The museum as classroom: expanding the boundaries of ESL curriculum in Korea

There are over 135 public and private cultural institutions in the Seoul metropolitan area. Yet few of these museums offer programming for learning English as a second language (ESL) despite the proliferation of ESL instruction at universities, public schools and private academies throughout South Korea. This essay explores how the visual arts can be incorporated into innovative ESL pedagogy by centralizing students’ direct experiences as essential to the learning process. After a brief survey of programs such as “Language through Art” at the Getty and the British Council’s ESOL Nexus curriculum using the British Museum’s collections, I draw from my own experiences using the visual arts and museum visits to teach English at Ewha Womans [sic] University.