Notes from Justin Bailey’s lecture “Picture Talk & Questioning Techniques” .
What are the four main reasons to use pictures?
1. Grab students’ attention and interest;
2. Build a sense of community with shared memories & experiences;
3. Serve as the starting point for personalization;
4. Give visual support for comprehension.
Think: What types of pictures can we use to achieve these four purposes?
1. Using personal pictures.
Use pictures of your current students,your past students, yourself, your family or friends or people students know.
Note: Ask permission first, and pay attention to privacy policy.
E.g., Show students a previous class photo, ask them:
“What were we doing? What were we talking about? What happened?”
This helps reactivate the memories.
It’s better than just simply ask, “What did we do last Thursday? What did we learn?”
For newer language learners, ask basic and concrete questions, “What can you see in the picture? How many people can you see? Are they standing or sitting?” …
For more advanced language learners, ask more complex questions, “Why do you think they are doing this? What happened? If you …, would you …?” …
With the same picture, we can talk about different topics and talk with different levels of learners.
IF the picture includes people students don’t know, but it’s an interesting picture, you can still use it and ask, “Do you know them? Would you like to do the same thing?” …
OR, you can simply ask students to invent an imaginary story using the picture.
Benefits of using pictures of ourselves and family:
1. Show students that you are a real person;
2. Arouse students’ interest;
3. Show students how to introduce ourselves or a place using target language;
4. Let students know it’s normal or comfortable to share with others personal things.
You can ask students a lot of questions even with the same picture.
E.g., “This is my son, and this is his sister. Do you have a sister or brother?”
“This was the time when I was living in Rome.Have you ever lived in different places?” …
You can use pictures of the same person in different ages to make a comparison with present and past and to use different time tenses.
You can use pictures of you as a baby as almost everyone is interested in another person’s childhood.
You can ask students to send their photos as a baby if it’s comfortable, and ask students to guess who he/she is in class,and ask students to mimic the baby’s expression…
2. Using pictures to support comprehension.
Show students pictures of a pair of things, a dog and a cat, a basketball and a soccer, a banana and an apple, ask them, “Which do you prefer, a dog or a cat?” Rather than “Which animal do you like?” …
Limiting options have benefits: It’s much simpler; It gives students ideas, so they just need to pick,instead of thinking from infinite answers.
You can use pictures to support comprehension in a survey or a poll for the whole class.
Younger learners: Raise one hand if you like apples. Raise two hands if you like bananas. If you prefer apples, you stand in this corner. If you prefer bananas,you stand in that corner. If you like apples and bananas equally, you can stand in the middle.
This gives younger learners chances to move, which can refresh their energy.
IF the students feel bored in class, you can switch to another topic or use this way to arouse their interest again.
Use white boards: If you prefer apples, draw a circle. If you prefer bananas, draw a triangle. Then hold it up.
Online teaching: Hold your finger very close to the camera if you prefer apples. Hold your finger very far from the camera if you prefer bananas.
Give students pictures before they listen to or read a story to support their understanding. Give students strips of written version and corresponding pictures, and ask them to put things in order and match pictures with sentences. For advanced learners, you can just give them written version.
For more literate students, you can give them pictures and ask them to recall what happened in the story or create a new story through writing.
3. Pictures for higher order of thinking
Pictures can be a great way to establish a certain mood.
A picture of green mountain and sunny day can make students feel calm when they walk into classroom, while a picture of erupting volcano can elicit opposite feelings.
For readings with cultural and historical elements, it is strongly recommended to use pictures to prepare students mentally or culturally for reading and make them more familiar with the language when talking about pictures.
With pictures, you can ask students, “Where do you think is this place?” Students can use knowledge they know and draw conclusions, which helps them to think in a higher order.
Hint: To save teacher’s time, we can use same pictures for different levels of learners and different topics.
Think of more varied and effective ways to use pictures and ask questions!
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