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God as Divine Geometer (13th cent.)
The Primitive and the Exact
For it is only through images that the inner world communicates at all.Images of the past, shapes of the future.
Images of vigour for a decadent period, images of calmfor one too violent. Images of reconciliation for a world torn by division.
And in an age of mediocrity and shattereddreams, images of abounding, generous, exuberant beauty.MICHAEL TIPPETT (1905-1997)
The idea of on demand online units of teacher training,
carried out by means of easily assimilated webinars in
which the option to participate remotely is ensuredis of
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great benefit to the English navigator in foreign seas
during a period of dead calm.
I followed with profit ideas about the imparting of
accuracy and consistent learning routines in overseas
students, and discovered new information about the
alveolar and velar . It seems English is derived from
our word for angle, as the part of Germany from which
my ancestors came was shaped like a fish-hook and
called Angeln...
Georgian children in a rural setting, however, have scant
regard for accuracy and exactitude. They delight in
marinading in the excitementthe plash of newsounds
and the energy of fresh imageswhich a new tongue,
subterreneanly imparted by an astute teacher, canon a
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good day ensure. In this essay we look at some of the
results which such linguistic energy and acts of
imagination can achieve.
*
Here we see pupil grappling with a new word pugknown
from a phonetic type exercise from Enchanted Learning.
Its important to migrate back from thephotocopy to the
security of the blackboard and the home realm of the
drawing encapsulating image and word.
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Quasi-ideographic language building: Chinese must have
started like this! Under a table which resembles a
mushroom we see a cet. The important point here is the
pictorial definition ofunder.
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The pug, however, is on the rug. If anything, he appears
to be hovering over it. The rug is reticulated into a
surface of forty squares, which makes me wonder
whether the student is anticipating a sound world of
approxiamtely forty sounds.
An attempt at a glossary. Where there are misspellings,
the sounds are firmly entrenched in the students ear.
There are one or two other confusions, but the main thing
is the desire to make a list spontaneously and
energetically.
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The vitality of the children in winter. They live near the
surface of things, full of bubble and fun, and if suitably
stimulated, will dig down into the psyche to unearth
treasures of apprehension. But on a day like this,
everything is likely to be boisterous, short-lived and
superficial.
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The importance of mental spacing: Khatia is putting the
rhyming words into boldly separated columns. Here we
see great learning going on, and a cloze exercise being
set up for the instruction of Akaki (foreground right).
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Some tremendously harmonious colouring at the expense
of filling in the right colours. Its a visceral exploration
of the objects depicted, a reliving of them in the
imagination via the act of colouring them in. The
linguistic and analytical will come in very soon. For now
the emphasis is on establishing a study world, a domain
of repose and order.
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Richinner worlds conjoured up for the children by Enchanted
Learnings Greek amphorae. A secret path of the
imagination back to a past when Georgia and Greece
shared a common ancient world.
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A Chinese sage, acutely tinted to reflect a lambent
sense of nature and the Silk Road.
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Jumpingonto the subject of the sentence, realized physically,
orthographically and spatially
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Multiple and colourful underlinings: no analysis or
reflection here, but drumming in the music and sound of
the mastered words in a single grammatical take.
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This sketch shows Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,
but Snow White is a dancing, maternal Goddess of
Spring, and the dwarves (four large and three small) are
clothed in some splendidly complementary colours,
almost resembling a rainbow; above, a secure, shady
wood and an airy cloud- and sun-filled sky. Most of the
same rainbow hues appear in a sprawling spangle of stars
in a different picture by a classmate seen just below: the
predictable laws of the lucent, natural world representing
a wonderful inner imaginative refuge for both girl
students (aged maybe about 8 or 9).
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More magical nature worlds from the same class:
dragon; magic tree; knobbly, local-style mountains,studded with fertile and shade-giving trees, as in a vision
of Eden.
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This painting in felt pens has all the verve of a Matisse
(cf R). The choice of colours and boldness of conception
are remarkably dramatic and pleasing.
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Remarkable essays on the deep inner theme of inhabiting,
which Bachelard has analysed. Learning the names of the
rooms in a house involves a meaningful psychologicaljourney for the young artists. Everywhere there is a
tremendous eye for detail and an acute sense of
observation. The pure lines of the table might have come
from Ozenfant (below far R) but its a touch ironic that
a huge calligraphic and artistic effort has missed a slip in
the spelling! (top R)
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A careful and measured fixing and naming of salient
images in which texture, context, consciousness and
attention are all in perfect balance. The figures look
really come to life and speak vivdly to the onlooker. Th
spilling red water adds as surreal, dramatic touch.
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Even where the learning curve is straightforward,
synesthesia can make for great clarity
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Studying a textby Miss Read about a ruralchurch
school in England, Anuka imagines its appearance, and
types across some new words from my scanned text
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Whats impressive about these three drawings
from the same student is the strongly ingrained
and vivid presence which the entities represent.
The sun is sizzling hot, but he has yet a
personality: rosy cheeks and a tongue; and hes
doing his job, with some enjoyment. The passive
mushroom on the ground has not got a lot to
recommend it except its unusual shape;
meanwhile theflowers from the meadow
(although only one, exemplary, flower is given!)
represented in mid-air, above the mushroom
have all the grace and buoyancy of a childs view
of springtime.
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We have a star at random a beautifully
delineated five-pointed star floating loose
underneath the mushroom. And the little girl has
given no real thought to the use of the definite orindefinite article, but shes decided to call them
the mushroom, the sun, the flowers [sic] , the
star: thus, to her, what shes represented are the
essential elements of things in her grasp; and
shes baptized them in English; and in that act of
denotation, shes not only brought, really, into
her heart the names of these things in English:
shes also meditated upon them, lived with them
for a little while; thought about them; reflected
on them; and reacted to them; and ended up
with a series of lovely and really quite generous
open-ended images, which express her
happiness to be alive; and her readiness to take
part in the dance of the cosmos.
Her blackboard, again, has the gravitas of the
schoolroomin both senses of the word: its
propped up very nicely; there are shadows, under
each of the legs; theres some mysterious writing
across the middle of the boardits done in a
more attractive colour than a normal blackboard,because its blue; and the sun this time a rather
more schematic sun! with seven beautifully-
spaced points is illuminating the scene. This
time, she has not called her items the sun or the
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board, but she shes just looked at isolated
senses having a board, or a sun, in everyday
circumstances. This time, shes not being
definitional: shes not trying to create a kind ofBook of Genesis or Garden of Eden scenario, as
some of the children do in some of their
drawings: this is more an ad hoc, vocabulary-
building, image-building or word-building
exercise, which shes doing for her own pleasure;
and the words are a little bit subsidiary to the
images; but the two work together in a very
symbiotic and complementary way: the balance
between them is perfect.
Its a wonderful exemplification of the medieval
principle ofdilectio: doing something
meditatively out of ones sheer love of the
delight and texture of it.
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Here we see (from the same student) a Pooh
Bear and a bottle of cola. Shes decided to list
their attributes in groups: the bottle is black (I
suppose a bottle is black when its got some Coke
in it) very observant of her!although shes
drawn its contents in red: but shes clearly
thinking of itin black. The red recalls maybe the
fruity taste of the Coke. The Pooh is a classical
Pooh in the style of the drawings by E.H.
Shepherd: but hes done in yellow. One might
claim that a Pooh Bear is properly brown: but
yellows a more optimistic colour; shes balancing
her bottle of Coke here. And shes obviously got a
great interest in the sun: which shes describing
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as yellow, warm, hot; and it reminds her of the
sky and the clouds which she has spelt with a
w; which is logical. I wouldnt dream of changing
such a beautiful piece of writing.
And the board has reminded her ofchalk,eraser,
words and, very interestingly, formula: shes
probably got that from her maths lesson. Again, it
just shows a superb, complete, open-eyed take
on reality; from a student whos very eager to
learn, whos very settled in her view of the world;
and open, really, to any learning experience. Its
the kind of work which gives the teacher great
delight.
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Another, older, student has written almost a
small poem: Parrot is a birdit flies, Parrot has
beautiful colours. Here, of course, the article is
not thereGeorgian wouldnt have an article
but it gives us the essentials of the parrot, and I
photographed this for the text rather than for the
picture of the parrot which is drawn to one side.
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Another student has seen some emotional
context in her river: shes drawn in arrows
indicating the ideas and feelings which a river
evokes for her. Shes given us a nice broad river,which gets broader as it goes along; perhaps
shes thinking of our local Matsavera River which
twists and turns, and has an eccentric path; and
shes thinking of the riverhurrying; so shes put
hurry Shes thinking that the river is perhaps
Quixotic, and does strange things, so shes put
naughty: maybe shes thinking of it flooding, or
not being direct; and so shes also written long
because it does go on for an awfully long
distance!and shes written fast, because,
indeed, a river like this river of ours is a gurgling
and rushing and rather attractively vital kind
ofriver; with almost a personality of its own.
*
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A group of images that show lists. When we
began our early learning classes we sometimes
showed a photograph on one side of the screen;
and on the other the words for the image we had
projected. Here we see chicken, elephant,
fisherman; and on this occasion, we got the
computer to write them in a kind of script.sothat the children would write down the words
more nearly in handwriting than is the case with
small-case print writing which is sometimes the
promulgated norm in textbooks; and you can see
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the children here will write maybe the sound of
the words or maybe they will group them: make
elaborate wavy lines down the lists down the
columns to suggest how they are orderingthem in their minds; or maybe they will just leave
elegant white space between the columns, so
that everything is crystal clear.
This is the work of two students; and theyve
tried to echo each other, to list the various
compass-points, really, in their minds, in course
of copying down many words from our days
study. And this time we were expanding concepts
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numbers of things; and small expressions like I
do not knowwhich has been written six times,
for some strange reason! The words are always
written eloquently, and with small variations: astrong sense ofmastering the expressions;
sometimes running the words into one another;
with no real thought for conventional
orthographyIts rather the sense ofconquering
and internalizing an expression which they
already know inside-out. And I come along, and
put in a few annotations in red, just to support
them, help them along Theres nothing
profound here; but its a channeling of daily
learning in a very lucid and lucent way: from
wonderfully attentive, wonderfully articulate,
and always happy students.
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This shows the response of a student who clearly
suffers from dyslexia. But even though this is full
of disturbing erroryou wouldnt really know
where to start correcting itits nonetheless very
clear that hes making an effort: hes trying to
write words down on a board, hes trying to
space them out, hes copying them as best he
can: theyre coming out very strangely; but
nonetheless, this is really my non-invasive
teaching philosophy in action. It would be very
hard to know how to guide this boy, except to
encourage him; and let him try things; and little
by little, the mind will heal itself and come into
focus. Thats the best I can hope for with a
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student like that. But thats, by and large, a
philosophy which applies in every situation.
This whiteboard shows how I chipped in with a
few teaching words of my own. Students always
enjoy this particular type of word because such
words have what I call the unfriendly or un-
cooperative neighbour syndrome going on. So
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weve got cake which (I tell them) has initially got
an a sound as in cat and an e as in get; but
when a k decides to push in, to jump between
these two letters, why then a and e (who arefriends) have to start talking in a different way;
and what we generally do is get the students who
are playing the vowels to reach round another
student who has jumped in (who represents the
k) i.e. who has jumped in the middle and they
modulate their voices into one single identical
sound, which is the ei sound of cake, a
diphthong. And then its very simple to get the
students to understand that as well as cake you
have take, rake, make, bake for single initial
consonants; and then of course, you can have
these more Georgian-looking complex
consonants starting other similar words such as
snake or tram or pram; more Georgian , that is,
in the sense of being complex, not that those
consonant clusters are actually salient in
Georgian; and then, of course, you can change
the consonant that jumps in so that you might
get date, rate; and lake and lane; and name,
changing it once again; same, tame, wane
changing it a further time or two: but never
confronting the student with too much change at
once. Getting them to copy ones pronunciation
of these, and see the logic of the spelling; which
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is not a difficult logic to grasp, but it needs a little
eking out. And then of course, you can show how
without the e at the end of these words
modifying the a which comes second, you canjust have normal vowel operation in words or
at least have words which are not thus modified
in this way, examples being January and land.
And I think they do get a clear polarity from the
teacher that there are words with this curious
unhelpful neighbor syndrome going on; and that
there are other, standardwords, which dont
have it. And thats about as complex a higher
level explanation as I think its safe to take with
students of this kind of background and age.
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This photo shows Dolch words. Dolch words are
the building blocks of childrens fairy stories,
which Enchanted Learning very helpfully lists...
And here I wanted the students to see what
words they recognized. It was a non-invasive
test: I wasnt saying, Here you have to have
known all these words!; I was saying, Here are
some words we may have had; do you recognize
any of them? And the children would colour in
the ones they recognized. And, interestingly, they
used different and vibrant colours to show their
varying responses to different words. So again, I
had this strong sense of there being an inner
world of language in the children, which my
print-out here managed to magnetize, and to
draw the similar words in their minds into aparticular focus, words which they would then
colour, say, in yellow; and then they might be
into another, different, focus; and theyd colour
thosewords in red. One stray word here is
coloured in lime greenthats the word good;
and others are coloured in purple. Its a very
personal and individual response: all the studentswho did this exercise came up with quite
different colours; they didnt actually go for
trying to claim that they knew all the words: they
simply went for words which they liked and
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remembered. There was no sense of their having
to achieve anything. They were simply required
to react to what they knew, or might have come
across.
I adopted a similar colouristic and graphical
approach myselfin explaining the very simple
first grammar point, the most essential
grammar point in English: what is the Present of a
verb and how you have an s on the third person.
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With the tiny sketch of a sheep and a girl to make
things clear, I began with he sheandit. Ive
separated the third person from what you might
call the immediate world of the children,I andyou; and the distant world of the children, we
and they; which is more abstract and remote. I
coloured in blue the area for he sheandit; and I
linkedplaywith those other words, Iand you;
andweandtheywhich Ive differentiated, and
Ive coloured them in yellow; but the word which
varies with the s on the endIve notcoloured
in: but Ive made the s blue; so the whole thing is,
I think, as lucid from me, the teacher, as they are
habitually serving up for me in their own musings
and meditations on the way language seems to
fall out, in practice, for them...
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A much younger student simply managing to
copy MacMillan flashcards successfully; and I
have helped him to write the word rocket over
the top of the drawing on the first two pictures;
and Ive given him ten out of ten; because at that
age, its a great achievement if he sits still and
can actually do something without getting
distracted; without going off-message.
Another student in the same class has got veryinvolved in copying a snake. Hes more or less
spelt snake correctly and Ive done one of my
very rare corrections, very gently overlining the k
which he had done, which was more like an h,
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and putting in a standard k in a slightly different
colour. So theres no sense of, no, this is wrong!
its just a gentle movement to get the ship back
on course. No more than steering it in a morerelevant direction. This is my idea of student
correction. It must be very gentle and non-
invasive; and in no way challenging to the
students sense of pride in his or her progress.
And there must be no sense that every minute
isnt progress, either if thats possible!
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Great feats of the imagination here! largely
because its done entirely in two or three colours
on a whiteboard so that, technically, the
resources were very limited. Its a response to a
Cow Who Fell Into The Canalpicture which was
full of much interesting detail and here we see
some of the words, cat, house, barge and canal,for example; other students on this exercise put
in a lot more words. But even where elements
have not been annotated, they have generally
been drawn, with subtle and fitting re-
interpretations. The screaming baby is
magnificent, and seems to be levitating out of his
play-pen; the man on the bridge has been moved
back so that we get a better view of the bridge;
the elaborate Dutch bird-house has been omitted
so that we get a better view of the house; the
mother and child have been given a more
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emotional and caring modulation. On the far R,
we see the original.
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This group of images relates to our Apple and
Georgian Poetry week in October 2012. The
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churches depicted are always the traditional
Georgian cruciform type, with its central cupola.
A great deal of detail here, and the church in blue
(and one in an image below) are situated on thetop of a hill, as is often the case in Georgia; the
cross is the particular Georgian type of pectoral
cross which is often found in Georgian art; worn,
I believe, by Georgian priests
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Stages in the evolution of a picture representing
a poem about the cypress tree swaying and the
wind blowing (After the Mongol Invasion by
Tariel Chanturia) which we translated (or
looked at!) in both languages. In this graveyard
scene, an apple tree has replaced the cypress
which is actually a very optimistic replacement.
Again, this is done on a whiteboard. Technically
its extremely adept, considering the whiteboard
is a slightly unforgiving and inflexible medium on
which to work. Below: further responses; and the
text of the poem in Donald Rayfields version.
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*
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Cathach of Saint
Columba: Irish, 7th
cent.
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These images show how the children almost
make the orthography of English their own.
Georgian has only one letter case: there are no
big or small letters in Georgian; and this seems
to have influenced way Georgian children want
to write English, just as seventh century Irish
scribes were somewhat bemused by the
hierarchical requirements of copying a Psalter in
Latin (R). Its quite obvious in the list in black;
and again, in the red ones (below) the writers
arent so expert; but theres this strong sense of
wanting to equalize the heights of letters, even
against the grain of actual usage. Ive not insisted
on correct English mis-en-page at this stageIve
not corrected itbecause Im happy to see that
intense engagement with creating harmoniousstructures in the students mind. In this arena,
theres no real difference between the wide-eyed
Georgian schoolchild and the medieval writer of
the Cathach. Below L, to amuse the student and
to try and speak his graphical language, Ive made
an attempt to draw in fish apple cat and dog
myself; but the clumsy and unnatural posing ofan adults imagination immediately jars: it has
nothing of the freshness and vitality of a childs
imagination; and thats even when Im trying my
very best, attempting to get onto the childs
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wave-length. I like the way that the provider of
the lists in black (above top R) has almost like
the medieval scribe put in little icons of the
words: an apple, a little fish, and what I take tobe a nut; filled in as an extra just casually and
beautifully.
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*
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Three very calligraphic and sketchy but perfect
responses, full of personality, written on rough
paper and with just a few inadequate colours.
The student has nonetheless achieved a very
harmonious result.
Above, some of my attempts to differentiate
between the sounds of the English letters and
their names, which is a point of confusion inGeorgia very often. Ive not used any formal
phonetics, Ive tried to make it as vivid and clear
and simple as possible. And I also provided a little
rhyme, which they were required to read out and
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have an informal test onaiming to establish
whether they could indeed distinguish the names
of the letters from their sounds, and get both
right. In most cases the children then could;although later, they again started to forget some
of these points. As children will. Here is my
rhyme:
*
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The above image shows what happens when
with a student whos not likely to approach an
English language textbook dialogue in the
conventional way you say, All right, well just
look at whats going on in the dialogue, who the
people are, and so on!; and so then you take
the Preview, just the picture part; and the
student gets involved in colouring it in and
identifying with the people, making a very
beautiful improvement really on the original
picture; embellishing it with all sorts of new
colours and details. And shes readying herself,
subliminally, for a study of the dialogue
proprement dita bit later on, or even (with my
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encouragement) gently for a few moments
maybe, at the end of the lesson; initially just
checking out some of the words and expressions.
This student has got a very graphical focus: shesmuch more interested in art and drawing and
imagining than in conceptualizing; and I let that
ride
If a slightly different writing style is introduced
and its attractive, the students will make great
efforts to imitate it.
*
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The MacMillan sticking exercise a quite tactile
sense of matching the image with the word; and
having the fun of gluing it on, cobbling it together
quite physically and literally, as well as in ones
mind.
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An economy of line here from Khagani which
really rivals very late Picasso. The student just
dashes off a quick MacMillan fruit image, simply
to show his colour skills; and then gives us the
essentials of a house; and also he signs the sheet
with his nickname, kasanovi; though hes
crossed out both namesI think its because hes
not particularly proud of these wonderful
drawings, whichfor my part, I must say I
treasure.
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A late Picasso line drawing
*
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Khatia has been inspired by the famous almost
operatic finale at the end of the first MacMillan
book which shes trying I think to teach to
other students in the class (as she often did) andshes done a very beautiful king, whom I also
show in a close-up view with his three-pointed
crown, his slightly vacant look, and his schematic
body Shes managed to people an empty
whiteboard in a single colour with a variety of
figures, the composition of which is not at all
easy to work out; and yet the result is extremely
harmonious and satisfying, as with everything
shes done.
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Above and below: images by Mari: fascinating
because shes trying to represent partly in the
drawing and partly with arrows and words what
she did at the weekend. And shes trying to do so
without verbs without the declensions and
difficulties of verbsshes trying to just
graphically represent what shes trying to put
across. Its very eloquent, its very creative, and
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it shows a real understanding of her sense that
language is going to pose technical difficulties;
and that we might playfully try to find ways
round those technical difficulties. And in thelast picture we see her trying to construct some
sense of a house the one where her
grandparents live where she went at the
weekend, as she has indicated!
*
The next group of pictures is also very interesting
because it shows students creating almost
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hieroglyphic representations of concepts; and
indeed verbs. These artists Azerbaijani
students as already mentioned in Five Days in
May have a wonderful strong sense of the sun,making a visceral attempt to draw its vital rays;
and then write the word sun in the middle of all
this. Its clear that they are having a vivid learning
experience and want to echo it back to the
teacher.
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The picture of a van, from a much younger
student, is similar in spirit to the drawings of the
sun. The wheels are very prominent and theres
some sense that theres an inside, and that it
carries things, but its a very two-dimensional
image; and the student has not a very profound
view of the world yet; and he sees the outsides of
things Thats worth remembering, in young
children; they see the world in a partial way;
things are bigger to them than they are to adults.
So the whole relationship between things and
their representation in children is quite different
to what it is in adults. I think language teaching
must reflect at least a tolerance of that
difference.
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*
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The last three pictures shows what happens
when you give Georgian students an art
instruction book which derives shapes of leaves
and petals and so on from geometrical shapes
and gently leaves the students to recreate the
same natural object, starting from these shapes.
And the results are really very impressive, lucid
and accomplished. And not something I thinkthat every student in every country in the world
would be capable of bringing off to such a
standard and especially not at such an early
age! When I see these images, and the images
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with words, I am excited by the tremendous
vitality and sense of being which their creators
possess: a sense of the thisness the haeccitas
of existence, as John Duns Scotus put it.
*
We need to tap into this sense of life, this
plenitude, this unique insight which they have!
if possible, when were teaching them. We
need to draw it out; and indeed be fired by it
Its something than cannot be found in anytheoretical system which we might impose on
them!
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Double Rainbow at Bolnisi, Summer 2013
Do you want your breakfast now? Giorgi
Archangel at Kintsvisi, Georgia