Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Using Images
Using Images
You in pictures
Aim of the activity To practise language related to personal characteristics. Preparation If possible, make an OHT of the worksheet. Make one copy for each student. Procedure Project the OHT and give each student a worksheet. Check that students know the names of all the objects. Ask students to think about themselves and choose the five images that best represent them. In pairs or small groups, ask the students to explain their choices to each other. Variations a) Ask the students to choose one image that represents: their mother / father their teacher / the class as a whole their best friend and then explain their choices in groups The following variations can be used when students know each other well: b) In pairs, students guess each others choice of images before the discussion c) Students circle their five objects. The worksheets are then collected and randomly distributed. Students try to guess whose worksheet they have before the discussion.
From Inside Out Intermediate Resource Pack 1A (See Intros and Icebreakers file)
Find a picture with a lot of detail on it. It should be at least A4 size. Put a blank piece of paper on top of it so that it is hidden. Procedure Hold the hidden picture up at the front of the class and slowly slip the blank piece of paper down to reveal the picture underneath. As you do this, pause for the students to guess the hidden details in the picture. Alternatively, flash the picture quickly in front of the class and ask them to call out what they think they saw in as much detail as possible. Flash it a second time if necessary. Extension Write What did you see? in the middle of the board. Get the students to call out their answers and write everything down at this stage. The class will hopefully find this very funny as they discover the strange tricks their eyes played on them. Then show them the original picture and invite a student to the board. With the classs help, they should amend, cross out or tick the information on the board. Perhaps the students could use the language to write a story in pairs.
Guess a picture
Aim of the activity To focus the students' attention at the beginning of a lesson. Preparation Find an interesting picture. It doesn't matter how big it is. Procedure Hold the picture so that you can see it but the students cannot. Tell the students that they are going to guess what the picture is by asking you yes/no questions. Do not give them any more information than that until they ask you questions. Alternatively, describe the picture (either giving true information or describing something totally different) and ask the students to guess whether the description was true or false. Finally, show the picture for confirmation.
them on separate sheets of paper with the photo on one side and the headline and article on the other. Number them. Procedure 1) Put the students in pairs. Give each student a photo to look at. Tell them not to look at the headline and article yet. 2) Tell the students to predict the content of their article by looking at the photo and to invent a headline to go with it and to write it on a piece of paper. Under the headline, tell them to write a sentence summarising the article. 3) Tell the students to turn over and read their article. 4) Collect in the photos/articles and display them on a desk or on the floor. Collect in the pieces of paper and number them. Display these next to the photos/articles. 5) Tell students in pairs to match the predicted headlines to the photos. 6) Give the correct answers and discuss any problems. 7) Tell students to choose another article to read in pairs. Alternative Divide the class into two groups. Group A students receive a photo relating to a newspaper article and group B students receive the headline relating to one of the articles. Students stand up and find their partner by reading out the headline or showing and describing their photo. Once the students have found their partner, they can sit together and try to work out what the whole article is about. Each pair of students can then prepare a short talk telling the rest of the group about the possible content of their article.
Jigsaw answers
Aim To warm up the class with a multi-tasking challenge involving question practice leading to a topic based discussion of the article relating to the photo. Preparation Cut one large photo out of a newspaper for every four students and one for yourself. Procedure 1) Show the students a large photo cut from a newspaper. Tear it into eight and mix up the pieces so that some are face down on the table. 2) Ask the class to try to stop you from remaking the photo (like a jigsaw) by firing questions at you in any order. These could be personal questions in general or on a specific theme. 3) You must answer all the questions. 4) If you manage to put the photo back together in a minute, youve won. If not, they have. 5) Repeat the activity with one large photo (torn into eight pieces) per group of four students. 4 @Lake School Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com
6) Once pieced together by one of the students, a group discussion relating to the topic can then take place.
Caption competition
Aim of the activity Fluency practice. Change of pace. Preparation Collect a selection of pictures of pairs or groups of animals. Number them and stick them around the walls of the classroom. Ask students to work in pairs. Procedure Ask the pairs to think of amusing captions for some or all of the pictures. Get them to write down the number of the picture and their caption. After a pre-arranged time, ask the pairs to volunteer captions and get the class to agree on the funniest caption. Variation Pairs write the captions they think up without numbering them. They then pass their paper to another group, who try to match the caption to the pictures.
Family album
Aim of the activity Fluency practice. To practise talking about people: family relationships, character description, routines, likes, dislikes etc. Preparation Get a selection of pictures of people (at least as many as there are students in the class.) Procedure Ask students to choose one or two pictures from the selection. Tell them to imagine that these are members of their family - sisters/greatgrandparents/distant cousins etc. and to describe them to their partner. Tell them to describe the family relationship, the character of the person, what they do, what they like etc.
Picture collage
Aim of the activity Fluency practice. To practise talking about a recent holiday: what they did, where they went, what the weather was like, where they stayed etc. Preparation Bring in a collection of small things which could be souvenirs of a holiday. For example: postcards menus bus/train/underground/plane/theatre/cinema tickets foreign money part of a holiday brochure luggage tags paper napkin receipt small snapshot photographs of people (can be cut from magazines) etc. Procedure Tell each pair of students to choose 4 things from the collection. Tell them to imagine that they are souvenirs from a recent holiday that they had with their partner. Ask the each pair of students to decide where they went on holiday, what they did, what the weather was like etc. and also why they have those particular souvenirs. They can write a letter describing their holiday or make notes and orally describe it to another pair of students. 6 @Lake School Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com
Alternative: Make a story Use a selection of pictures from your picture library. Give each pair or group of students four to six pictures and ask them to write a story incorporating the pictures into their story.
Dictadraw
Aim of the activity To practise describing appearance and giving instructions. Preparation You will need to collect some pictures: preferably line drawings of people. Procedure (Groups) Divide the class into four groups and ask each group to choose an artist from amongst them. Ask the artists to face the board at the front of the class and give each of them a board pen. Tell them that the other members of their group will call out instructions for them to draw. Either tape a different drawing to each artists back, or give each group a different drawing. Tell the groups to call out instructions to the artist to make him draw the picture on his area of the board. Encourage all the members of the group to participate by asking them to take turns to give instructions. After a pre-arranged time, stop the activity and compare the drawings on the board with the originals.
Procedure (Pairs) Divide the class into pairs and explain that one student is the artist and one is the guide. Ask the guides and artists to sit back-to-back, or in such a way that the guide cannot see what the artist is drawing. Give the guide one of the pictures and ask her to describe it so that her partner can draw it. After a certain time, stop the activity and let the pairs compare drawings and originals. Repeat the activity with the artist/guide roles reversed.
1Use worksheet from Activity Box, Activity 7.2 Also use worksheet from Timesaver Speaking Activities: A Day Out
Speculation game
Aim of the activity To guess what might be missing from pictures and to use modals like might, may, could, must and can't for speculation Preparation Find a selection of magazine pictures and cut out one detail from each picture. Number the pictures.
Procedure Ask the students to work in pairs or small groups and to write down as many numbers as there are pictures. Give each pair or small group of students a different picture and ask them to write notes about what they think the missing object could be. When they have done that, ask them to give their picture to the students on their left and take the picture from the students on their right and to repeat the activity. Continue until all the students have written notes about all the pictures. Compare students' ideas and reveal the real missing object.
Memory Quiz
Aim of the activity To train students memories to improve their learning skills Preparation Photocopy the worksheet from Puzzle It Out! (MGP) with the quiz questions on the back. Give the students 3 minutes to memorize the picture then ask them to turn the picture over and answer the questions (without peeking!) They can see if they are a genius or not from the scores at the bottom of the page!
From Puzzle It Out! Mammoth Memory Quiz