Lesson Topics: art, appreciating art
Skill Focus: Reading, Speaking, Vocabulary
Approximate Class Time: 1.75 hours
Lesson Plan Download: discussing-art-upper-intermediate-092024.docx
Lesson Overview:
- Note to Teachers: One key lesson activity has students discuss famous artwork. Links are provided in the document along with the titles and artist names. If you don't teach with a computer, I recommend you load these images on a smartphone or tablet for use in class.
- After warm-up questions, students read a passage that summarizes Carrie Brummer's beginner's guide to discussing art. The passage provides five tips to help people get comfortable with discussing art at galleries.
- The passage is followed by comprehension and a vocabulary-matching activity. After vocabulary matching, students form discussion questions with the target vocabulary.
- There are two debate topics related to art. This is followed by an activity in which students practice Brummer's tips for talking about art. Links for four famous paintings are provided, and students discuss them with each other.
- The lesson has two role-play activities. The first is between tourists in New York. One student wants to go to the Museum of Modern Art while the other wants to drink beer. The next activity has business owners discuss the value of buying art for their office.
- After famous quotations, the lesson ends with a review of vocabulary before presenting some final discussion questions.
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2/C1) Lesson on Talking about Art
Warm-up-Questions
- Are you an artist? If so, in what sense?
- What kind of art do you like? What kind of art do you dislike?
- Do you enjoy visiting museums or galleries? Why or why not?
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This lesson plan was created by Matthew Barton of EnglishCurrent.com (copyright). Site members may photocopy and edit the file for their classes. Permission is not given to rebrand the lesson, redistribute it on another platform, or sell it as part of commercial course curriculum. ChatGPT was used to generate answer keys and some famous quotations. For questions, contact the author.
Comprehension Question Answer Key
- ...
- According to Brummer, some people don’t like to speak about art because they fear saying the wrong thing and sounding uneducated.
- Brummer recommends looking at elements like color, line, and texture to find the meaning behind an artwork.
- ...
- Step five might take practice because forming a judgment about the success of the artwork’s message requires deeper understanding of the elements of art and reflection.
- ...
Vocabulary 1-k / 2-d / 3-a / 4-l / 5-f / 6-h / 7-c / 8-g / 9-i / 10-e / 11-j / 12-b
Collocations 1-b, 2-a, 3-c, 4-f, 5-e, 6-d
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/YSA006673/Figurative-Abstraction
[2] https://www.artiststrong.com/discussing-art-a-beginners-guide/
[3] https://maryannehawes.com/10-questions-to-ask-yourself-about-a-piece-of-art/