Did you know King George I was an ESOL learner?
“Our Hanoverian monarchs sometimes struggled with British language, food, landscape and culture,” according to Kensington Palace’s downloadable ESOL worksheets, making a connection between the UK and the world of English for Speakers of Other Languages.
ESOL programmes will be shaped by:
• A museum’s mission, collections and available resources
• Staff enthusiasms and expertise
• The learners (whether they are from a local college or a specific community group)
Many museums will also rely on a trial and error approach as programmes evolve.
Models for ESOL learning
There are a number of different types of ESOL provision. A commonly-used model involves the ESOL class tutor running the session in the museum, with museum staff supporting them behind-the-scenes through ideas, expertise and possibly training.
This approach is popular because museums often lack resources to take classes themselves and partly because the tutors understand what their students need from a session.
Two years ago, Hackney Museum in London discovered that its worksheets were being used by a tiny percentage of ESOL visitors. The museum’s heritage learning manager Emma Winch worked with an ESOL curriculum manager who was looking for a course venue to design a year-long curriculum around the themes of migration, work and home. This included bi-weekly visits to view the museum’s oral history, objects and archives.
One-off visits to museums are more common. London’s Kensington Palace, part of Historic Royal Palaces, worked with Westminster’s Adult Education Department to put together a comprehensive series of downloads linked to the ESOL curriculum, after an assessor from the borough questioned the educational value of the previous materials.
Freelance tutors were paid to develop the materials themselves, and the palace’s learning producer Kim Klug checked facts, and wrote the introductory text and guidance notes.
ESOL tutors undertake training and sign an agreement that clarifies they are responsible for leading visits. “[Previously] there was a lot of confusion because people might turn up and say ‘Oh, I’m here with my group,’ and expect us to give them a tour of the palace,” says Klug.
If museums make worksheets and appropriate ESOL activity resources available online or at the information desk, then these can be used by ESOL tutors before, during and after visits, without any need to contact the museum.
Hourly-paid ESOL tutors who do not have the time to build up partnerships, or no space in their course for extracurricular lessons, can use these to see if a museum visit fits the curriculum or class plan. Workshops are also useful for less experienced teachers or ones who have never taught in the museum.
However, worksheet-based learning in a museum can detract from engagement with objects, mimic the textbook-based format of lessons too much, and lack flexibility.
Evidence about how much these resources are used by ESOL teachers independently of museums is also lacking.
Larger museums or those with a large number of ESOL learners in their local area might run sessions for ESOL learners. This type of session may be charged and groups book on as part of their course.
Alternatively, museums can host drop-in sessions for individual ESOL learners and groups. Manchester Art Gallery runs English Corner, a free English weekly conversation class that allows participants to practise their speaking and listening skills while exploring artworks and collections on display.
Best practice approaches
In a 2014 report prepared for London Transport Museum, consultant Louise White recommended that listening and speaking activities were prioritised inside the museum with reading and writing saved for the classroom.
She also recommended that activities were piloted to ensure that they worked for all participants in busy gallery spaces.
Although the language used in resources and activities needs to be appropriate for non-native English speakers, the museum can be a place where unfamiliar language is introduced and used.
ESOL consultant Poppy Szaybo says there is a “symbiosis” between the classroom and the museum – classes might teach how to put a sentence together, but museums encourage a “different, more sophisticated English”.
Museums may also need to mindful of cultural sensitivity. “Parsnip topics” – the acronym stands for politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms and pork – are usually omitted from English language textbooks, but museums don’t necessarily have to follow suit.
For a start their collections may not allow them to leave out these topics. But equally the point of museum visits is to engage with a range of British culture and history.
Lesbian, gay and bisexual issues were covered in an exhibition at the People’s History Museum in Manchester when Bev Davies, the head of school for ESOL, Foundation and Supported Learning at Northampton College, took a group of ESOL learners there.
She thought the resulting conversations very valuable, and believes that museum visits should not shy away from these issues.
Szaybo says that some ESOL learners she has worked with did not want to touch pictures of nudity. “It’s not our role to challenge what’s important to them,” she says.
“Our Hanoverian monarchs sometimes struggled with British language, food, landscape and culture,” according to Kensington Palace’s downloadable ESOL worksheets, making a connection between the UK and the world of English for Speakers of Other Languages.
ESOL programmes will be shaped by:
• A museum’s mission, collections and available resources
• Staff enthusiasms and expertise
• The learners (whether they are from a local college or a specific community group)
Many museums will also rely on a trial and error approach as programmes evolve.
Models for ESOL learning
There are a number of different types of ESOL provision. A commonly-used model involves the ESOL class tutor running the session in the museum, with museum staff supporting them behind-the-scenes through ideas, expertise and possibly training.
This approach is popular because museums often lack resources to take classes themselves and partly because the tutors understand what their students need from a session.
Two years ago, Hackney Museum in London discovered that its worksheets were being used by a tiny percentage of ESOL visitors. The museum’s heritage learning manager Emma Winch worked with an ESOL curriculum manager who was looking for a course venue to design a year-long curriculum around the themes of migration, work and home. This included bi-weekly visits to view the museum’s oral history, objects and archives.
One-off visits to museums are more common. London’s Kensington Palace, part of Historic Royal Palaces, worked with Westminster’s Adult Education Department to put together a comprehensive series of downloads linked to the ESOL curriculum, after an assessor from the borough questioned the educational value of the previous materials.
Freelance tutors were paid to develop the materials themselves, and the palace’s learning producer Kim Klug checked facts, and wrote the introductory text and guidance notes.
ESOL tutors undertake training and sign an agreement that clarifies they are responsible for leading visits. “[Previously] there was a lot of confusion because people might turn up and say ‘Oh, I’m here with my group,’ and expect us to give them a tour of the palace,” says Klug.
If museums make worksheets and appropriate ESOL activity resources available online or at the information desk, then these can be used by ESOL tutors before, during and after visits, without any need to contact the museum.
Hourly-paid ESOL tutors who do not have the time to build up partnerships, or no space in their course for extracurricular lessons, can use these to see if a museum visit fits the curriculum or class plan. Workshops are also useful for less experienced teachers or ones who have never taught in the museum.
However, worksheet-based learning in a museum can detract from engagement with objects, mimic the textbook-based format of lessons too much, and lack flexibility.
Evidence about how much these resources are used by ESOL teachers independently of museums is also lacking.
Larger museums or those with a large number of ESOL learners in their local area might run sessions for ESOL learners. This type of session may be charged and groups book on as part of their course.
Alternatively, museums can host drop-in sessions for individual ESOL learners and groups. Manchester Art Gallery runs English Corner, a free English weekly conversation class that allows participants to practise their speaking and listening skills while exploring artworks and collections on display.
Best practice approaches
In a 2014 report prepared for London Transport Museum, consultant Louise White recommended that listening and speaking activities were prioritised inside the museum with reading and writing saved for the classroom.
She also recommended that activities were piloted to ensure that they worked for all participants in busy gallery spaces.
Although the language used in resources and activities needs to be appropriate for non-native English speakers, the museum can be a place where unfamiliar language is introduced and used.
ESOL consultant Poppy Szaybo says there is a “symbiosis” between the classroom and the museum – classes might teach how to put a sentence together, but museums encourage a “different, more sophisticated English”.
Museums may also need to mindful of cultural sensitivity. “Parsnip topics” – the acronym stands for politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms and pork – are usually omitted from English language textbooks, but museums don’t necessarily have to follow suit.
For a start their collections may not allow them to leave out these topics. But equally the point of museum visits is to engage with a range of British culture and history.
Lesbian, gay and bisexual issues were covered in an exhibition at the People’s History Museum in Manchester when Bev Davies, the head of school for ESOL, Foundation and Supported Learning at Northampton College, took a group of ESOL learners there.
She thought the resulting conversations very valuable, and believes that museum visits should not shy away from these issues.
Szaybo says that some ESOL learners she has worked with did not want to touch pictures of nudity. “It’s not our role to challenge what’s important to them,” she says.