Languages in partnership with the visual arts: Implications for curriculum design and teacher training

Abstract

This chapter considers the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of visual arts integration in FL language classes as a means of challenging students’ cultural beliefs through new forms of expression and through engagement with the beliefs of others. It does so by presenting a two-year project called “Language through the Visual Arts: An Interdisciplinary Partnership,” conducted at Harvard University. Responding to the call for cultural teaching in a systematic, meaningful, and innovative way, this project aimed to (1) incorporate work with visual arts (paintings, sculptures, installations, artifacts, and digital images) into the curriculum of Beginning Spanish (first and second semester) and Intermediate-Advanced Italian (fourth semester); and (2) develop an intra-institutional partnership with the university museums. Student assignments and their survey comments point to the benefits of expanding the teaching/learning spaces of FL courses, by allowing students to think outside the physical box of the classroom and the intellectual box of their cultural perspectives. Finally, following recent calls for greater FL professionalization, this chapter discusses the advantages and challenges of training TAs in effective strategies for arts integration. The authors argue that the instructional opportunities align more closely with graduate students’ literary backgrounds, and thus bolster their professional training as scholars of literature and of the humanities in general.