Subversive identities at the art museum: An ESL university student’s experience at the National Gallery of Canada

Main Article Content

Geneviève Cloutier
Awad Ibrahim
David Pratt

Abstract

Abstract: Art education became interwoven with cultural mediation when a university-level English language certification class was taken on a field trip to the National Gallery of Canada. This article focuses on one ESL student who locates her subversive identity as she engages with and interprets an artwork in an interview. This student’s memorable, affective, and intimately personal thoughts and feelings, as we shall see, expose the semiotic and pedagogical importance of employing strategies that honour students’ identities and lived experiences. The authors call for more research in what they refer to as ‘critical ESL art museum education’

KEYWORDS:Anglais langue étrangère; apprentissage de langue; culture; éducation muséale artistique; identités opposantes; pédagogie; affectif.ESL

Résumé: Éducation artistique et médiation culturelle se sont entremêlées lors de la visite au Musée des beaux-arts du Canada d’une classe de certification de langue anglaise de niveau universitaire. Cet article se concentre sur une étudiante d’ALS qui trouve son identité subversive en découvrant et en interprétant une œuvre d’art dans le cadre d’une entrevue. Nous noterons à quel point les pensées et sentiments affectifs, extrêmement personnels et inoubliables de cette étudiante soulignent l’importance sémiotique et pédagogique du recours à des stratégies qui valorisent l’identité et le vécu des étudiants. Les auteurs souhaitent qu’il y ait davantage de recherches menées dans le domaine qu’ils nomment « l’éducation critique en ALS pour les musées des beaux-arts ». 

MOTS CLES: Language learning; culture; art museum education; subversive identities; pedagogy; affect

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

Section
Articles

References

Alcoff, L. (1992). The problem of speaking for others. Cultural Critique, 20, 5-20.

Alim, S. (2011). Globla ill-literacies: Hip-Hop cultures, youth identities, and the politics of literacy. Review of Research in Education 35(11), 120-146.

Canagarajah, S. (2004). Subversive identities, pedagogical safehouses, and critical learning. In B. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning (pp. 116-137). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Continuum.

Derrida, J. (2000). Of hospitality. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Duke, L. (2010). The museum visit: It’s an experience, not a lesson. Curator: the Museum Journal, 53(3), 271-279.

Emery, L. (2002). Teaching art in a postmodern world: Theories, teacher reflections and interpretive frameworks. Altona, Australia: Common Ground Publishing.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Hall, S. (2013). The work of representation. In S. Hall, J. Evans, & S. Nixon (Eds.), Representation (2nd ed.) (pp. 1-59). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Ibrahim, A. (2006). Becoming black: Rap and hip hop, race, gender, identity, and the politics of ESL learning. In P. Matsuda, M. Cox, J. Jordan, & C. Ortmeier-Hooper (Eds.), Second-language writing in the composition classroom: A critical sourcebook (pp. 131-148). New York: St. Martin’s.

Ibrahim, A. (2009). Takin Hip-Hop to a whole nother level: Métissage, affect and pedagogy in a Global Hip-Hop Nation. In S. Alim, A. Ibrahim, & A. Pennycook (Eds.), Global linguistic flows: Hip-Hop cultures, youth identities, and the politics of language (pp. 231-248). London & New York: Routledge.

Kalin, N., Grauer, K., Baird, J., & Meszaros, C. (2007). Provoking points of convergence: Museum and university collaborating and co-evolving. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 26(2), 199-205.

MacDonnell Eichhorn, V. (2006). Colleen Wolstenholme: Iconophobia. Espace: Art actuel, 77, 40.

Meszaros, C. (2008). Un/Familiar. Journal of Museum Education, 33(3), 239-246.

Morawski, C., & Palulis, P. (2009). Auto/ethno/graphies as teaching lives: An aesthetics of difference. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 25(2), 6-24.

Norton, B., & Toohey, K. (2004). Critical pedagogies and language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pinar, W. F. (2000). Strange fruit: Race, sex, and an autobiographics of alterity. In P. Trifonas (Ed.), Revolutionary pedagogies: Cultural politics instituting education, and the discourse of theory (pp. 30-46). New York: Routledge.

Shier, J. H. (1990). Integrating the arts in the foreign/second language curriculum: Fusing the affective and the cognitive. Foreign Language Annals, 23(4), 301-314.

Shoemaker, M. K. (1998). "Art is a wonderful place to be": ESL students as museum learners. Art Education, 51(2), 40-45.