Art and Design Commons^™

Communication, Culture, And Curiosity: Using Target-Culture And Student-Generated Art In The Second Language Classroom, Deborah Berho, Victoria Defferding

Faculty Publications - Department of World Languages, Sociology & Cultural Studies

Studying art from the target culture and student creation of original artwork in the second language (L2) classroom have many benefits. Both provide a springboard for discussion of the culture(s) under study as well as one's own. These activities also positively change the classroom atmosphere, generating student curiosity and lowering the affective filter to language learning. Surprising as it may seem, little has been published about the visual arts and second language acquisition (SLA). This article surveys this limited research, briefly describes how brain research and language learning theories interact with art, ans presents the authors' observations of student response …