Can you learn through the arts quietly?

My 'think tank' was running a little dry today when I was working with one of the older boys in the morning session at school. I was trying to teach him the verb "to be" in English which is called "ser" and "estar" in Spanish. The operative word being trying cause he just wasn't interested. How do I know cause he said, "estoy aburrido" aka I am bored. I tried to make it interesting - choosing sports as a topic cause he looked like a pretty sporty kid to me. I also got up and starting doing actions, asking him to describe what I was doing e.g. you are walking, you are running blah blah blah. This worked for a little while.

Then we played hangman with the various new words that we  had learnt, which again was okay for a while but by then I couldn't think of anymore fresh ideas and he couldn't find the motivation to learn anything else.

Obviously I felt a little disheartened by this but two good things happened afterwards that lifted my spirits.

- Kellio one of the other boys then sat down next to me and was keen to learn estar in English. Consequently we had a great time creating different sentences using I am, he is, she is, we are etc.

- I then went to spanish class where my professora (teacher) Carol, gave me a really good idea. I had been going about this all the wrong way. Art is my thing why don't I use it more? Before, I thought anything art wise would be too loud or chaotic for the work sessions at school. It's important that during these sessions that we don't disturb the other students. However - suppose I was to use some song lyrics from a popular song in Peru that is sung in English. We could quietly sing this together and translate the words. 

This lead me to the question - art type activities are often thought as being too dynamic for "quiet" work but surely there are some such activities that can be completed in a tranquil working environment. 

So this is my new quest, to bring in the art but not the chaos/noise into my teaching strategies. I'll let you know how I go.

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