english language certificate programs - pratt institute

Pratt Institute Intensive English ProgramAn Innovative English Language Program for Creative Learners: The Studio Experience Program at Pratt Institute of Art, Design, and Architecture

The Studio Experience Program is a part of the Summer Certificate Program (SCP) and the Certificate of English Proficiency Program (CEP), two full-time English language programs that prepare students for the academic and creative challenges they will find at Pratt and at other art and design institutions.

In the Studio Experience Program, students work with Pratt graduate student mentors who guide them in developing and presenting art and design projects.

Every step in the process is done in English, from brainstorming to developing the concept to presenting the work to receiving feedback from teachers and peers.

ABOUT US

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SCP 2014 Studio Experience Critique

Daisy Wang Xingfan (left) presented her work Reborn.

WHAT WE LEARN

Creative Studio - Brainstorming

- Exploration

- Blossoming

- Continuous Feedback and Reflection

English - Reading - Writing - Speaking - Listening

- Accuracy

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CEP Fall 2013 Studio Experience Critique

Nancy Seidler, director of Intensive English Program (left) was discussing a student’s project.

WHAT WE DO

Field Trips

Story Telling Contests

Neighborhood Walks

Cultural Excursions

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SCP 2014 Field Trip

Teachers Barbara J. Anello-Adnani (right) and Helen E. McNeil (left) with students.

TEACHERS SAY :

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SCP Coordinator Cynthia Elmas (left) was talking to students.

As coordinator of the SCP 2014, I had a bird’s eye view of the collaboration among students, teachers, studio mentors, and administration in this relatively small, friendly program. For me, the final studio critique, which is the culmination of a brief, busy summer semester, was such a delight to witness because it showcased the talents of all involved.

The students’ display of their improved language skills in presenting, giving and getting feedback, and writing was coupled with their high motivation and exploration of their creative potential.

Cynthia Elmas IEP Teacher, SCP 2014 Coordinator

TEACHERS SAY :

One of my favorite projects that I’ve done with the CEP students was to create a storyboard based on Anthony Doerr’s short story The Hunter’s Wife. The students worked in groups to create hand and digital drawings and collages based on their understanding of the story. The vocabulary in the story was quite advanced but they were really invested in picking up the nuances in meaning. They put their images in sequence and created a movie in which they recorded their own narrated summary.

It was such a fun way to practice pronunciation and they created some very touching pieces.

Nichole Van Beek CEP & SCP 2014 Teacher

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The Hunter’s Wife drawings in Nicole Van Beek‘s class

TEACHERS SAY :

One particularly fun and engaging project was for an upper level reading class focusing on visual language. I asked students in small groups to plan and lead a 45-minute lesson on Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Students prepared a detailed lesson plan, taught vocabulary, led a discussion, and presented textual annotations as well as an example of a comic.

They designed interactive word games and drawing activities displaying their investment in communicating keyconcepts in creative ways. We then generated our own questions for a guest speaker comic artist who shared his artwork in addition to his experience as an art student and working artist. Through this project, students thought about comic art and visual language as well as teaching and learning from a new perspective.

Channing Burt

CEP & SCP 2014 Teacher

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CEP Spring 2014 Studio Experience Critique

CEP Coordinator Nada Gordon (bottom left) and teacher Channing Burt (bottom right) with students.

TEACHERS SAY :In the SCP we try to give the students an in-depth, interactive immersion in a subject. While studying Ai We Wei, the artist and political commentator we visited an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum called According To What, listened to a TED Talk titled Ai Wei Wei Detained, watched a documentary, “Never Say Sorry” and read reviews.

The students were able to demonstrate through oral presentations, discussions and research papers an ability to express themselves as language learners with confidence and with a high and impressive level of achievement.

Helen E. McNeil

IEP, & SCP 2014 Teacher

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SCP 2014 Field Trip

Teacher Helen E. McNeil (second left) with students in Museum of the City of New York.

STUDENTS SAY :

I believe,

language is an essential tool for art and design. In my point of view, if you have strong confidence in your language, it brings you positive effects. In terms of the architectural field, we need to collaborate with other people toward a clear direction. Conversation through language is a fundamental tool to share ideas and information with others.

Takuya Toyama SCP 2014 Student

Presentation is the best way to express your ideas of an artwork. This exhibition inspired me a lot. I got many ideas from those artworks. Also I got a big improvement in speaking. It was really a wonderful experience. Thanks CEP!

Frank Li SCP 2014 Student

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STUDENTS SAY :

The important advantage of the CEP is that all of classes deal with art content, and classes connect with each other by interacting and developing students’ ideas. Although each class has a specific skill focus, sometimes they are combined in activities like the speaking contest, the grammar challenge and the mini project. The teaching method is very flexible. And the CEP not only focused on studying English, but also helped students to im-prove their artistic sense.

Yunbae Seo CEP 2013 Student

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CEP Spring 2014 Studio Experience Critique

STUDENTS SAY :

I feel the most important part of this final project was the presentation and the critique. The questions and comments have helped us all to think more deeply and reflect our thoughts on not only our project but also others. The presentation has helped me personally face so many unfamil-iar people in the audience.

It was a great experience that helped us in developing critical thinking.

Ankita Jain SCP 2014 Student

This is a great experience for art students. After two days presentation I got to know other students more and understood how great they are. Nice!

Luyu Lam CEP, SCP 2014 Student

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CEP Spring 2014 Mini Project Presentation

STUDENTS SAY :

This project was my first exhibition. I had a chance to express my ideas about my art work. I think it was a good experience in my life. I appreciated having this chance. Not only that, I got a lot of feedback about my art work from many people.

Seokwoon Koon SCP 2014 Student

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Yiyi Wang presented her work The Blue Peony.

Through this project, I become more confident to stand in front of so many people. Thanks!

Zoe Wang SCP 2014 Student

STUDENTS SAY :

We speak for five minutes about our own projects, but when the audience members ask you questions, you don’t have your answers written down on your notes.

You have to answer spontaneously. Everyone asked questions and gave comments. That was the best two days of studying.

Dinara Safiullina

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CEP Fall 2014 Mini Project Presentation

Guest critics Alan Aine (left) and Matthew Boker (Right).

The final presentation was a good opportunity for us not only to give a presentation in front of many people, but also to make questions and comments on other students’ art works.

I am glad that I could hear a lot of brilliant ideas.

Akiko Uchida SCP 2014 Student

STUDENTS SAY :

All the people are so talented. Listening to the presentation and feedback, I can easily understand the meaning of their artwork. After hearing comments from critics I realized the weak points of my piece.

It will be helpful when I create artwork in the future.Yijian Shen

SCP 2014 Student

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I like critiques because I’ve never done it before. I think it was a great experience.

Eunme Kwon SCP 2014 Student

Lighting: Flow and Transform

Ronald Wu

CEP Fall 2013 Final ProjectLighting Design

I wanted to merge three key words together, “polyhedron”, “lighting” and “transform”, and create a new product. So I started to think about how to use transforming polyhedron to create a lighting system. How to transform polyhedron to another form was my first issue. There are three elements to make polyhedron : point, line, and plane. The dominant element is plane, and I wanted to change it to lines, and points. Therefore, I used acrylic tubing to “braid” the polyhedron lighting system.

STUDENTS’ PROJECTS

Missing

Wannita Makaroon

CEP Spring 2014 Final ProjectVideo

Since my research paper analyzed movies and I also got inspiration from Le Jetée, a still image short film, I wondered how I could create some artwork from my experiences and materials that I have been gathering: photographs and phrases. I challenged myself with photographs that I took and inspiration from missing persons. This project, my experiment, came from a short story that I wrote from my experiences and inspiration from living in New York, then expressed it with my photographs that I have been taking over the last two years.

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Reidentify Michael Yuan

CEP Fall 2013 Final ProjectPosters

We are submerged in a world full of varieties of brands. Since human beings are visual creatures, the distinctive visual identities and logos of these brands are known by us deeply and are imprinted on our minds. Each successful brand has its own visual identity made up of elements including shape, font and color. And these different elements give consumers different visual feelings. However, if we extract the elements from a brand, do these individual elements still make sense or represent the brand? This collection of images represents a decomposition of the visual identities of a few well-known brands. The elements are regrouped to form an abstract image to make people think about the relationship between the elements and the whole brand identity: if you still can identify the brand, what makes that possible? If you can’t determine which brand the components belong to, what do these individual elements signify when they are regrouped into different patterns?


<<Is It Art?>>, Joyce Wang

CEP Fall 2013 Final ProjectCollages

<<Is It Art?>> is a series of collages addressing the value of contemporary art.

We are lucky to be born in this century when science and technology have given us the tools to create artwork in which we can express ourselves with more depth and sensuality. We enjoy more freedom to use available media to create things that will provoke people to think and feel. Contemporary art is often viewed as a tool for change because art is meant to provoke action. Contemporary art does not discriminate against any medium; it can be in the form of video, installation, or behavior. The key is whether these mediums or techniques express what the artists wanted to say. The methods shall be appropriate to investigate ideas and the artists’ thoughts.

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Artificial wildness

Lanjing Zhu

SCP 2014 Final ProjectSculpture

No matter how chaotic nature is, after humans rebuild and utilize natural material, all the things become neat and orderly. People always say how frail human beings are when they are confronted with nature. The truth is, unless the natural disasters give humans a big warning, people will control their desires and think about how to preserve natural resources.

There is tension between “control” and “wildness” in my work. In order to show human’s desire to control nature, I created a transparent plastic box with wild plants inside to represent the artificiality. In this box, plants can grow lawlessly, and they are free and wild. There is no human utilization and they are not ornamental, but they can only grow in this small box. Looking from outside, these plants look sad and fake. No matter how well they grow, they are stuck in this artificial box and never become part of the earth because they will always controlled by human being.

This work shows the reality of human’s desire to use everything in nature. People are never satisfied with the status quo; the society needs development and fresh things. But the birth of every new thing has a cost. Nature is our biggest providers: no wonder people want to have it all. Thus, the tension and conflicts between nature and human beings will always exist.

Here am I

Dain Lim

CEP Fall 2013 Final ProjectConte On Paper

My research paper topic was on Edward Hopper’s paintings and the main question I investigated was how he expressed New York City’s atmosphere and what he wanted his audience to feel about it. Edward Hopper illustrates a lonely and isolated feeling that exists in the big New York. and he expresses the gap between old and new. In every piece of his artworks he expresses empty space, light, shade and always depicts a lonely person. His artwork expresses the idea that although you live in the most crowded city in the world, you are isolated. Through this artwork I want to connect my experience with others. For me, this is the first time I have gone abroad and lived in a foreign country. Therefore I feel loneliness in the crowd.

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The City of Dream

Flora She

SCP 2014 Final ProjectCanvas on wall

This painting is named The City of Dream integrates four canvaes with the gallery wall, describing my feeling when I first arrived and saw the Statue of Liberty with the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

I used fingers as tools to paint and separated them to several parts. The statue of Liberty is fully depicted as the symbol of the entrance to the USA; the background is the outline of skyscrapers in Manhattan, which is as obscure as what you see in a dream; a Chinese canoe, which embodies myself, is floating toward there.

The main focus is on the blank parts of these spaces. They can be the smoke surrounding the build-ings or the hints of unknown distance between subjects and unknown things inside this city; they can be water under the boat; they also can be the light from the torch.

New York is the final answer of my long dream. In my dream about my future as a designer, every-thing was so obscure. But accidentally, I rode my boat across the smoke of mystery, and I found that there was a light guiding me to come here – a light from liberty and creativity.


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Stress; Junk

Seokwoon Yoon

SCP 2014 Final ProjectMixed Media. Performance

I was born in Busan, South Korea in 1988 and attended KyungSung University in 2007 and studied fashion design. I am interested in showing humorous factors in my work. “Stress” is a fashion design project showing the transformation from stress to humor.

People have tried to improve their lives by purchasing industrial goods and making rules. However, modern people face serious stress due to personal waste and rules created by themselves.

Wedding rituals have the most traditional and restrictive rules all over the world, and therefore they are stressful. Weddings guarantee love forever between couples; on the other hand, they restrict the couples “freedom”. Combining familiar wedding and junk materials completes a fabulous wedding dress made of giddy elements, such as a can of cola, a used towl, paper, 3 warning signs and leather.

This project puts the idea of “Upcycle” in fashion to represent a way to transform stress. Junk materi-als express new art and lead to humor and a dream world. Old fabrics are regarded as junk materials are used for new fashion. The piece intends to show a modern and positive view of beauty.

Breaking Fear

Nikki Chompra

SCP 2014 Final ProjectMixed Media

Anxiety is a feeling of fear about what might happen.

A moment of breaking glass is similar to becoming anxious. It can lead to an injury. It is hard to know how it is going to break. Glass, a strong material which is resistant to heat, pressure and chemicals can still be broken. It is tough, but fragile. Bottles of glass are being used in daily life, such as bottles of coffee, liquor soft drinks or even ingredients in the kitchen. I tried many ways to break them to see the shape of broken glass. The bottles broke in to little pieces and scattered everywhere when throwing them at the wall and the ground. Where I hit the bottle with a hammer was the origin of the crack. The different strength gives different effects.

There was a coincidence between breaking glass and crossing over a feeling of fear. The decision of picking the bottles varied depending on how important their characteristics were to me: the amount, its shape, color and quality. I experimented with light, layers and composition. Each piece of broken glass has its own character. My final artwork is made of bottles neck parts, bottom parts and sharp pieces which are the results of the breaking process. Every piece points to the breaking origin. Glass’ transparency, reflection and diffusion of light present fabulous effects on a white glass frame.


Vagabond Takuya Toyama

SCP 2014 Final ProjectFurniture Design

I’m from Japan, studying architecture. I’m interested in the relationship between human and nature. “Vagabond” is my furniture design project, encourages people to get close to nature.

I believe that, spiritually, people can commune with nature through direct physical communication. My goal for the furniture is to evoke a relationship between people and nature. Vagabond is portable, can travel anywhere you want with you to find your personal tree, and it can be attached by nylon straps to tree trunks to provide your seating, right next to the tree. It can only stand with the support of a tree trunk. And you can lean back on the tree trunk to touch them. Vagabond is made of two pieces of bent steel iron, which has hooks on both edges to connect to the nylon straps and is covered over by a fabric to provide seating and can also be a pocket to carry your stuff with you.

The friendly physical communication between the person and the tree can be a spiritual experience to commune with nature while surrounded by nature.

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english language certificate programs - pratt institute

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