“Art is never finished, only abandoned” Leonardo Da Vinci
1. THE ROLE OF POSTERS
Three main advantages of using visuals in the classroom are often pointed out: they evoke an immediate, personal response from learners, they are always fresh and different and they are highly flexible (Hill 1990). As posters are effective and universal visuals, which attract students, mixed ability classes included, that is why we decided to use them in the project.
2. OUR EMB EXPERIENCE
At the beginning of Erasmus Minus Bullying our students were asked to design and create anti-bullying posters which showed their attitude towards violence at schools. Each participating school had to choose the most interesting posters painted by children and bring them to Greece. Then a huge poster-collage was created with active participation of all students and teachers. The posters brought by every school were used to make the collage but participants were also encouraged to draw or write on it things related to the topic on spot. The task allowed them to express their protest against bullying and intolerance. At the same time a digital version of collage was created. Then a similar activity was held in Finland – students’ task was to paint portraits and then a big poster was created.
We decided to include posters in Erasmus Minus Bullying project because a message of a poster is universal and usually does not call for a high level of foreign language skills. Additionally, posters as a form of art are appealing and eye-catching. They can be used and displayed many years after the project, not only on every day basis but also during special campaigns and school ceremonies.
What is more, creating a poster and expressing feelings and thoughts in such an imaginative and attractive way is especially suitable for those teenagers who are shy and inhibited or not very confident about their level of language competences.
For practical reasons posters have the advantage of being inexpensive and easy to store. To make them useful for many years we recommend laminating them or mounting onto card or stiff paper. We also recommend publishing posters on postcards to commemorate and promote the project.
3. SKILLS ACQUISITION
Working on posters is recommended for classes with students of various levels of English. No matter what linguistic skills students have they will be able to participate. Some posters were designed and painted by groups of students which enabled them to train their teamwork skills. The task let us combine two subjects: Art and English. The anti-bullying posters can be also used during literature and ethics lessons as thought-provoking teaching aids.
The posters can be used as effective discussion starters. The topic of bullying is sometimes difficult for teenage students as it evokes very personal, unpleasant memories of painful moments and humiliation. Answering simple questions about a poster can facilitate the discussion. The posters can be used both during lessons and individual meetings with a class teacher, parents or school psychologist.
4. OVERALL BENEFIT
The use of posters during the project turned out to be highly effective. We observed how inspiring and stimulating the whole process of designing, creating and displaying posters was both for children and teachers. Puchta and Schratz (1993) claim that usually lack of motivation among teenagers and discipline problems are “partly due to teachers having missed opportunities to build bridges between what they want to have to teach and their students’ worlds of thought and experience. It is, however, almost never too late to construct these bridges”. Activities with the use of anti-bullying posters were an inspiring way of building these bridges not only between teenagers and adults but also between people of different cultures, religions and nationalities.
5. WHEN TO USE POSTERS
Creating posters is especially recommended at the beginning of a project to familiarize students with the topic and to give them the main idea of activities which will follow. Then posters painted by children can be used throughout the project to illustrate the problems discussed.
Bibliography
David A Hill, 1990. ‘Visual Impact. Creative Language Learning through Pictures’. Harlow: Longman Group UK Limited.
Herbert Puchta and Michael Schratz, 1993. ‘Teaching Teenages: Model Activity Sequences for Humanistic Language Learning’. Harlow: Longman Group UK Limited.
