Teaching Through Art: I made my adult students draw in an English class

Here's a mini project I made for my adult ESL students. As I mentioned in one of my earlier post, this class is an introductory English as a Second Language course offered for free to adults, many of whom are immigrants with little prior education experience. 

All you need are scissors, markers, and papers.

(I made a Scissor Star! This was the highlight of my day...week.  Check out another color majiggy I did in this post)

This summer session is extra special (seriously, no pun intended) because I have a student from Bosnia who has a disability (Down syndrome) . She is an incredibly sweet  lady and you can't imagine how much she has grown socially and intellectually. 

Anyways, the class was learning SUBJECT PRONOUNS and I didn't want to simply say the words. I mean, this is the  the unicorn class; a basic pronoun chart isn't going to cut it either. 

Therefore, I decided to make something myself. 

Making the Template

1. Start with 2 blank word documents.

For the Singular Subject Pronouns, I divided the paper into 8 blocks like the one below. Leave a space with lines to write names.

For the Plural Subject Pronouns, I divided the paper into 6 sections.

2. Here comes the fun part: DRAW the SUBJECT PRONOUNS

SINGULAR: I, YOU, HE, SHE, IT

(These pictures were all drawn by me.)

- I leave "I" blank because each student will be drawing themselves.

- The hand is pointing to "I" or the student to indicate "YOU."

- A boy for HE, a girl for SHE, and a flower for IT.

PLURAL: THEY (human & non-human), WE, YOU (as in you all/ y'all)

(These pictures were all drawn by me)

- Flowers for non-human THEY  and 2 people for human THEY.

- Left space next to the two people so that the students can draw themselves there. This becomes WE.

- A group of kids to indicate YOU (all).

CONGRATS! THIS IS THE FINISHED TEMPLATE FOR THE STUDENTS! I killed tons of trees making copies for the students.

For the Students!

1. Fold

Students fold the paper HotDog style along the line.

2. Draw Yourself!

Students write their name and draw themselves in the empty spaces like below. (Note: do not draw anything in the completely blank boxes.)

3. CUT!!!

They CUT between the pictures until it reaches the middle and no more.

5. Learn and Write!

The teacher does her thing. Then the students write the word for each drawing like below. 

Ta-dah! It becomes a little flip book! FLIP 'N LEARN!

EXAMPLE FROM STUDENT (Bosnia student):

So What Happened?

The students enjoyed this activity, especially Jasm. They also had a blast quizzing each other.   Drawing themselves into the flipchart made the learning a bit more meaningful. Also, subject pronouns become less confusing when you get to learn it in your perspective (e.g. if you are with other people, it is we; if someone is pointing at you, it is you, etc.).

There's a lot you can do with this activity. I turned the directions into a listening exercise. They also got to practice a bit of writing. Best part was the students wanted to spend time coloring afterwards--and these are adults remember! (Ran out of time for that though, but would I let them if we did have time? Oh fruitcake yes!)

I hope this activity helped you with whatever you're thinking of doing. 

*All these photos are mine. Drawn by me and taken by me. Hopefully they don't get lost in the internet. 

Speaking of getting lost...

Here's to another "UNCOOL" post lost within the bikini storm of SteemIt!