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êàíä. ô³ëîñ. íàóê Õàëåçîâà Ë. Â.
Ñåâàñòîïîëüñüêèé ³íñòèòóò áàíê³âñüêî¿ ñïðàâè
Óêðà¿íñüêî¿ àêàäå쳿 áàíê³âñüêî¿ ñïðàâè
Íàö³îíàëüíîãî áàíêó Óêðà¿íè
NORMAN ROCKWELL AS A GREAT ASSISTANT IN TEACHER’S WORK
Teaching
English, just like teaching any language, means teaching culture and morals as
well. To my mind the best way to introduce students to the traditions of
another country and to compare and contrast those traditions with you own ones
is through using art. Modern technologies give us as educators a lot of ideas,
pictures, and videos to use. Some of those pieces of art belong to modern
artists, some to classical and some to unknown. In by new textbook “Grammar
through speaking” [1] I have used pictures by a famous American painter Norman
Rockwell to introduce my students to the magnificent impulse this artist
produced during his life and to check how modern generation reacts on typical
moral questions we sometimes have to answer and face every day. What is more I
do this through drilling grammar material so I can say I kill two birds with
one stone. First of all we need to know that “Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was
a 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad
popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American
culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover
illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for “The Saturday Evening Post” magazine
for more than four decades. Among
the best-known of Rockwell's works are the “Willie Gillis” series, “Rosie the Riveter”, “Saying Grace” (1951), “The Problem We All Live With”, and the “Four Freedoms” series.
He is also noted for his work for the “Boy
Scouts of America (BSA)”; producing covers for their
publication “Boys' Life”, calendars, and other
illustrations” [3]. There is a wide range of pictures and topics you can choose
to discuss while you are looking through his works. For the book “Grammar
through speaking” I have chosen 4 of them: “Election day” (for drilling Present
Progressive / Continuous) [1, p. 53], “The Winner” (“The Shiner”) and “The
Doctor and Doll” (for drilling Present Simple vs Present Progressive /
Continuous) [1, p. 57], “The Runaway” (for drilling Past Perfect) [1, p. 99].
This is how the tasks are described for using in a Teacher’s book [2]. One of
the units is dedicated to the difference in usage of Present Simple and Present
Progressive. The main aim I was following is to create a situation when these
grammar structures are needed. And the two pictures were suitable: “The Winner”
(“The Shiner”) and “The Doctor and Doll”. So the Teacher’s book says:
Prepare
your own pictures or use the ones given in the unit. Explain the task. Make
students work in pairs. Check their grammar. Let a couple of them perform to
the whole group later. Explain the meaning of the word “Shiner” and if the
students are short of ideas speak about a life of typical hooligan. Ask
questions if needed.
- Does this hooligan
girl fight only with boys?
- Is she often late
for school?
- Does she travel to
school by school bus?
- What does she do on
board of the bus?
- Does she often
appear next to Principal’s door?
- What does she do to
appear next to Principal’s door?
- Why is she smiling
now?
- Is she reading a boring
book on Math?
- Is she holding a
frog to show to the Principal? [2, p. 20].
The
other unit is dedicated to the usage of Past Perfect and again my target is to
make students not simply learn the grammar rules but to see and feel when to
use this grammar tense and how to do it correctly. So the Teacher’s book says:
Explain
the meaning of the picture “Runaway”: the boy had run away from home but later
was found by a policeman and now they are having breakfast in the local bar.
Ask your students to think about what had happened to each of these people
before they met. Let students exchange their ideas. Divide your group into
triads and make them prepare a conversation between the Boy, the Policeman, and
the Barman and perform it later to the whole group.
If
students have problems with ideas you may ask them your questions:
- Did the boy leave
home because his parents had refused to buy him a puppy?
- Had he decided to
travel around the state of Alabama before he ran away?
- What had he
prepared to take with him before he left home?
- What had the mother
of the boy told the policeman before he started searching for the runaway?
- Had the boy’s
mother told everybody about the accident when the boy and the policeman
appeared in the bar?
- Had the barman
already phoned the boy’s mother before he offered the boy a glass of milk?
Listen
to students’ performances and find the funniest / the most unusual [2, p. 36].
Each of
these pictures is worth a detailed group discussion which can be practiced
during your lessons. So by using the illustrations by Norman Rockwell a teacher
may introduce his / her students to the world of human emotions depicted by the
master and to drill grammar and vocabulary in a bright way.
Literature
1. Õàëåçîâà Ë. Â. Ãðàìàòèêà ÷åðåç ðîçìîâó = Grammar through speaking [ Òåêñò ] : ïîñ³áíèê äëÿ ïðàêòè÷íî¿ òà ³íäèâ³äóàëüíî¿ ðîá³ò ç àíãë³éñüêî¿ ìîâè / Ë. Â. Õàëåçîâà. – Õàðê³â : Äîì³íî, 2013. – 139 ñ. – (Àíãë³éñüêîþ ìîâîþ).
2. Õàëåçîâà Ë. Â. Ãðàìàòèêà ÷åðåç ðîçìîâó (êíèãà äëÿ â÷èòåëÿ) = Grammar through speaking (Teacher’s book) [ Òåêñò ] : ìåòîäè÷í³ ðåêîìåíäàö³¿ äî ïîñ³áíèêà äëÿ ïðàêòè÷íî¿ òà ³íäèâ³äóàëüíî¿ ðîá³ò ç àíãë³éñüêî¿ ìîâè / Ë. Â. Õàëåçîâà. – Ñåâàñòîïîëü : Ðèáåñò, 2013. – 44 ñ. – (Àíãë³éñüêîþ ìîâîþ).
3. URL - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Rockwell.