{"id":209,"date":"2018-11-05T13:29:07","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T13:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/?p=209"},"modified":"2018-11-05T16:05:58","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T16:05:58","slug":"creating-welcoming-learning-environments-using-arts-based-methods-and-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/creating-welcoming-learning-environments-using-arts-based-methods-and-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating Welcoming Learning Environments: Using Arts-Based Methods with EAL Learners"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s the project about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Jane Andrews and Dr Maryam Almohammad at the University of the West of England, Bristol have been working on a 12 month research project since September 2017. The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council<\/a> who have \u201ctranslating cultures\u201d as one of their current research themes. The project is a collaboration between teachers, local authority and school staff who specialise in supporting children developing English as an additional language, creative artists and the researchers. Together we are aiming to develop and trial some teaching techniques which combine arts-based methods and supportive techniques for celebrating children\u2019s languages and developing their English language skills. The project is working with school-based staff in both primary and secondary schools. Colleagues who work at Integra<\/a>, South Gloucestershire (Lois Francis and Dominique Moore) are collaborators on the project.<\/p>\n

Why this topic?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The focus for the research comes out of the arts-based methods used in a larger 3-year AHRC-funded research project entitled Researching Multilingually at Borders<\/a> . In that project researchers from different academic disciplines (global mental health, anthropology, law, modern languages, intercultural communication, education) worked together with creative artists working using drama, poetry, music and textiles. The project explored the role of language in contexts where people experience pain and pressure at times of migration. The sites for the research included the Islamic University Gaza, the Lira district of Uganda, the border state of Arizona, USA, Scotland, the Netherlands, Romania, Bulgaria and Ghana. The current project was funded by the AHRC to extend the reach of the 3-year project to explore how arts-based methods can be combined with work celebrating children\u2019s linguistic diversity and supporting their developing English.<\/p>\n

What has the project done so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have developed our way of working which has collaboration firmly at its heart. We have built on the work of Julian Edge who proposed a model of CPD named \u201cco-operative development\u201d which seeks to ensure that all participants are empowered to share their knowledge and expertise while learning with and from others. Using this approach we have offered a series of one day workshops in which participants have i) shared their current approaches to supporting children\u2019s developing English and celebrating their different languages, ii) taken part in a hands-on workshop experiencing one or more creative arts techniques and iii) planned how the techniques experienced could be adapted and transferred into the specific school contexts in which they are working.<\/p>\n

In our first workshop, the creative arts inputs have been provided by Katja Frimberger (freelance) who demonstrated drama techniques for use in class including singing in different languages and setting up a \u201cBristol\u2019s got talent\u201d friendly competition. Katja also shared a film <\/a>she had made in which students and staff at Glasgow University spoke to camera in their different languages as a way of extending exposure to the institution\u2019s shared languages.<\/p>\n