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UCL Art Museum’s current showcase reveals a new approach to language learning
This year, the UCL Art Museum has been hosting an interactive display entitled ‘Not Just Words: Learning languages through art and objects’, inviting visitors to engage with one or more of the many modern and ancient languages taught across the university. Via a combination of video teasers and objects from the museum collection, the showcase provides the opportunity to hear from experts across a range of faculties about the language they teach and its connection to an item tied to that culture, selected from the museum archive.
Linked to object-based learning, ‘Not Just Words’ engages with outside-the-box teaching, presenting visitors with the opportunity to take an object or artwork as their starting point in the discovery of another language and culture. Dr Elettra Carbone, the showcase’s academic curator, oversaw the project from which the exhibition developed, originally conceived as a Language and Object Show and Tell for Year 12 students during the COVID-19 pandemic, which promoted language awareness and multilingualism beyond the university.
Commenting on this innovative way of teaching, Carbone describes the potential in museums as sites of learning that ‘arouse curiosity and inspire new ideas’. She hopes that the ‘Not Just Words’ showcase will provide an environment that encourages ‘more open-ended, more individually directed, [and] more unpredictable’ learning.
As well as learning from the tutors through the medium of video, the museum has been offering lunchtime language taster sessions. Dr Cristina Massaccesi, Director of Italian Studies (SELCS), who produced the Italian video for the project and ran a drop-in language session last term, said: “Object-based learning was a new teaching experience for me, which I found very interesting and enjoyable. Using an amazing 18th century etching of Rome from the museum collection, I taught students how to ask for directions in Italian as well as introducing them to the history of the Grand Tour and some of the historic sites of Rome, many of which look the same today as in the drawing. Being part of this project was a pleasant experience and I hope it encourages and widens student participation in languages across the university.”
There will be more drop-in classes running this term with the full schedule available via the links below.
Testament to UCL’s engagement with interdisciplinary approaches, ‘Not Just Words’ brings together diverse languages, faculties, objects and artworks, resulting in an insightful display that can offer something to everyone.
The ‘Not Just Words’ showcase is free and open to all during term-time at the UCL Art Museum from 1-5pm Tuesday-Friday.
