Is this an emoji I see before me?
Shakespeare teachers use phone icons
WHILE you might not expect a bright yellow smiley face to appear in a quotation from Macbeth, teachers are now using emojis to teach their pupils Shakespeare.
And some believe that adopting the images – mobile phone icons which reflect emotions ranging from grinning to sad faces – even helps improve youngsters’ learning.
But other educators argue that their use in lessons is a ‘moral failing’ and could harm pupils’ chances of long-term educational success.
Charlotte Hodgson, an English teacher at Avonbourne College in Bournemouth, Dorset, revealed that emojis are ‘embedded’ in her department’s schemes of work.
She told the Times Educational Supplement: ‘Everyone in the English department is using them. I’ve had classes plot the entire summary of a scene in emojis and then they put them on to a graph to show the tension the characters are feeling, and they find quotations to illustrate this, so it builds to become higher- level learning as well.’ Miss Hodgson said emojis had particularly helped her Year 7 class, with pupils aged 11 to 12, engage with Shakespeare.
She said: ‘I’ve just taught A Midsummer Night’s Dream and, when we’ve read a bit of the scene, they summarise it in two main emojis and then have to explain it. The emojis are not used by themselves – there is always some kind of verbal or written explanation that then allows you to check the pupils’ literacy, writing skills or speech skills. The emojis just give them a starting point.’
She claims that emoji use leads to higher understanding, engagement and learning.
Others use them to help pupils who have English as a second language. At a secondary school in Stockton-on-Tees, modern foreign languages teacher Luca Kuhlman argues that emojis are an invaluable aid. ‘Wherever possible, I take out the English words in a text and replace them with an emoji, so they associate the French with an image rather than with an English translation,’ he told the TES.
But Jon Brunskill, teacher at Reach Academy Feltham, West London, said: ‘If a teacher said, “I know how to use standard spoken English, of course I do – I’ve got a degree, it’s how I got this lovely job and can pay my mortgage on a lovely house, but I’m not going to give it to you guys because I think it will be fun to use emojis for a few years”, I think that’s a moral failing.’
And Clare Sealy, headteacher at St Matthias School in East London, added: ‘As educators, we have not a single minute to waste teaching trivia such as emojis.’ Emojis originate from Japan, with the first one invented by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999.