Modern teenagers are reluctant to be distracted from their gadgets and it is sometimes difficult to get them out on a museum trip. Scheduled school events come to the rescue. Can a school excursion to the Tretyakov Gallery awaken the interest of teenagers and become a fascinating quest? Let's tell you about the unusual experience of our media class. Here's how it worked out.
On 16 January, the 8G Mediaclass together with their English teachers, Marina Annenkova and Anna Chesnakova, went on an excursion to the Tretyakov Gallery "Russian History on Artists' Paintings". The most unusual thing about this excursion was that it was in English. We had to listen very carefully to the guide, Inna Grigorievna, to understand everything she said. She told us about interesting historical facts, introduced us to artists about whom we did not know anything before. During the excursion "Russian history on canvas" we learnt what a ceremonial portrait is, remembered the history of Peter the Great's coming to power, briefly got acquainted with the biography and significant events that took place during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine the Great. Sometimes we could not immediately understand English speech, we interrupted the guide and asked her to kindly repeat some words and sentences, in difficult situations we turned to teachers for help. There were also funny situations when we could not understand how this or that surname sounds in Russian.
At the end of the tour, we interviewed our guide, Inna Grigoryevna Borisova, and asked her what difficulties she encounters when working with teenagers. She noted that teenagers rarely come to the museum of their own free will and ask few questions, in fact, they do not seem to be interested enough. Inna Grigorievna also shared with us what methods she uses to "shake up" a passive teenage listener. You will learn about her professional secrets from our interview.
The tour was amazing! It really inspired us and we decided to start working on a project to create an interactive quest. We decided to conduct a survey among 8th grade students of our school to find out their attitude towards visiting cultural sites. The results of the survey unpleasantly surprised us: it turns out that teenagers are not very interested in such places, they rarely visit them on their own initiative, even less so, with a guide speaking a foreign language.
Our classmates gave a very different assessment of the excursion to the Tretyakov Gallery. They noted that such an unusual format did not seem difficult to them, they were interested in putting their English language knowledge into practice. Teachers also told how non-traditional forms of work help to make the process of learning a foreign language exciting. You will find more details in our video report.
The quest is a crossword puzzle, where 1 point is awarded for each correct answer, as well as tasks to identify historical characters in the paintings of the artist, where 2 points are given for each correct answer.
At the end of the game, the teacher presents the best students with prizes. The tasks can be done both in printed form and online on mobile devices. With the help of interactive tasks in English, the children will be able to improve their language skills, once again walking along the excursion route to consolidate their knowledge.
The aim of our project is to show teenagers that visiting cultural centres can be a fun and interesting activity and to motivate them to learn new things. After all, not only is it educational and beneficial, but it can also be incredibly exciting!
Follow the code to see our quiz:
Follow the code to see our crossword: