Imagery is pretty commonplace in all primary classrooms. As teachers we adorn our classroom walls with posters, children’s project work, flashcards and photos to name but a few, but how do we use visuals?
Are they just decorative?
Do they make our classrooms look more inviting? Well of course they are… and without a shade of doubt they do!
Do we use them to support language learning? I’m sure you’d agree that they are an extremely valuable tool when it comes to language learning,
…but are we missing something? Could we maximise their use even more?
Teaching the ‘image generation’
We are teaching the ‘image generation’ who live and breathe visual stimulus every second of the day. As such we need to review and broaden our teaching practice in order to foster and promote key visual literacy skills in each and every child. Skills which will help children to navigate the image-driven world they live in.
Pit Corder in his seminal study mentions ‘The Visual Element in Language Teaching.’ We need to make the distinction between ‘talking about images’ (describing them) and ‘talking with images’ in which children are encouraged to interact with them on a personal level.
- Do they recognise anything in the image?
- What do they appreciate about it?
- What do they understand from it?
- How does it make them feel?
- What could they create from it?
These visual literacy skills are the ability to interpret, recognise, appreciate, understand, evaluate and create.
So, let’s explore some practical storytelling ideas which help boost these skills in the classroom…
1. Play a memory game to activate schemata
Children recognise/interpret elements in a picture story. Tell the children they have 20 seconds to look carefully at a front cover or images in a picture book or story.
They should try to remember as many things as they can. Then cover the front cover of the book or the images and brainstorm all the words they can remember.
Here’s an example from the attached Fun Skills covers stories: a series of 6 book covers, each telling a unique story.
2. Discover with me questions
Ask simple questions about the story images to help the children recognise or interpret specific items. These can be graded according to the level and the story. For example, Here are some typical Pre-A1 starter questions to help activate children’s previous knowledge.
- What colours can you see in the pictures?
- How many characters are there?
- Which one do you like best? Why?
- Whey are they?
- What are they looking for?
- What do they find?
- How do you think they feel?
3. Jumbled story (interpret/understand)
Make some photocopies of the front cover or pages of the story you plan to read and cut up the different images. Blank out the numbers too! Have the children discuss and organise the pictures into a logical order before you read the story.
4. Feelings about a story (appreciate/evaluate)
Ask the children if they liked the story. Use the story ending as a springboard to more learning. For example, with the picture story below (and attached) discuss what they’d like to find in a treasure chest at the bottom of the sea. Encourage them to give a reason for this. Ask if they would change the ending of the story. They could draw a picture to represent their ideas on this.
5. Label images in a story (recognise)
Prior to reading or listening to a story, children can label items they recognise in the story using stickers or post-it notes. For example, in this picture story they could label the parts of the jungle they recognise e.g. trees, leaves, smoke, fire, flower, snake, monkey.
As an extension activity, children could draw pictures of more animals which live in the jungle. 
6. Our story (create)
In groups children could write captions in speech bubbles to tell their version of the picture story. This could be followed up with a script-writing activity and/or acting out their story in class. Visual literacy instruction can turn storytelling into a more inclusive, supportive activity which encourages team spirit and imagination.
Children learn how to express their thoughts about non-linguistic text through speculating and discussing the message conveyed by visual imagery. It only takes a few subtle tweaks in our teaching practice!
References
The Visual Element in Language Teaching, Corder S. P. Longman, 1966
You can download the picture stories Claire uses here.
All these stories are taken from our new exam preparation course for younger learners: Fun Skills.
If you enjoyed this webinar by Claire and would like to find more visual activities for the classroom, then join Claire and our other presenters at the Global Schools Festival, beginning November 24th 2020.
For more from Clare Medwell, check out her blog post on bringing the Young Learner classroom to life!