Meet the Teacher: Nóra on Stories and Artworks | LANGUAGECERT.org

In this interview, Nóra Wünsch-Nagy reflects on the importance of visual storytelling, engaging students through interesting topics, and drawing on "guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience" in her teaching.

Thinking back on your teaching journey, what was a defining moment for your teacher identity?

Right at the beginning of my teaching career, I started using paintings in all of my classes, including business English courses and traditional middle- and secondary-school lessons. It was amazing to see that businessmen appreciated the "break" and the cultural experience. When I worked with paintings during guided dialogues, I noticed that even the shyest and quietest students had something to say. This approach demands patience and focuses on the students. I find it essential to help students engage through visual storytelling.

Is there a routine or technique that you use to hone a feeling of power or efficacy?

It depends on what you mean by power and efficacy. As a teacher-researcher who was trained in traditional English as a Second Language pedagogy, but also studied several different pedagogical practices, I have developed my own routines.

First, I know that students need to become curious, so I engage them with interesting topics, including artworks, visual arts, book art, and even music. Once they are interested and I have activated their own experiences, I focus on guided discussions. During these guided discussions, I introduce the concepts I want them to learn about.

For example, I teach visual grammar to help them become better at describing and analysing texts. I gradually take away the scaffolding. First, we analyse an image together, then students get guiding questions to do it alone, and finally they do it independently. This works with all skills and activity types. I believe in what Joan Rothery described as "guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience". This idea became the core motto of genre-based pedagogy informed by systemic functional linguistics.

Do you recall a moment when you felt disempowered as a teacher?

Yes, we all do from time to time. The question is not what happens in those moments, rather how we react. Whatever happened - a student losing interest, another student getting annoyed and loud, or a student not understanding what I was saying - I always looked for a better way of explaining something or engaging the student.

Then there are moments when you know the class needs a break and you can always return to an activity a bit later. But generally, I believe that it is the teacher's responsibility to make a topic interesting and to give students engaging activities. Of course, we also need to know our limits and understand how much we need to invest in a lesson.

What does the phrase "the artist in the teacher" mean to you?

It is not a natural state of being a teacher, and I do not think teachers are encouraged to find an artistic vein in their own teacher personas. However, as teachers, we work with people, and working with people involves working with emotions, experiences, and diverse knowledge areas. Art is at the centre of all these aspects of being a teacher.

I think teachers should accept that they do not need to be art historians or master-level artists to interact with artworks. Some teachers may not feel artistic in terms of compositions or creations. However, it is not always the teacher who needs to be creative. A creative task can be inspiring, and students will often surprise us with their own creations.

What would you tell yourself in your first year of teaching?

Always have a good plan for the day, but keep it more like a road map. You do not need to plan every aspect of your lesson, because teachers need to be prepared to deal with unexpected moments. It is still important to know where you want to go.

Learning meaningful things is more important than learning a lot. Repeat activities if necessary, spend a lot of time on one or two meaningful activities, and feel free to create your own activities. You teach your students - it is not the course book that teaches them.

Use a lot of stories and story-based activities, as students remember them. If you know that a task is meaningful, you know you are giving your students the best. They might not see it that way at the time, but you help them nonetheless. Believe in the value of good stories and good artworks. You can develop language and literacy skills and help your students grow culturally.

Watch the webinar on demand: See It, Say It, Make It: Visual Arts for Multimodal Language Learning with Nóra Wünsch-Nagy