Where could an ESL class go that would involve learning a vocabulary list including words like chassis, assembly line, fertility, engine block, Nativity scene and indigenous?  If you guessed the Rivera Court at the Detroit Institute of Art, you guessed right!

From left to right:  Yumie Shiraishi (Japan), Tomoe Koike (Japan), Ayako Takabayashi (Japan), Ally Song (South Korea), Beth Dugdale, Tutor, Hideko Yoshidome (Japan), Shin-Shin Lin (Taiwan), Kako Hattori (Japan), Marty Friedburg, Tutor

On October 10, seven ESL students, along with tutor Marty Friedburg and his wife, Beth Dugdale, visited Detroit’s famous Institute of Art, the fifth largest art museum in the U.S.  Starting with a tour of the well-known Rivera Court, they viewed murals portraying Detroit’s auto industry, painted in the 1930’s by the renowned Mexican artist, Diego Rivera.  The group was fortunate, also, to see a special exhibit of over one-hundred sketches and drawings by artists Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.  Each student had the opportunity to do a self-portrait in pencil, inspired by the minimalist line techniques of Picasso and Matisse, if they so chose.  After a break for lunch in the museum’s café, students scattered throughout the museum on their own to view areas of individual interest. A good time was had by all!