Children now have access to the most sophisticated technologies which make use of all of these non verbal languages. Language teachers should combine forces with teachers skilled in the non verbal languages in order to help children to learn verbal languages as part of the natural orchestration of all languages.
And something can be done about this with the resources available to the language teacher today.
mELTing Pot Extra -Teacher as Educator, IATEFL-Hungary Budapest, Autumn 2010
Storytelling with Children (new edition) Oxford University Press
Creating stories with Children Oxford University Press
Art and crafts Oxford University Press
Writing Stories (co-author David A.Hill) Helbling Languages
Pictures for Language Learning Cambridge University Press
1000+ Pictures for Teachers to Copy. Longman Pearson.
www.andrewarticlesandstories.wordpress.com ( a general collection of articles and stories for language teaching)
http://sandiemourao.eu/pages/resources (a very useful portal to the little bit of research which has been done into the duet of words and pictures in childrens books)
Please check the Methodology and Language for Primary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology and Language for Kindergarten Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
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