Talking pictures

Can you draw? I can't. When I get students to draw in class, I always do the activity with them to demonstrate this. In my experience, dodgy drawings are more interesting, as they allow for speculation and thus more communication. Whatever the level of artistic skill in your class, student-generated pictures are highly engaging tools for learning.

The odd student in your class may protest at being asked to draw. In these cases, you won't get anywhere by trying to force him or her. Just remind yourself of the benefits of the activity to everyone else.

Who it's for:
All levels

What it's for:
Fluency, vocabulary work, quiet time

What you need:
Blank paper and pens; a Vocabulary page from your chosen issue of Spotlight.

What you do:
Before the lesson, choose the topic that you want the students to focus on. To use this month's issue, the topic would be "winter sports".

Hand out the paper and coloured pens or crayons, and tell your students that they are going to give a short talk and that they will need to take notes — in drawing form.

Set the scene. In this case, I would say: "Imagine you are on a winter holiday (i.e. Gstaad, not Gran Canaria). Draw a scene from this holiday. Perhaps it is a holiday you have taken in the past, or one you would like to take in the future. Add to the picture all the things that you associate with a winter holiday. They are all things that you can see around you in this picture."

Give the students several minutes to develop their pictures without talking to each other. Tell them that as they are drawing, they should imagine that they are telling somebody about this holiday and all the things they saw and did. This "mental rehearsing" is really valuable, and gives a special quality to the silence in the classroom that I have always enjoyed.

When the students look as if they are putting finishing touches to their pictures, ask them to take another small piece of paper and to write down the names of five or more items in their picture, e.g. skis, gloves, snowman, and any other words that they think they may need to describe their picture. At this stage, you might want to take on your walking dictionary role.

Put students in pairs or threes. They can now take it in turns to present the story of their holiday to each other using their pictures, and to answer questions on them. Tell them that they should make sure they use the words in their vocabulary list. Alternatively, they can show the list to their partner, who should identify the items in the picture.

If you notice that a student hasn't produced a drawing, you might like to make sure that he or she is with someone understanding, who can keep the conversation going. If you get the impression that the student has just decided to opt out, then he or she can just take an observing role.

Now is the time to show the class the Vocabulary page (p. 46 or as a PDF from this site). See how many items students can find in this picture that they had in their own pictures/vocabulary lists. Get a student to make a combined list of the items in all the students' pictures, and then compare the class list with the one in the magazine.

You might want to display the pictures, or collect them for revision in another lesson.

Clearly, this exact approach won't work for all the pictures in previous issues of the magazine, but you'll be able to adapt your approach to suit them all.

The next Try It Out post will appear on Monday, January 18th, 2010.