Facilitating the Teaching of English through the Teaching of Arts

Abstract

Art seems to be one of the fields that make the person involving in the field highly motivated, full-heartedly obsessed, and free to explore, to exploit, to express as well as to experiment with what he/she is engaging in. It might be these characteristics that enable an artist to produce a piece of artwork which is free of the imposition of external factor(s). It might be these situations, too, that become the fundamental reason why one does the job with full of enjoyment. In turn, it might be this joyful condition that triggers and encourages the art worker(s) to willingly and enthusiastically initiate, proceed, and accomplish their work. The characteristics shown by the artists in work and their spirits in doing the job could be adopted and made use of in the teaching and learning English. If we want the teaching and learning English in our country successful, the feeling of joy and the spirit are two conditions needed in the teaching and learning the language. This paper tries to explore and exploit the possibility of using art as an alternative strategy in the teaching and learning English for high school students. Keywords— teaching; learning; language; English