Teaching English through Art and Multiple Intelligences

And now, something practical.
The following activity was done in class by our wonderful teacher trainer Stefania Ballotto. The entry point for teaching is Art, in this case the painting Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.
The painting is projected and the following questions are asked to the students:
- What feelings does this picture bring you?
- What feelings did the painter have when he painted?
- Why? What colours did he use?
- Do you think the painter felt alone or at ease with himself?
The students answer these questions individually and then share their answers with their partner (use of intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences). Then the teacher can ask the students to share some of their answers with the whole class.
Then there follows a vocabulary activity (use of linguistic intelligence). The teacher can ask questions eliciting some nouns, adjectives and verbs that can describe the objects that can be seen in the painting. For example, for adjectives, questions like these can be asked:
- What kind of sky is this? Answer: It’s starry.
- What kind of village is this? Answer: It’s sleepy
(…)
For verbs, questions like these can be used:
What is the tree doing? Answer: It’s swaying.
What about the tall church? Answer: It’s pointing
(…)
In the course of this activity, a list like this one can be written on the board:
Nouns:moon/ stars/ church/ tree/ village/ hills/ sky
Adjectives: starry /bright /green /tall /sleepy /blue
Verbs: swirling /shining /swaying /pointing /resting/dreaming /rolling

With young students, or perhaps with older ones,( it depends on the students and number of students in the class), the following activity can be done to help memorize new words and word order (use of bodily-kinaesthetic and linguistic intelligences). The teacher says the following sentences and the students make gestures that imitate the movement or the situation depicted in the painting:
Blue hills rolling / starry sky swirling /bright moon shining / sleepy village sleeping / tall church pointing
This activity can then be repeated in pairs. One of the students says a sentence and the partner acts the situation.
After this the students can be asked to write a poem with the minimum of three lines and the maximum of six lines with the vocabulary they have just been practising (use of linguistic intelligence). Some of the poems can be read in class.
The students can then join in groups of 4 or 5 people and produce a “tableau vivant” that represents the painting. Then each element of the group can tell the class what he/she represents using the vocabulary they have just learnt (eg. I’m the tall church pointing / I’m the sleepy village resting / I’m the blue hills rolling / etc) (use of kinaesthetic and linguistic intelligences).
At the end of the activity, the song Starry Night by Don McLean could be presented to the students with a gap-filling exercise, which could be then corrected with the lyrics of the song. The students might sing the song if they wanted.
As a follow up activity, the students could be asked to take a blank page, draw a swirl, which would be the starting point, and paint their own picture. (use of visual/spatial and linguistic intelligences ). Questions like these could be asked:
- What if you painted the picture?
- How would you do it?
- Who would it be for?
- (...)