Teaching English in the Context of Pictorial Communication
Aleksander Schejbal
The main idea of the Animated Debate project is to facilitate intercultural
communication of young disadvantaged people through pictorial means.
The very choice of primarily non-verbal channels of communication discloses
an initial insight behind the creation of the workshops - the students
for whom the classes were organised had very limited knowledge of a
foreign language due to their various dysfunctions. They included many
different factors:
Psychological
(mental, emotional, behavioural)
Physical
(impaired movement, sight, hearing)
Social
(pathological family background, poverty, addiction)
For the reasons listed above the majority of the students did not
acquire adequate education at school and could not or did not take
part in extra curricular language courses. With the exception of a
few participants this was a factor which hampered their ability to
take part in a verbal dialogue with their peers in other countries.
However, ability is not the only reason which had to be taken into
account. In order to enter a dialogue with a group of foreign students
a genuine interest and motivation is required. The obvious question
which comes up here - "what for?" is usually easier to answer in case
of students who can see the usefulness of such communication in terms
of their general knowledge, possible holidays abroad, future education
or employment. But what does such a dialogue mean for youngsters lacking
the most basic skills, with no prospects of travelling abroad in the
foreseeable future and slender chances of using a foreign language
in their everyday life?
Furthermore, foreign language teaching is an art governed by strict
rules. There are certain requirements for a well organised language
course, which are universally valid, the particular method used notwithstanding.
One of the key criteria is the nature of the group - its size, age
and the level of knowledge of the language being taught. If the group
is too large and the students are not well balanced in terms of their
language level, ability and age, the quality of the teaching is seriously
impaired and the results are discouraging both for the instructor and
the students. This is the situation faced by teachers working in therapeutic
or resocialization centres. The workshops organised there are usually
open to participants with various problems and dysfunctions who cannot
be selected according to specific requirements of a language course.
This was certainly the situation of the Animated Debate workshops in
all the four sites, where the basis for recruitment was not an English
test. This is also the most likely situation in other centres for dysfunctional
youth which might attempt to introduce foreign language teaching as
an element of their educational programme.
What follows is an attempt to find a practical solution to all these
key problems in designing an extra curricular language course for disadvantaged
youth. The problems had been foreseen before the Animated Debate project
started but some feasible ways to overcome them were only discovered
during the two-year language workshops taught in three different countries,
Poland, Romania and Italy. It is hoped that the observations gathered
by English language teachers working in the three different settings
and using different methods can be of some value in other educational
programmes teaching foreign languages to dysfunctional youth.
Team Building
Students of different ages, language abilities and level cannot constitute
a group for a properly organised English course. However, they can
form a team if they are faced with a task of a different nature involving
their various skills and interests and requiring mutual support and
cooperation. In case of the Animated Debate project this task consisted
in making a set of digital animations on topics voted as interesting
by the majority of workshop participants. A computerised workshop environment
is one of the easiest means of raising young people's motivation and
willingness to take part in an educational initiative. In addition,
the prospect of creating their own multimedia artwork is a clear incentive
to minds submerged in modern visual culture dominated by advertising,
video clips and computer games. For most of the students, so far only
passive consumers of digital pop art, the workshops were the first
opportunity to be creative in this field. Faced with such a challenge,
even the students with little interest in any of the topics suggested
for the animations readily joined the project.
The next step was to assign specific tasks to each of the participants
corresponding to their abilities and talents. The arts instructors
planned the classes in such a way that the students could move from
one task to another and participate in all the aspects of the cartoon
production. Obviously, some of the students could easily progress to
more advanced assignments, while the others could only master simpler
things at each stage. For example, some could go straight to animating
objects on the computer, while others could only draw simple shapes
in Paint or just make some paintings using traditional paintbrush techniques.
The main objective was to create a sense of team work with all the
participants learning new things needed to assure progress on the film
and each contributing their own ideas and artwork to the final creation.
The team building was assured by a different strategy used in the second
round of the workshops. Instead of choosing one film for the whole
group in the beginning, the students were first subdivided into smaller
teams working on the same topic but using different techniques and
styles. This proved a more manageable option in case of groups with
a large percentage of severely handicapped persons who needed help
from their friends. Working in a small group with no need of rotation
from one desk to another was easier for those kids, although the scheme
was more challenging for the instructors who had to monitor work on
different animations at the same time and adjust the syllabus to each
sub-teams.
The general scheme described above provided a context for language
teaching as an integral element of the workshops. Each of the Polish
groups worked on the same topic chosen for the animations in pair with
a partner group in another European country, Britain, Italy or Romania.
On both sides, the students could realise that there was a parallel
effort being undertaken to create a set of animations. This gave reason
to curiosity and interest in the creative process going on in a faraway
location. The project website provided space for all the groups to
publish the results of their progress (Animations Studio) before the
final results could be seen (Presentations). The pictorial exchange
effectuated through the website, taking various forms of drawings,
sketches, animations, provisional and chaotic as it might seem, was
taken as an invitation to a verbal dialogue. Some of the pictures in
order to convey meaning had to be accompanied by simple phrases; in
some cases the pictures were arranged as puzzles requiring the understanding
of a few English words to solve; for some animations a few words of
introduction were required. What could be seen on the website also
encouraged the students to send short e-mail messages to their partners
including simple individual or group introductions and more specific
questions relating to the artwork published. In short, the students
were willing to learn some language as a useful means to set up a communication
platform with their partners in another country. This willingness to
communicate with real people, working on the same subject was always
in the forefront of the English part of the workshops. The instructors
could not and did not prepare a syllabus for the whole course in advance.
Instead, they had to prepare each lesson individually to assure its
relevance for real communication tasks emerging in course of the pictorial
exchange. What follows is an illustration of the teaching process based
on the debate run by the partner workshop groups.
Teaching Vocabulary
The Polish-Italian partnership chose the ancient myth of Hercules
as the subject of the debate in the second round of the workshops.
This topic had a particular relevance for the Sicilian location of
one of the teams and the lively character of the main hero attracted
also the Polish students to the myth. The twelve labours of Hercules
provided a framework for the animation classes and created ample opportunities
for English language teaching. The language lessons closely followed
the progress of the arts workshops. Just as the students began with
easy tasks of learning how to create simple colourful shapes in Paint,
the English lessons introduced basic vocabulary connected with the
artwork produced.
In order to illustrate the vocabulary teaching methodology with concrete
examples we decided to choose a set of two initial introductory lessons
dealing with colours and parts of the body. Each student completed
the arts section of the workshops with a digital painting of Hercules,
a provisional outline of the main hero of the myth. They were asked
to print the pictures in colour and bring them to the language class.
The students had at their disposal paints, paintbrushes, crayons, sheets
of paper and digital dictionaries on computers- a usual set of tools
for the Animated Debate English workshops. These basic materials and
equipment were used in the language classes outlined as follows:
Lesson 1 - Colours
The
students were seated at one large desk and invited to present their
pictures of Hercules. Very different characters surfaced in the
pictures.
The
teacher directed the students' attention to different colours used
to depict Hercules. Some students attempted a realistic presentation
of the hero while others ventured more imaginative colourful depiction.
The
teacher suggested making a palette of all the colours used in the pictures.
This was done individually by each student using paintbrushes
to paint colourful shapes on paper.
The
students were asked if they can name some of the colours in English.
The teacher was writing the names on the board as the students were
contributing new words. The list was then supplemented by the teacher
to cover all the colours painted on paper.
The
pronunciation of the words was drilled chorally and the meaning consolidated
by individual students coming to the board and underlying
each word with a corresponding coloured marker.
The
completed list was repeated chorally again and the students were asked
to write down the words next to corresponding colours on their
sheets of paper.
The
vocabulary was consolidated through a round the table circle of questions
and answers. Each student asked the pupil next to him/her
at the table the question "What colour?" and pointed at a part of the
picture. The question was answered by giving the right name and repeated
for the next student to answer.
The
students took their palettes home to consolidate the vocabulary. Their
class work and homework at the same time looked similar to the
example shown above (Natalie's palette).
Lesson 2 - Parts of the Body
The lesson was prepared as a follow-up after the above. Its purpose
was to consolidate the colours, introduce new vocabulary relating to
parts of the body, as well as extend the functional language. This
is the outline of the lesson plan:
The
students had with them their pictures of Hercules and the previous
lesson colour notes.
One
of the students was asked to come to the board and sketch his/her hero
in black.
The
teacher asked the students to name parts of the body seen in the picture.
The words were written on the board by the teacher and
the missing names supplemented.
All
the words were drilled chorally by the class to consolidate the pronunciation.
Each
student made notes on his/her picture of Hercules using arrows to connect
words and parts of the body.
Before
practising simple dialogues based on the vocabulary introduced, the
class consolidated the colour words from the previous lesson.
A
new question "What colour is his head/neck/leg, etc?" was introduced
and repeated chorally?
The
question was practised round the table with individual students pointing
at a part of the picture next to him/her and eliciting the
name of the proper colour.
The
students took their annotated pictures home to consolidate both the
vocabulary and the function practised.
Both the lessons involved the majority of the workshop participants
whose language level was rather low. Some of the students refused to
participate in the classes, either due to a higher level of English
or a lack of interest in this kind of activity. They were assigned
complementary tasks on the computer. The sketches of Hercules included
some items not covered in the lessons, like weapons, clothes or background
details. The extra task assigned consisted in making a list of these
things and translating them into English using a digital dictionary.
This vocabulary was then integrated into the main class with the outsider-students
asking the colour questions with a broader range of words while the
rest of the class was listening and practising comprehension skills.
Teaching functions
From the very beginning the students were taught functional language
useful in the context of the "debate". Before moving to more conceptual
acquisition of basic grammar points the students learned how to enter
simple exchanges based on the artwork they were making in course of
the animation classes. In order to illustrate the methodology at this
stage we have chosen a part of the Hercules storyboard made to provide
a basis for the animated film. The students are already quite advanced
in their work on the film having created the scenario and the main
characters as well as outlined the whole story in pictorial terms.
The English lessons closely followed the progress of the animation
workshops. Two of the lessons taught illustrate this interconnection.
Lesson 1 - Expressing ability
The picture shows Hercules on his way to Nereus. He is surrounded
by snakes and stones in the desert. The figures were made of plasticine
and put on painted cardboard. The consecutive positions of the figures
were then photographed with the digital camera and the phases edited
on the computer for the final animation. The original cardboard stage
was used for the English class. The lesson was outlined as follows:
The
students were seated around their arts workshop table with the cardboard
stage in the middle and the whole scene visible to everybody.
The
scene noun vocabulary was revised in a set of questions: What's this?
Is it a stone? What colour is the cactus?, etc.
The
teacher introduced new verbs needed to practise new functions in the
lesson: walk, crawl, raise, fight, jump and throw. Each of the
words was illustrated by showing the concrete actions on the scene.
The
key lesson question: Can Hercules walk/crawl, etc? was introduced and
consolidated chorally along with the movement illustration.
Then
individual students were asking similar questions round the table eliciting
answers in words and movements on the cardboard stage.
The
structures learned and practised in the visual context were then applied
to real life situations in a set of questions/answers of the
type: Can you crawl? Yes, I can/ No, I can't.
A
more advanced application of the structure with the introduction of
the third person singular he/ she was then presented and practiced
thus allowing the teacher to consolidate a basic grammar point.
Lesson 2 - Talking about numbers
The picture shows four scenes on the same storyboard with Hercules
and Nereus as the main characters. Again the stage was put on the table
in the middle of the group of students for everybody to be able to
see and move characters on the cardboard. In addition, students brought
with them various plasticine objects created for other film scenes
like snakes, arrows, apples, snails, etc. These visual resources provided
the tools for the presentation of new language material and consolidation
of the previous lesson structure:
The
class started with the revision of the can you/he/she...? structure.
This was done in a set of questions/answers referring to a new visual
context; a few new words were introduced to describe new objects on
stage.
The
teacher then introduced a new question relatively easy to master now:
Can you see a tree? Can you see a yellow tree?, etc and elicited
answers of the type: Yes, I can/ No, I can't. I can see a green tree.
This was partly a follow up to the previous functions and partly a
preparation to the main lesson point.
Once
the students mastered the above in a round of questions/answers a more
challenging structure was presented: How many trees can you
see? The students repeated the question chorally a few times and then
practiced it round the table changing the objects referred to. They
already knew numbers needed to give answers to the questions.
The
group was subdivided into two teams. Each team had to reorganise the
stage adding new objects or removing some figures from the scene.
Then each student from the team had to ask at least one question for
the members of the other team to answer. The roles were then reversed.
The
lesson was concluded with some real life situations: How many computers
can you see?, Can you see a snail?
These two consecutive lessons are just an extract from the syllabus.
Teaching functional language was essential for the task of introducing
the students to real exchanges with their foreign partners. Pictorial
resources published in course of the project on the website (Animations
Studio) by all the paired groups created curiosity in what was happening
in the partner workshops and provided incentive to asking questions.
Obviously, the teacher's support was needed to enter a genuine dialogue.
Sometimes it took the form of corrections of original questions; sometimes
slight additions were needed. For example, in reference to the above
lessons, most of the students could master questions like: Can your
Hercules walk/ run/ talk, etc? and email them to their partners. The
teacher's addition would then be: Can your Hercules run like ours can?
See it at … (website link). In some cases the teacher's contribution
had to go far beyond the students' capacity. Especially in cases where
some key messages had to be translated for the students to mail them
to their partners or in case of received messages written in the language
beyond the students' ability. The main effort was to keep up the "debate"
even in spite of serious language difficulties.
Teaching Grammar
Teaching grammar is usually the hardest part of language teaching
to teenagers if done for "its own sake" without any stimulating context.
Certainly, this task was facilitated here by the main methodological
principle of introducing all language items in close interconnection
with pictorial assignments in which the students were involved. How
elementary grammar points were presented, practiced and consolidated
is shown by the following extracts from the syllabus:
Lesson 1 - Present Continuous
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The present continuous tense was introduced in course of the students
working on the above scene of Hercules visiting the king. All the detailed
items had already been created for this scene (plasticine figures like
in the top close-up), still more figures and storyboards were missing
for the following ones. In order to make a stop-frame animation of
the whole scene each of the movements had to be actually made against
the background, consecutive positions of the figures photographed with
the digital camera and the whole sequence edited on the computer. This
was a task requiring diligence, patience and a relatively slower pace
of workshops at this stage. The students worked in two groups at two
distant corners of the classroom. One team was animating the scene
(shots made with digital camera and edited on the computer) while the
other was finishing some details for the next storyboard using traditional
arts techniques (moulding, drawing, painting). Two instructors were
running the workshops with two computers available at the two desks.
The English lesson was taught within the four-hour workshop and divided
into three parts:
Presentation of new grammar point (around 30 minutes in the beginning
of workshop)
All
the students were gathered at one table for this part of the lesson.
The teacher started with the revision of verbs describing students'
tasks in the classroom (paint, draw, take photographs, etc) followed
by introduction of a few new verbs.
A
new structure was introduced with the question: What are you doing,
Kate - walking, painting, sitting? The form of the question made it
relatively easy to elicit "sitting" in this case. Similar questions
were asked round the table with students giving answers prompted in
the questions.
The
students were asked to fetch some plasticine figures from their arts
workshop table. This helped the teacher to introduce the third
person in questions referring to the figures like in the following
examples: What is Hercules doing? Is he talking to the king? or What
are the nymphs doing? Are they swimming? The students could easily
understand the questions, still they found it difficult to make full
answers like Yes, he is talking to the king. No, they aren't swimming.
To
clarify the difficulty the full conjugation was written on the board
in a sufficient number of examples for the students to understand.
They had already been acquainted with the conjugation of the verb "to
be" so the present task was relatively easy.
This
part of the lesson was concluded with the students themselves asking
their own questions round the table.
Practice (around 40 minutes in the middle of the workshop)
This
was integrated with the students' actual work on the film. The two
groups were asked to stay at their two distant workshop tables.
The teacher showed them how they could communicate with each other
using the Intranet computer network with the simplest Windows pop-up
option.
Each
group was given the task of finding out what the other group was doing
and report the findings to the teacher using only computers
for this purpose.
In
order to do this they had to write questions like "What are you doing?"
"Is Hercules fighting the dragon?" "Are you painting the tree?"
which would pop-up on their partners screen. The answers were sent
back in the same way. The students could use on-line dictionaries to
look up new words for more advanced questions.
The
concluding reports took similar forms as both the groups had to sent
their findings to the teacher's computer.
The
on-line exchange proved quite exciting to everybody. It both allowed
the students to make a break in the long animation workshop
and practice a new grammar structure in writing.
Consolidation (around 20 minutes at the end of workshop)
Consolidation
was done orally with all the students sitting at one table again. They
were shown parts of their own animations on the computer
screen which was also a suitable conclusion for the arts workshop.
The
students were asked to make comments on the actual movements on the
screen. They were either coming up with comments themselves
like "Oh, the dragon is coming!" or were answering questions like "Who
is talking to Hercules?", "Is he standing or walking?"
In
cases of difficulty or inaccuracy the relevant movements were played
again and correct comments elicited.
The
new structure was revised in subsequent lessons as was the case with
all the key points of the syllabus.
Lesson 2 - Prepositions of place and position
This lesson was based on a scene rich with visual content - the picture
presents the meeting of Atlas with the nymphs and the dragon behind
them. The plasticine figures are easily moved against the painted cardboard
background and new objects can be introduced on stage. The English
lesson was organised as follows:
The
class was seated around one table with the stage set in the middle.
Each student had with them a few other plasticine objects or
characters used in other scenes of the film.
The
teacher introduced basic prepositions of place and position including
in, on, near, between, under, over, in front of, behind and into by
moving Atlas around the scene and commenting on his position. The students
were asked to repeat the prepositions chorally once everybody grasped
the relevant meaning in each case.
The
prepositions were consolidated on the basis of visual demonstration
on the scene in a set of teacher questions and elicited student answers:
Where is the dragon? In front of the nymphs or behind them? The expected
answer "behind" was usually forthcoming. In case of mistakes, the meaning
of the preposition was presented again with the help of visual resources.
The
students practised the new vocabulary in pairs asking the same type
of question: Where is x? In front of y? with or without the prompt
this time.
At
the end of the lesson the revision of the whole material was connected
with the repetition of the imperative structure previously introduced.
The students were asked to put their own plasticine figures on stage
following the teacher's instructions like: Kasia, put your snail near
the dragon! Now move it slowly into his mouth, etc. Most of the students
could understand the directions and followed them gladly.
The above lessons illustrate the key concept of grammar teaching in
the context of the Animated Debate classes. All the language points
were closely interconnected with the pictorial resources contributed
by the students and playing a distinct role in the whole process of
film making. Accordingly, the visual context enhanced the acquisition
of more conceptual language items. On the other hand the students could
see the value of the new structures learnt while engaging in simple
exchanges in English with their partner group working on the same theme
in another country. The next chapter looks more closely into the ways
in which this debate in a foreign language was effectuated.
Communication Platform
The Animated Debate workshops ran for two years. Two different communicative
strategies were applied and tested in each of them. Accordingly, the
presentation of the students' communication in English is divided into
two parts.
Year 2003/2004
In the first year of the workshops English exchanges between partner
groups were effectuated through a discussion forum called the Animated
Debate Junior Common Room. The basic idea behind the creation of this
message board was to engage the students into a regular dialogue with
their partners alongside the pictorial exchanges which were the main
means of communication in the "animated debate". The partner group
instructors agreed on a syllabus to follow with each group to make
the exchanges consistent while leaving space for topics emerging in
the course of the arts workshops. In principle, the English course,
with its methodology outlined above, was structured in such a way as
to facilitate the student debate with its two main assignments.
Student Introductions
The above examples show what the students were able to write to introduce
themselves to their partners. Such posts published in the Junior Common
Room were results of a series of English lessons based on example introductions
taken from books and the Internet and integrated with the basic language
course. The students had to read and understand this sort of texts
before moving on to a more challenging task of writing their own introductions
with the teacher's help. The following problems surfaced in the course
of this part of the syllabus:
Participants
of the workshops were at different levels of English writing skills
and it was impossible to expect all the students to
write their profiles.
Partner
groups progressed at different speed and some students, having published
their introductions, had to wait a long time for their counterparts
to follow up.
Introductions
published on the forum looked much alike in many cases which made the
whole section rather monotonous and the partner profiles
not as interesting as could have been expected in the beginning.
The next part of the debate was planned for more lively and spontaneous
exchanges. The students had already been quite advanced in their work
on animations and thus curious of how the work was progressing in the
partner group.
Student Open Debate
Once the students got to know each other they started asking questions
both of general nature and specific questions relating to the partner
workshops. As the sample post above shows, certain language items could
be practically applied in course of these exchanges. In this case the
message was written in a follow up to the present continuous tense
lesson. The students worked in pairs writing the messages off-line
on the computers while the teacher was moving from one desk to another
helping with new words and difficult structures. At the end of the
lesson (or a series of lessons in case of longer texts) the students
were able to log in the Junior Common Room, post their messages themselves
and read posts from other groups. This approach brought the following
problems:
The
questions which the students were eager to ask were much above their
foreign language ability. Substantial teacher contribution was
needed to keep the debate relevant to the actual students' queries.
It was difficult to maintain a balance between teaching and translating
and the problem was aggravated by different approaches chosen in each
site - this resulted in a certain inconsistency on the forum between
questions (e.g. longer letters partly translated for the students to
send) and answers (e.g. short, simple sentences sometimes written in
flawed language by students themselves).
Due
to different levels of English skills and the nature of disabilities
of the partner groups it was impossible to apply the same syllabus
in each workshop. Accordingly, a letter written at a certain language
level (e.g. including present continuous questions as the example above)
could not be properly answered by the partner group not knowing the
structure yet.
The
above problems resulted in a certain discouragement both on the student
and teacher part. Although the debate was maintained until
the end of the first round of workshops each group concentrated more
and more on their own work and enjoyed the picture and animations exchange
much more than the debate in English.
One way of resolving the difficulties was to engage the students in
a whole class-to-class debate on a theme connected with their current
animation project. The students exchanged parts of their artwork and
asked their partners for interpretation of their content. Such texts
were written on the basis of contributions from all the students, sometimes
with the most advanced students taking the lead and the teacher helping
with difficult grammar points, correcting mistakes or translating the
most difficult parts. This is an example illustrating this approach;
one of Polish groups is answering their English friends' guesses on
the film storyboard:
The communicative approach of the first round of workshops was one
of the key issues discussed between the partners during the summer
break. Taking into account the difficulties of separate verbal student
exchanges they decided to look for ways of closer interconnection of
pictures and words in the next round. What follows is an overview of
the second year methodology.
Year 2004/2005
The partners agreed that the students' communication in the second
round of workshops would entirely be based on pictorial exchanges.
Accordingly, English was taught in the context of work on the animations
and verbal messages accompanied artworks produced in course of film
making. The Junior Common Room discussion board was thus left inactive
for the whole year and the picture-word messages were either e-mailed
or published on the project website in one of the two sections accessible
to all the groups, Animation Studio or Presentations. In order to illustrate
the methodology applied to effectuate the student debate we have chosen
the following sample projects.
Picture/Animations Exchange
| KASIA |
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The above work is a sample of the interim stage of the English - Polish
exchange. Both groups were practising basic digital photography and
animation techniques while working on the topic of My Yard. The theme
was chosen as an opportunity for the students to introduce themselves
to their partners through visual presentation of their local environment.
The two groups worked in different arts techniques and the language
part was also integrated into the project differently. The Polish
group started with the verbal presentation of the concept of My Yard.
The students came up with a set of key ideas associated in their
mind with this concept. They were expressed either in simple words,
like in the above project made by a mentally disabled girl, or longer
phrases and sentences. The English teacher could easily adjust the
tasks to individual students' ability - following the lesson introducing
the relevant vocabulary, the students were helped to express their
ideas in a doc. format using on-line dictionaries. When this had
been done, the students proceeded to visual illustration of these
ideas, again practising drawing or animation techniques adjusted
to their ability. In the course of this work the list of English
words could be modified, supplemented, revised, etc. Once the project
was finished it was published on the AD website for the partner group
to view. The answer would sometimes appear in a very different style
and format which the picture shown below, contributed by a student
from London, illustrates.
The London students did not take part in the English course for a very
simple reason - without any additional classes they were much more
advanced in their English language skills than their foreign partners.
The workshops concentrated on digital arts. However, in order to
maintain communication with their Polish partners, the students sent
verbal messages as well. The above picture with a subtitle shows
how this was done. The group started work on the topic of My Yard
with taking digital photos on the spot. The material was then used
in the computer animation workshops but before the final results
were achieved, annotated pictures were sent to the partner group
and published on the AD website. This gave the Polish group an insight
into the Yard of their partners and an opportunity to read some English
comments in an authentic language, far from the model standard English.
Film Subtitles/Soundtrack
Once, there was a tree that loved a little boy. The boy came to the
tree every day.
He ate the fruit.
The boy played with the tree every day.
He climbed the tree trunk and swung on its branches.
The boy loved the tree. He loved it very much and the tree was happy.
The boy was growing up, he found a girlfriend and the tree was often
alone.
When the boy finally returned, he said: I need a house. Can you give
me a house? The tree answered: You can cut my branches and build a
house.
Time passed by. When the boy finally returned he said: I want to have
a boat to travel far away from here. Can you give me a boat? The tree
answered: You can cut my trunk and build a boat.
Many years passed before the boy came back. - I have nothing to give
you. I'm only an old stump - said the tree.
I don' t need too much. I'm just looking for a quiet place to sit down
and rest.
Each round of the workshops finished with the presentation of animated
films produced by the partner groups and made available for downloading
on the AD website. The animations were meaningful in themselves since
they were visual interpretations of the same theme chosen by each pair
of groups. However, some groups made an attempt to express the meaning
in words as well, either in the form of soundtrack dialogues or subtitles.
The above example taken from the Polish film "The Giving Tree" illustrates
what the students were able to achieve in this respect with the teacher's
assistance. The subtitles were written in the last phase of the workshops
and required the students to use all the language skills acquired so
far. The text was first written in Polish and then translated into
English; the task set for the whole group was an opportunity to revise
the key vocabulary, functions and structures taught during the course.
The translation was made in a series of English classes accompanying
the final edition of the film. Each class was divided into two parts:
first the students worked in pairs and using on-line dictionaries as
well as their notes from the course translated the key words appearing
in the text. Then, working in the whole group, they proposed their
versions of the English sentences. The sentences written on the board
were improved on the basis of suggestions and corrections contributed
by individual students. Only in the last stage of the process the teacher
proposed her additions and improvements. The agreed version of the
text was then used in the arts workshops which entered the final stage
of film editing.
Conclusions
The Animated Debate workshops proved the value of the main principle
of the project - visual narration is a viable way to connect dysfunctional
youth across borders and cultures. ICT can be used effectively to communicate
pictorial messages between groups coming from very different backgrounds
but in their everyday life equally disconnected from the mainstream
of societal development. Besides the value of intercultural communication,
such exchange provides a framework in which various educational initiatives
can be incorporated. The English workshops outlined above were an attempt
to prove the validity of foreign language teaching in this framework.
Certainly, the participants of the workshops could not progress in
their new language acquisition at the pace expected of a standard English
course. This was mainly due to two factors: their mental or behavioral
disabilities and the nature of groups not well balanced in terms of
the language level. None of the problems could be resolved in the short
term - the very fact that the students entered the course and most
of them were able to complete it was a success in itself. In spite
of these drawbacks most of the students could upgrade their knowledge
of the foreign language and see its practical relevance as a tool in
real communication. This was a totally new experience for the majority
of the course participants who had previously studied English only
as a school subject - an abstract theory in terms of real life. Now
they could exchange messages, simple as they were, with their peers
in other countries. This certainly raised their motivation for further
education. The key question which arose at the end of the workshops
was: when do the workshops start after holidays? The students perceived
the continuation of the course as something obvious which goes without
saying; the fact that this particular course had a limited life span
was far from being evident to them.
The students expectations could and should be met in a broader context.
The purpose of this publications is to reach a large group of educators
working with dysfunctional youth and give them guidelines and encouragement
to involve their students in an intercultural debate. The pilot workshops
for teachers organised in Bielsko-Biała, Poland brought very promising
results in this respect. The art of visual narration as a tool to connect
youth across cultures and borders was welcomed with interest and understanding
by the trained instructors. It is believed that the feasibility and
validity of foreign language teaching in the context of pictorial communication
was also seen.
