How to teach English using pictures and photos in the classroom

1. Teaching with photos
and pics
By Lobanova Anastasia, “Unicorn” 2014

2. Warm-up
• Picture Dictionary Activity:
• Ss are asked to put down their name vertically so that each letter is on a
separate line on the page (see the example on the next slide).
• Ss draw a picture to illustrate each letter of their name. The picture
represents the word beginning with the corresponding letter and is
connected somehow with the personality of the student. You can ask the Ss
to write key words instead of drawing ( A stands for Australia because it’s my
dream to visit this country, S stands for summer when I was born, for
example)
• Ss swap the pictures and interpret the drawings by making guesses

3. A
N
A
S
T
A
S
I
A

5. ‘’An elephant in the room’’
• If you say there is an elephant in the room, you
mean that there is an obvious problem or
difficult situation that people do not want to talk
about.
• “Cambridge dictionary”

9. Подзаголовок

11. We can use pics or photos to
teach these language areas
• Question forms
• Vocabulary on topic “Animals: farm,wild,pets”
• Everyday English

12. A mysterious person
• This is an activity for practising asking and answering questions
• Show the picture of a person (choose mysterious and thought provoking ones)
• Set up the model by asking the class questions like “Where is the person from?
What kind of family does he/she have? What does he/she do in free time? What
are his dreams in life etc”.
• Ask the class to work individually and think of their questions to the person. Ss
write them down.
• Ask a volunteer to sit in front of the class and the picture. Tell him that he is now
the “voice” of the person depicted and is going to answer the questions like that
person.
• The class asks the questions and after some minutes you can change the
person to be the “voice”

14. Group picture
activity

15. • This activity can be used for introducing and practising vocabulary
• Ask children to draw pictures on a certain topic (ex. Animals) on the board.
Each child draws one pic.
• Label the pics with words, drill them with the class
• Wipe off one item and say “ The dog has gone now” or “There isn’t a dog”
(choose the grammar to practice). Make the children go to the board, wipe
one item off and give the comment like in the example
• Children then can imagine themselves as the animal they have drawn and
ask each other questions like “What do you like eating?”, “Where do you live”
etc. (to practice questions)
• Children can also make a dialogue between 2 animals
Think of your own variations of the tasks with a group picture!

16. Catch phrases

17. • This activity is great for practicing functional language
• Choose a number of phrases you would like to practise and print them out on
separate strips of paper (big enough to be read from the board).
“Congratulations!” , “You’re joking!’, “That’s fantastic news” etc.
• Choose a number of pictures with people on them (they can be all sorts of
people including celebrities). Tell your Ss that each person from the picture has
his catch phrases and always repeats it when talking.
• Practise the phrases with the class, drill them properly. You can cover them at a
certain stage and make your class say them from memory.
• After that you ask the class to make groups of 3 and imagine themselves as the
people on the pictures. Make them improvise and make up spontaneous
dialogues. The important thing is for Ss to use the catch phrases as often as
possible in their talk. After some period of time ask the class to choose another
phrase and continue.