I demonstrated this activity a couple of weeks ago at TESOL-Spain in Lleida. It’s very similar to a standard picture dictation.
During a standard picture dictation, the teacher describes an image to the students who then attempt to draw it based on the teacher’s description. During the description, the teacher will probably be looking at the […]

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My new Onestopenglish series on using art in the language classroom starts today. The first part is free to non-subscribers.

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the-venus-of-willendorf.pdf
The Venus of Willendorf (below) is an icon of prehistoric art. It is housed in the Museum of Natural History in Vienna. One day, a visitor to the museum asks a guide how old it is. The guide replies that it is 25 thousand years and 8 months old. The visitor is […]

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Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the Tate Britain Turner Prize exhibition was the lounge room at the end, half of which was covered in pinboard for visitors to post their comments.

Here are a few that caught my eye:

(That is a piece of chewing gum on the right)

(Someone stole all the pencils)

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dr-gachet.pdf
“Sad but gentle, yet clear and intelligent” is how Vincent Van Gogh referred to his 1890 Portrait of Dr Gachet.

This activity (see pdf link above) works well with beginners. It exploits the fact that Van Gogh actually painted two easily-distinguishable versions of Dr Gachet. It addresses language that may be used for picture descriptions […]

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