Using pictures in the classroom can make speaking
in English fun.
using pictures as a teaching aid how can help
language teachers engage their students.
If I say ‘picture’, what do you think about? I
guess the words ‘drawing’, ‘photo’, ‘painting’, and ‘film’ might come to mind.
As for me, well, I think a picture is much more
than an image, especially when I teach English. Pictures are essential when it
comes to engaging students who are learning a new language at any level.
They can be successful study aids during lessons, and they can act as useful
prompts to help students when they are practising speaking.
So how can you use pictures in the classroom? Here
are seven tips for bringing visual aids into your lessons, each starting with
one of the letters in ‘picture’ to help you remember them.
Predict:
Students can look at pictures or watch the first
part of a video in order to predict what the topic of the lesson or the
activity will be about.
Interact:
The game Pictionary, in which players
have to guess specific words based on their team mates’ drawings, and
other mingling games with pictures are fun activities that can be used with
both children and adults to review the vocabulary they have learnt. In order to
engage students, teachers can show a video or a picture only to half their
class, and ask them to describe to the other half what they can see. This
second group will then have to try to report what the other students have seen,
as accurately as they can. Everyone will see something slightly different from
the others, and the activity will strengthen their rapport.
Create:
Students can write or tell a story by using a
sequence of pictures, or, if the teacher wants to really fire their
imagination, the students can create a story based on just a single picture.
This exercise can be particularly interesting and productive if the teacher
encourages students to use specific tenses (such as past simple vs past
continuous), vocabulary or functional language in their story – for example,
describing a conversation at the train station.
Talk:
At the beginner level, some students’ faces go
blank when they are asked to answer a question. Teachers can avoid prolonged
silence and prevent their students from feeling embarrassed by providing them
with a picture. They can break the ice by asking the students to describe what
they can see in the picture.
Understand:
What’s the easiest way to explain the meaning of a
word? Show it! Classrooms may be fully equipped, but they can’t hold
everything. If there’s an item or object that you want to show your students to
help them remember the word for it, try showing them a picture. Flashcards are
an invaluable resource for teaching or revising vocabulary. They can be easily
downloaded or created online.
Reflect:
Not only does a picture give you the chance to
reflect on what you can see, but it also represents the opportunity to develop
your other senses by considering what you can hear, smell and touch. This is a
useful exercise for teachers who are preparing their students for a speaking
exam. Most of the time, speaking exams are in pairs and students worry that
they may run out of words because their partner will have already said
everything about the picture they have been shown. By using their other senses,
your students can add new information and will be able to avoid repetition.
Enact:
In any class, there is usually someone who is shy
or quiet. So how can you draw them out of themselves and encourage them to
practise speaking? If you ask your students – it doesn’t matter how old they
are – to draw a mask, put it on and pretend to be someone else, they may
feel less self-conscious. Putting themselves into somebody else’s shoes
can give students the chance to express themselves in a more forthright way.
