Method

1. Preparation

Teacher and museum educator meet in the museum to discuss the curriculum and needs of the class. Teacher and educator choose which works of art to use in the upcoming tour. This meeting ensures that the teacher knows in advance what the tour will consist of, and he or she can therefore build up to the tour and prepare the students for what they will see.

2. Vocabulary Lists

The museum educator prepares a vocabulary list in the target language pertaining to the 4 or 5 objects chosen by herself/himself and the teacher. The educator sends these vocabulary sheets to the teacher who goes over them with the students in advance of the museum visit.

3. The Museum Visit

When the teacher and the class arrive at the museum for their tour, they bring their vocabulary sheets on which they write notes or new words or ideas that they learn in the course of the tour.

4. Giving the Tour

The museum educator gives the tour in various ways according to the wishes of the teacher--the target language may be used throughout for advanced students, English and the target language can be used equally, English can be used mostly for explanations given by the educator, and the students use the words on the vocabulary sheet in the target language to answer questions posed by the educator.

5. Getting the Students to Speak

The educator uses two teaching techniques: giving information and asking questions. Since the students have their vocabulary sheets with them, the educator asks questions for which the words on the sheets are the answer. Really reluctant students can be encouraged to answer if the educator hams it up and maintains that all sorts of extraordinary things are going on in the image, so that the students will need to contradict her/him.

6. Teaching Spanish at the Snite Museum

There is a large collection of pre-Columbian art at this museum which is used for all levels of Spanish teaching. When students study these artifacts as a natural way to learn Spanish, they learn history and geography at the same time. These are two subjects that Americans find particularly difficult. When history and geography are linked to particular objects and images, as happens in a museum tour, memorization of the facts, figures, and words that accompany the object is much more likely. In this way it can be seen that teaching Spanish (or French, Italian or German) in the museum results in learning many more things than just the language.

7. Assignments

Class assignments can be based on the vocabulary words, the notes the students have taken during their tour, and their ideas about the works of art. Written and dramatic/role-playing assignments work equally well after a museum tour.

Comment:

The success of these foreign language tours depends upon the use of the vocabulary lists, which can be used before, during and after the tour. Students are kept busy during the tour as they do a combination of tasks--they listen to the foreign languages being spoken, they answer and speak the foreign language themselves, they take notes on what they see and hear, they write down their own ideas, they may draw their own interpretations of one or two objects that they see.

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