CLIL art lesson

Aim: Students learn about making art about emotion.

Level: elementary upwards

Language: Warm colours and cold colours, emotion vocabulary, The life and art of Vincent Van Gogh

Skills: Listening, Reading, Speaking, Creating

Time: 2 hours

Materials: Paper, Van Gogh pictures of Starry Night, Sunflowers, Self portrait, Cafe terrace at night, Paint, Paintbrushes, pencils, colour pencils.

Before class: Put Starry night, Sunflowers, and self portrait around the room.

Class

1 Warmer: Colour board race - Students write as many colours as they can.

2 Brainstorm: Draw two spider diagrams and write warm in one, cold in another.
                     - Ask students to decide if they are warm or cold.
                     - Students share.

3 Lead in/Art gallery: Tell students they should stand up, look at the paintings around the room with their partner and decide if they are warm or cold, how they make them feel, and if they like them. Students spend a few minutes and then share with the class.

4 Reading - Around the room are little snippets of paper with facts about Vincent Van Gogh. Students have to find out about his life and art and write down about him on a question sheet. Give points for each team 1st to 3rd to finish.

5 Listening: Tell students we are going to try and recreate one of Van Goghs paintings (Cafe terrace at night).
                   - First students listen and draw the features.
                   - Then they colour.
                   - Now they share (don't worry if they look silly, the main thing is that they are practicing                          listening in a fun and creative way).

6 Creation: Tell students to choose an emotion (1 minute), now they choose 4 colours with that emotion (1 minute) finally they choose something that makes them feel that emotion (1 minute).

Students now draw and paint a picture.

7 Presentation: Students bring their paintings to the front and present. Students answer the earlier questions and give constructive feedback.

Halloween storytelling lesson idea

Age: 9 - 13

Level: Elementary - intermediate

Language: Review - Lower levels - Furniture, rooms, word class review Extra: adverbs for storytelling, Narrative tenses

Skills: Listening and maybe writing.

Materials: Colour pictures of a haunted house and its rooms, blu tac, paper, pencils, cup, bubble wrap, celery, balloon, microphone

Before class: Place the pictures of the house and room around the room on the walls, make sure you place the outside view of the house on the board.

In class

Step 1 - Students enter and you elicit what is on the board.

Step 2 - Students stand up and explore the haunted house. You ask then what each room is and whats in each room?

Step 3 - Students predict what might have happened.

Step 4 - Tell students they are going to hear a story about the haunted house. They are given a number between 1 and 3 1s write verbs, 2s write nouns, 3s write adjectives.

Step 5 - Get the microphone and tell the story (Break the celery for the breaking of branches, roll the cup over the bubblewrap for the crunch of autumn leaves, bang the cup on a hard surface for stairs, whisper for ghost voices, scratch a balloon for creak
ing door noises.

John was playing hide and seek in the woods. He loved the woods from the day he moved to the little town near by. He could hear Ricky was coming by the breaking of branches and crunch of leaves. He ran through the trees and leaves of autumn gold, red, and purple flew by. Suddenly he saw something far away. John was interested and rushed over before Ricky had time to see him. He got closer and realized it was an old house. Perfect! He thought, he saw the old broken door was open a little… As he opened it, it creaked noisily. There was a little light to his side. He opened the door and saw writing on the dark walls. John couldn't understand it, the letters were different it was some strange language. He heard a whisper upstairs. He listened and heard it calling his name. He thought it was Ricky being silly, he went to find his friend. He walked up the staircase clomp clomp clomp he opened the door with the blue light. Ricky he said. He heard the front door Slam. Ricky wasn't in the room either. Suddenly the lights went out and then!!!!!!

Repeat 1 or 2 times.

Step 6 - Ask students to put the story together in their groups.

Step 7 - Ask students to finish the story (Set this task just before break to build curiosity).

Step 8 - Get students to share conclusions.


If you have more time, or would like a follow up lesson or something more challenging. You can follow the previous stages but with some changes:
For steps 4 - 6
Students write the words
One day
He
but then
Suddenly
Finally
Get

They then listen and complete the story.

You can follow this with step 7

Next put students into groups of 4 and get A1 or larger size paper. Draw around a child
Students write the name John write his personality and thoughts inside the body shape and physical attributes outside.

Get students to do the same with a new character on a new piece of paper. Get students to invent a character for a new story.

Finally they can use the story structure and character profile to write a new story either in class or for homework.

Craft ideas

Crafts can be a fun way of reviewing language points with younger learners. Crafts build soft skills and use kinaesthetic learning something often neglected. Below I will list three ideas and a lesson plan.

Superhero (Can and Can't) - Students need - scissors, glue, crayons, cut out body features, background templates, and a superhero template -

• Give students the materials, get them to colour the superhero and the background.
• Next Get them to cut out the features and the superhero. 
• After this get them to glue the features to the superhero.
• Finally get them to stick it to the background. 
• As a follow up get them to write 5 things their superhero can do and 1 thing they can't.

Make a cup and ball game (Verbs e.g cut, stick) - Students need - scissors, tape, paper, string -

• Get students to add a design to their piece of paper.
• They should then colour it in.
• Get them to cut the bottom corners landscape.
• Get them to roll the paper into a cone and sellotape.
• Next get a small piece of paper and scrunch it up.
• Sellotape this to a piece of string and the cone.

Origami (infinitives, any nouns) - Students need - paper -

• Provide a list of instructions in the infinitive.
• Students decipher the instructions.
• They follow the instructions and make.
• You can make this a race for extra fun.

Sundial (time) - Students need - paper plates, crayons, paper, scissors, glue

• Get students to write clock numbers on a paper plate and colour and draw.
• Fold the paper diagonally, and cut anything that sticks out.
• Glue it to the paper plate with the tallest part facing 12.

Teaching literacy through film

Reading and writing can often feel like a slog for learners, it requires a lot of concentration and can overwhelm students. Films however can be used to brighten this up, not to mention make grammar and vocabulary all the more interesting. Films are something we can all enjoy, they form one of the pillars of culture. Through image and sound they connect with to of our most powerful senses and bring the others to life. Not only this but recent studies in neuroscience show that the brain is not a fact machine, but instead it connects with and learns new information best trough stories (The neuroscience of storytelling). Stories like those contained in movies can enhance us in so many ways, and provide a thought provoking way of tackling lesson aims.

Below are some film ideas that you can use to really enhance your classes.

Film English: http://film-english.com/ - This website comes with a short film and a lesson with vocabulary, grammar, listening, and discussion activities. You can search by grammar point, vocabulary, level, and age to find the best film for your class.

Into Literacy Short Films: https://vimeo.com/album/3601739 (password: literacy teacher) - This was created by the British Film Institute and is very child and teen friendly. It contains many short films and invites us to create lesson plans about character, content, sound, image, and much more. Characters could be used to tackle verbs or adjectives, content could be used to tackle narrative tenses or reported speech, sound and image could be used to inspire a writing task. There are many more choices but these are a few options.

Character work: Watch a clip of a film with several characters. Give students a predictive task and/or descriptive task worksheet with questions about the character. At the end students share with their partner. Then you get a sheet of paper larger than a student. Get someone to draw their shape (repeat for number of characters). Students then write about the character using this to brainstorm. They can write personality, thoughts, and intent inside and they can write other things outside. You can then use this for a descriptive writing task, storytelling writing task, or role play activity.

Storyboarding: get a story board and give students a reading task, get them to draw the scenes and summarize. You can use this to get them to write a review or another story.

Storylinking: On the board write 5 words.

• one day
• he/she
• but then
• suddenly
• finally

Tell a story and get students to complete. Get students to write a new story, dialogue, or a blurb.

Foley sound: Foley sounds are the sounds of birds tweeting, leaves crunching, wind blowing, footsteps in the dark. They help set the scene. Get students to close their eyes, and then tell a story. Include some simple foley sounds (Foley sound ideas). Ask students to think how they feel and to guess the sounds. Get students to finish the story or to write a new story with the Foley sounds.