ESL WORKSHEET - Art and Historical Celebrities

LESSON PLAN FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS

VINCENT VAN GOGH

LinguaHouse
Aug. 28, 2022

Level: Intermediate (B1-B2)
Type of English: General English
Tags: Celebrities and Historical Figures; Art; Describing People; People and Places; 13-15 Years Old; 16-18 Years Old; 18+ Years Old; Video Talk
Publication date: 08/28/2022

This biography lesson tells the life story of artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), via an accessible authentic video which also shows plenty of images of his paintings. The lesson focuses on vocabulary, listening comprehension, and speaking and includes a short look at cleft sentences (What he enjoyed most was...). There is also an optional extension activity about alternative ways to experience his art, using a Cambridge speaking exam format (by Stephanie Hirschman).

• CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
• CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.
• CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio (MP3).
• CLICK HERE to download/watch the video (MP4).

AUDIO/VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

This is the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. People come to this museum from all over the world to admire the paintings of Vincent van Gogh. These days Vincent is world famous, but when he was alive, hardly anyone knew his work. Do you want to know who he was? Take a journey back in time with us, and we’ll tell you how Vincent became an artist.
Vincent grew up in an exciting age - the age of the steam train. Vincent took the train to other countries. He didn’t really know what he wanted to be, but fortunately his brother Theo had a good idea. He wrote, “Vincent, you’re good at drawing. Why not try something with that?” That was true. Vincent loved drawing. And painting? He could learn that, couldn’t he? From that point on, Vincent knew what he wanted to be - an artist.
He made a start. What he enjoyed most was drawing and painting the lives of ordinary folk, like this family of farmers: The Potato Eaters. He was proud of what he was doing, but others didn’t like it one bit.
“That woman’s nose looks like the stem of a pipe with a die on the end of it!” But Vincent carried on regardless. He wanted to be a good artist and worked hard. He just kept on practicing and practicing, and then went to live with his brother Theo in Paris. There, he learned a lot from other artists. They used lots of different colors - he liked that. Vincent began to paint with the same bright cheerful colors - bright reds, yellows and blues.
Vincent had little money, so he was careful with his paint. Before he started to paint, he put balls of wool together to see whether the colors looked good. See, we still have his box with the balls of wool. After a while, Paris became too busy for Vincent and there was no one who wanted to buy his paintings.
He moved further south towards the sun and the light to the colors. In the South of France, Vincent painted the colors of the corn, of the night and the sea. Vincent looked very closely at the scene. After all, the sea was not just blue, it was made up of many more colors - green, purple, blue, pink. The sea changes color like the skin of a mackerel.
Vincent wanted to paint life the way he saw it and felt it. He talked about that with others, but not everyone could understand that. What should be in a painting, something that you can picture in your head or something that’s there before your eyes? Vincent sometimes even had arguments about that. That made him miserable. It made him unhappy he became ill and confused. Very confused indeed. Have you heard the story of how he came to cut off his own ear? Luckily there was a hospital where they could take good care of him. It was a difficult time, but he kept working when he could. He created very beautiful paintings like this one for his newborn nephew. Once he was feeling a little better, Vincent moved to the countryside near Paris.
All he did was paint and paint but even then, he wasn’t happy. His troubles came back, and he didn’t want to live anymore. Vincent wasn’t very old when he died. He was a determined and curious go-getter, and in his work he never gave up. What he can teach us is that you should do what you’re good at. For Vincent that meant drawing and painting. And you, what are you good at?

Adapted from: https://www.linguahouse.com/esl-lesson-plans/general-english/vincent-van-gogh. Accessed on August 31, 2022. © 2008–2022 LinguaHouse.com. All rights reserved.