THE ART-LANGUAGE TECHNIQUE. DESCRIPTION, PARTICULARITIES, FORMATIVE VALUES, APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Given the increasing interest of students of all ages towards digital texts, but also the prevalence of the visual over other forms of language, the use of images in the teaching of any type of content should be a priority of the didactic act – or at least a common didactic practice. Most frequently, however, teaching staff limit this priority to the use in well-defined contexts of certain visual teaching tools, be they digital/ technological or in the form of graphic and figurative materials. Without questioning their effectiveness, we promote their combination with last generation didactic techniques, which could profit from the children' s interest in the visual or hybrid spectacular (Ilie 2020: 159), in ways that stimulate, and even prioritize, the development of their aesthetic and cultural sensibility. In this article, we propose to describe one of these techniques, the art-language technique, and then to exemplify various modalities of using it, especially in the primary education. By assuming the reasoned association of a theme or a message of a literary/non-literary text with an artwork chosen from a series made available by the teachers (Ilie, 2020: 160), the art-language technique can be used in a variety of curricular, but also extra-curricular contexts, that could facilitate children's access to a wide range of contents from the school curricula specific to primary education. The applications presented in this work will take into account the areas of Language and Communication, Man and Society, Arts and Technologies, as well as Personal Development. Of course, the formative valences adjacent to the use of this technique derive from the inter- and pluri-disciplinary character it implies, giving students the opportunity to creatively express emotions and thoughts in a variety of situations. With the help of the teaching staff, the visual art works could be transformed, on one hand, into anchors that can facilitate the adequate assimilation of aesthetic and cultural contents; on the other hand, they could become excellent vehicles of supplementary meanings, resulted from the subjective experience of the student, placed in the posture of a sensible, but also critical observer, who sees beyond color and form.