A Learning Experience to Innovate through Tins as Cultural Artifacts in EFL

Enfoque

 

This study is set at the crossroads of Archaeology within the classroom, English as a Second Language,  Literature in English and History  subjects at Secondary level of bilingual education. Its objectives were to promote extended writing and enrich the students´ multicultural awareness. The subject matter was the past and present contact of two nations. A small-scale experiment was designed  around The Sweet Collection (a collection of English Biscuits tins in Uruguay) that served as a cultural artifact to open up the students´ learning process in a private bilingual school.  The researchers were a Doctorate of Education practitioner and the collector. Within the methodology, the educational intervention design focused on the comprehension of the changing role of women in the transition between Victorian times and the beginning of the twentieth century. The students´ incipient motivation was the exposure to a public exhibition of The Sweet Collection and the exploration of the collector´s motivations via interviewing. The Sweet Collection, unique in the River Plate  as a cultural artifact, enabled the study of the historical trade and cultural  bonds that existed between the UK and Uruguay during the industrialization of tinned meat to feed the population at the beginning of the twentieth century and the First World War, and the relevant role played by women during a period of great transition and cultural change. The inclusion of an image of the tins manufactured by Frigorífico Anglo in Uruguay at the Exhibition was worked upon to understand the historical link between two cultures via an intense and creative research task on behalf of the students. It facilitated the interpretation of manufacturing processes during the industrial era and the role women played in it. The structure and layout of tins as containers served not only a practical purpose but a cultural one as well, due to the information displayed on it. A product created and inspired in a nation with a long history, and industrialized by another in the process of conformation of its identity.  For the latter, the existence of the tins is relevant, given the country’s youth, since it presents interesting consequences for its study. In the revision of the literature there was a focus on the process of project planning and its pedagogical implications at secondary level. Diary, summary and reviews were the textual types exercised for the extended writing. The methodology of the study consisted in two editions of the intervention, the first before the pandemic and the second in the middle of it. The collector was interviewed by the students during the public exhibition, and twice by the researcher, once between both editions and then after the second. The data provided by the learning plan was subjected to document analysis. Qualitative coding was used to examine  the practitioner´s interviews to the collector. Results revealed a description of the most frequent conceptual categories emergent during the learning process in relation to aspects such as interests, planning, social and cultural themes and time allotment. It was concluded that comprehending the use given to a manufactured product, that commercially bonded two different cultures in the past, aided the understanding of industrial processes, historical trading bonds and globalizing social similarities. The project effectively inspired extended writing activities. This model may be replicated and inspire future teaching experiences.