Teaching Vowels, part 5

Five: Painting Vowel Images

The next step was to connect the sound and emotion with the written image. I was intrigued with a description Rudolf Steiner gave of painting emotions using colour, out of which the related forms could be made.

“...we do not begin by introducing the alphabet directly, nor reading as a subject, but... we start with painting. Consequently, when young students enter our school, we introduce them first to the world of flowing colors with watercolor painting.... The children learn how to work with paints, and through the use of color the teacher can guide them toward definite forms. With the necessary skill, the teacher can allow the shapes of the letters to evolve from such painted forms. In this way, the children gain a direct relationship to the various shapes of the letters. It is possible to develop the written vowels A or U so that first one paints the mood..., finally allowing the picture to assume the form of the appropriate letters. All teaching must have an artistic quality based on the pictorial element. The first step is to involve the whole being of the child in the effort of painting, which is subsequently transformed into writing.” (Steiner, 1996, P. 198-200)

Wanting to experiment with this concept, I began to research Goethe’s colour wheel, and match emotions to colours. The list below is of the colours I used for this project:

A - satisfaction, relief – yellow, gold-yellow

E - searching, reaching out – green, yellow-green

I – repulsion - violet

O – shock – red, vermillion

U - disgust, disappointment – blue, indigo

I chose the Grimm’s Fairy Tale, Sweet Porridge[1], as a context for the paintings, and the next main lesson block. Within the story, I identified the five emotions and an illustrative image for each of the five vowel sounds. As a variation, we painted the letter forms out of these story images with the designated colours for each emotion. This time the vowels were presented in a different order.  These vowel form paintings are illustrated below with a picture of the class paintings and a brief description. 

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[1] See Appendix B for story with vowel verses.

Teaching Vowels, part 2

Two: Vowel Sounds, An Expression of an Emotion

Steiner indicated that children coming to school would not feel an automatic connection to the alphabet and writing, and that it is our job, as teachers, to create in the child an awareness of an emotion inside them that could then be connected to the sounds and their written forms.

“As teachers, we ourselves must be able to live in a world of imagery. For example, let’s imagine that we have to teach a young child to read. Consider what this implies—the child is expected to decipher signs written or printed on paper. In this form they are completely alien to the child. Sounds, speech, and vowels that carry a person’s feelings and are inwardly experienced, are not alien to the child.” (Steiner, 1996, P. 198)

This is easily understood, if one considers a language with which they are not familiar. Indeed, as a non-Arabic speaker, I look at Arabic writing and have no connection to its meaning, in fact, I couldn't pick out one letter from another, nor could I tell you how many letters there are - it is completely foreign to me. So too, is our writing to non-reading children. According to Steiner, it is the teacher’s job to help the children develop a connection to the letters, and this connection differs for consonants and vowels (Steiner, 2000, P.67). The children will connect to the consonants if they are taught as images formed from objects, the F from the image of a fish or the W from the image of waves (Steiner, 2000, P. 3). On the other hand, children will connect to the vowels if they are related to an expression of an emotion. This was clear in the example he gave of the child listening to a sibling and, coming slowly to understand what he or she was saying.

“Think what would happen if your brother or sister came to you and said something you did not understand at first. After a while you begin to understand what is meant. Then what do you say?” One of the children may answer, or you may have to point out that they would say, “ee” (i in German).” (Steiner, 2000, P. 69)

In lectures given to German-speaking teachers, Steiner provided examples for each of their vowels. The following German pronunciation guide has been borrowed from the footnote on page 19 in Practical Advice to Teachers. Examples (Steiner, 2000, P. 2) are provided to further understanding of connecting emotions to the sounds:

O (pronounced like the English long o, as in order) – astonishment

U (pronounced like the English long u, as in blue) – fear and anxiety

A (pronounced like the English aw, as in Father) – admiration and wonder

E (pronounced like the English long a, as in eight) – resistance

I (pronounced like the English long e, as in me) – approaching something

Although provided in his German tongue, connections could also be related to English vowel sounds and their expressed emotions for English-speakers. In his lectures given in England, Steiner indicated that the English sounds are “somewhat differently connected with our feelings,” and that, “children should learn to develop the sounds…from the way their own feelings are related to them.” (Steiner, 1995a, P. 102) It follows therefore that English speaking teachers will need to create their own examples to connect their students to the vowels. In fact, my ‘own feelings’ did not ‘relate’ to the A and E in the same way that Steiner provided in an example (Steiner, 1995a, P. 102)[1], and I began to make a list of emotions which I identified to be expressed by our short vowel sounds. This list altered and evolved as I presented my thoughts and received feedback from colleagues, and was further fine-tuned as I stood before the children and received feedback from them. This is the list that was developed during this project (The first two sounds are drawn out, the last three are short exclamations.):

a - satisfaction, or happiness

e - listening or reaching out gesture

i - repulsion

o - shock

u - disgust or disappointment

My first goal was to create a common experience that would introduce these sound/emotion connections to the children.

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[1] “Ah! A is always the expression of astonishment, wonder. Or again, a fly settles on my forehead; I say: E (Eh). That is the expression of warding off, doing away with: E.” The letters ‘ah’ in English can be pronounced like ‘a’ as in cat. The same two letters were also used in the translations of the lectures given to describe the German sound ‘aw’ (as in Father). Sadly, Steiner did not provide us with a word-example to clarify his pronunciation. It is further puzzling when he identifies the expressed emotion as astonishment and wonder for both languages. Did he mean that astonishment and wonder can be expressed by both sounds, aw and a?