Paula Carpio, Maria Chico, Nerea Duran, Maria Florido and Anna Larruy

Modification of Session 3: Art Gallery

CONTEXTUALIZATION

Students engage in an interactive and creative exploration of art in a virtual gallery setting. The aim is to develop their descriptive language and vocabulary skills while fostering critical thinking and imagination.

• Target group. 6th grade students. 

• Target language level (according to CEFR). A2. 

• Location. Virtual space for art studio (immerse link).

• Distribution. Groups of 3 to 4 students. 

Activity's main goal. To foster autonomous and spontaneous interaction/exchange of information to the development of students’ English language competencies.

LESSON AIMS BASED ON THE CEFR

Competencies specifically related to CEFR. 

Reception: 

• Can understand basic instructions on times, dates numbers, etc., and on routine tasks and assignments to be carried out. 

• Can understand short, simple texts containing the highest frequency vocabulary, including a proportion of shared international vocabulary items. 

Production:

• Can describe plans and arrangements, past activities, and personal experiences.

• Can use simple descriptive language to make brief statements about and compare objects and possessions. 

Interaction:

• Can interact with reasonable ease in structured situations and short conversations, provided the other person helps if necessary. 

• Can generally identify the topic of discussion around them when it is conducted slowly and clearly. 

• Can discuss what to do next, make and respond to suggestions, and ask for and give directions. 

Communicative Language Competences:

• Has a repertoire of basic language which enables them to deal with everyday situations with predictable content, though they will mainly have to compromise the message and search for words/signs. 

SWBATs

• The students will be able to generate a short narrative in English using simple vocabulary and sentences about art. 

• The students will be able to use basic concepts and knowledge of immersive apps.

PRE-TASK

Students will enter the virtual environment selected, the art gallery. Once there, they will have to go to the instruction board, that will contain the message. When they click to read it, they will open the presentation of the challenge and main activity of the session. They will read it carefully individually for a moment, and then they will have time to discuss with the rest of the group what they understood, establishing the goals of the task. 

Here is a guide for the teacher in order to guide the discussion and check for understanding: 

• Can I have a volunteer to read it out loud?

• Which would you say that are the main ideas of the text? 

• Let's highlight some keywords. 

• What happened?

• What do we have to do to escape, then?

After this, students will have some time to explore the environment freely, looking at the different paintings. 

PRE-TASK 2.0

Before starting with the main activity, students should get familiarized with the environment. This pre-task could be done in the first place or after the presentation of the challenge, as suggested here. 

It is about students' interaction with the VR environment to get to know how it works, how they can move, what they can do, etcetera. In order to explore all of this, we will insert some prompts that they will have to follow. For instance:

• • Put on the painter's hat.

  • Take a brush.

  • Write your name on a white canvas. 

  • Try out the different colors. 

  • Try on different painter outfits. 

MAIN TASK

The teacher assembles the students at the gallery’s entrance, next to the billboard, and gives the instructions after having let them look closely at the paintings:

1. The teacher divides the students into groups of 3 to 4.

2. One student chooses a painting and the group gathers in front of it. 

3. The student makes up a story about what he/she thinks was happening when the moment was captured, and what he or she imagines will happen next.

4. The other students can argue the response and add what they think, while the teacher intervenes to seek their use of descriptive language and vocabulary.

5. The discussion follows while the other students share their made-up contextualizing stories of the paintings.

6. After all paintings are covered, each group selects one of the stories. Then, a whole group discussion is led by the teacher, in which they must find a linking element between their invented adventures. 

7. When they find out which the linking element is, the teacher makes sure it makes sense for all students.

Note: If students are struggling, the teacher can switch the instruction board to the next slide, which has a list of ideas children can use to verbalize their ideas by explaining their story. .

POST TASK

As a round-up activity, firstly, students will have to paint an object, figure, landscape, …, inspired by the story they have just created. Once they finish, they will explain to the other classmates what they have painted, why, and which part of the story it represents. Then, the teacher allows students some time to explore and play to foster their proper knowledge about virtual reality spaces. Finally, they will be given the key to open the door!

It is important to say that all the scaffolding materials or presentations are inside the virtual environment, so students don't need to take off their headsets in order to see them. 

MATERIALS

• Link to the immerse site: https://app.immerse.online/login?callbackUrl=/home?status=0 > Art Studio.

• Chanllenge introduction.

• List of sentences to describe the paining. 

• List of words to invent the story about the chosen painting.