In our previous post ‘Using photos in the classroom #1 – the ‘surprise factor’, we looked at how you could make the most of the ‘surprise factor’ when using a photograph in class. This month, we’ll be exploring how images can help inspire role-play activities that will get your English learners thinking and speaking.
One of the best things about a really striking photograph is how it can take the viewer outside their own experience and into someone else’s world. It should come as no surprise, then, that many of the best entries in this month’s competition used the image – of a young man on a motorcycle meeting three elderly Vietnamese women – as the basis for a role-play activity.
A good role-play activity, whether speaking or writing, requires preparation. A number of teachers, including our competition winner, Helena Tunysova of the Czech Republic – congratulations, Helena! – suggested using speech bubbles to prompt imaginative initial responses from learners, with students sharing ideas about what both the man on the motorcycle and the Vietnamese women might be saying and thinking. To add a physical element to the activity, students could cut speech bubbles out of paper and attach these to their pictures in their books. The best suggestions could then be written on the board at the front of the class to inspire the next stage of the activity.
This next stage might begin with students working with dictionaries in groups to establish some of the vocabulary they’ll need to be able to create their dialogues. Again, sharing these word lists with the rest of the class will help inspire other groups. Many of you suggested that the picture could provide an opportunity to use the language of giving directions, and the present simple and present continuous, so you might also want to revise these with the class beforehand too.
With ideas and vocabulary shared, and grammar revised, it’s now time for students to start work on their dialogues in groups of four to match the picture, before sharing them with the rest of the class. A picture like this can also offer opportunities for further written homework. Many of the best ideas sought to bridge the gap between this foreign land and the students’ own experience, using some of the social media platforms that form part of so many people’s everyday lives.
Eleonora Tognini of Italy suggested that learners should imagine themselves to be the photographer, a Vietnamese girl who was now uploading the picture to her Facebook page: they should write not only her caption, but also the comments of her friends. Other, similar suggestions included travel diaries and blogposts.
For more information on this topic, read our next article in this series: Using photos in the classroom #3 – Bringing Vietnam into the classroom.