How to Teach ESL to Beginners Using Photography

Two of my greatest interests in life are teaching and photography. I love to combine the two whenever I can. A great photograph can inspire interest, curiosity, stories, memories and many more great things for ESL classrooms. They can be used in warm up activities as well as for the basis of whole courses.

Photography is great because it doesn’t throw a whole bunch of words at you. Let's face it, learning a language can be scary, all of a sudden you are back to being a baby again linguistically but this time you don't have parents around cooing at you and pointing out easy to learn vocabulary.   This time, you are in a classroom with a bunch of other learners and you can't even remember how you learned your first language to start with.  To add insult to injury, you can't cry when you don't get what you want and are frustrated.  No wonder so many people give up and quit coming to class.. One thing that people recommend is that teachers bring in realia (real stuff that can be touched, felt and experienced) because that is how we learned about the world when we were babies and it worked then, after all, we all have a first language don't we.  The problem with this is that if you are like me it is not always practical to bring so much stuff into the classroom with me.  Most of the time I don't have one single classroom in which I teach, I move around and besides, I don't have every piece of realia I need just lying around my house.  This is where photographs come to the rescue.  I can bring in a picture of a tree instead of dragging a whole tree in from the garden.  Sure, my students are not going to get to touch the bark and smell the leaves but photography has many advantages and uses nonetheless.  Here are some activities I have found helpful in teaching zero level beginners using photography.

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Introducing New Vocabulary
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Now, when I learned Spanish, back in the dark ages, vocabulary was introduced in a straightforward manner.  In one column it was written in Spanish and in the other English.  The only problem with doing this is that the English kept stepping between me, the meaning of the word, and how it was said in Spanish.  My brain was not being trained to go straight from the idea to the Spanish word but instead it was being trained to translate from English to Spanish.  This gave my brain a whole extra step to go through before I could access the word I needed in Spanish and slowed me down.  It is much more efficient to learn a new word by looking at a picture of it.

When I started teaching this was problematic because I didn't have pictures of everything readily available so I had to keep extensive picture files.  Now, thanks to image search, this is no longer a problem.  Yeah internet!  So, without further adieu, this is how I introduce vocabulary to beginner beginners. 

Steps:

• Before class begins, decide what your target vocabulary will be for that day and create small cards with one image on each card.
• Create a slide show or print the pictures out in a larger size so the whole class can see them when you hold them up.  Write the words in English on other cards. This seems like a lot of work but if you make them on durable cards, you can use them again and again.
• When you are ready to introduce the vocabulary, give each small group of students a set of picture cards and a set of word cards.  
• Choose a picture, show it to the class and say the word.  Students have to find the word that matches the picture and put them together.  
• Then, don't show them the picture, say the word and have them point to the correct pair (picture plus word).
• When they are comfortable with that, take away the word cards and say the words again.  They have to find the correct picture just by listening to you saying the word.
• If you have any students who would like to take your place saying the words, let them come up and be the teacher for a while.
• Now, use the cards to play a memory game. Put all of the cards, words and pictures face down on the desk.  Students take turns flipping over 2 cards.  If they get a match, they get to keep those cards and try again.  If they don't have a match, they have to turn the cards over and the next player takes a turn.  The player with the most cards at the end wins. 

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Notice that although students are not producing the language yet, they have something to do every step of the way.  

For more ideas on how to learn new vocabulary and make it stick check out Brain Tricks to Help You Remember Vocabulary Longer.

Practicing Grammar

The most common way to practice grammar is the ubiquitous grammar worksheet.  I know from my Turkish studies that for me, it was less than effective.  I was usually able to fill out the grammar worksheet correctly without understanding much of what the sentences actually meant or how to use the grammar in real life.  The problem was that the grammar was isolated and lacked context, they were just random sentences using vocabulary that I may or may not have known and I had no idea why the sentence was constructed the way it was.  The teachers were happy because all of us were able to fill in the worksheet correctly, therefore we must have "learned" it and we could move on to the next worksheet.  I however was left screaming "I don't know how to use this!" silently in my mind.  Outwardly I was content because  I was doing what the teacher wanted so I was succeeding.  

Pictures can help add the desperately needed context for when and how to use grammar.  They can also make learning a whole lot more engaging and fun.  Here is a grammar activity that will build on to the vocabulary introduction activity above.

Steps:

• Choose pictures of people doing something (remember these pictures should show things that students already have the vocabulary for.  If they don't go back and introduce the vocabulary.)
• Introduce the question "What is he/she/it doing?" and show how to construct the answer. "He/she/it is _________ ing.
• Give students a variety of pictures to work with or give students magazines with lots of pictures so they can pick out their own pictures.  
• If students know the vocabulary for family members, move away from the pictures and have them ask each other about what their family members are doing right now.
• For homework, ask students to take 10 pictures of people doing things and bring them in the following class period.  
• Then next class period, have them share their pictures in small groups.

As the teacher, I sometimes feel like this could get boring, doing the same thing repeatedly but as a beginning language learner, I always appreciate the opportunity to practice and review.  When I am first learning a language, I always feel like my grasp on vocabulary and grammar concepts is tenuous so the more I review and repeat things the better.  The trick is to always be reviewing and repeating in new and engaging ways so I don't get bored. 

Check out my pinterest boards for handpicked resources for ESL teachers

Practicing Question Words

One of the first things beginning students need to learn are the question words.  Without them, it is very difficult to communicate.  Almost every conversation involves the asking and answering of questions and if you want to do anything, understanding questions is imperative.  I am living in Japan but I don't speak Japanese so doing almost anything is a challenge.  Even last week when I went to the grocery store, I was asked if  I had a loyalty card and if  I wanted an extra plastic bag (I didn't because I always try to bring my own bags.) Just a basic knowledge of the question words in Japanese helps me to infer what the rest of the question is based on what I am doing and what people usually ask in such situations.  Here is a fun activity that can get students practicing those words and help them get to know each other better.

Steps: 

• Take one or more of your vocabulary words and ask everyone to take a picture of it before the start of the next class.
• In small groups have students show their pictures to each other.
• One student will put his/her picture in the middle of the group.  They shouldn't say anything until they are asked.
• The other students have to use the question words to ask about the photograph.  For example if they took pictures of "grass" the students might ask the following questions?
  • Where is this grass?
  • What is around the grass?
  • Who were you with when you took this picture?
  • When did you take this picture?
  • Why did you choose this grass to take a picture of?
  • How did you find this grass?
• You may have to help the students to construct those questions if they are just starting to learn them.
• Collect everyone's photographs and create vocabulary collages to put around the classroom, post on a class website or Facebook page or flashcards.

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Tests and Quizzes

One of the most effective things for me when I was learning Spanish was when my teacher started each session with a quick (5 minute) quiz.  I knew it was coming so I made sure that I knew whatever it was we had been introduced to the previous day and because he had us grade out own quizzes, I got instant feedback on my mistakes.  It wasn't a big part of my grade but it was enough that I reviewed the previous days materials before class began and I studied my vocabulary every evening.  Beginners need this kind of routine and feedback so they can develop consistent study habits and see progress.  It is easy to become discouraged if you don't have tangible evidence of your improvement so quizzes and evaluations can be very motivating if done well.  

Steps: 

• Save all of the pictures you use to introduce vocabulary, practice grammar and that students bring in for classroom activities.
• Use those pictures to create 5 or 10 slides to show for vocabulary or grammar quizzes.

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Use Pictures to Teach Pronunciation 

Pronunciation can be tricky! Can remember practicing those double rolling RRs in Spanish for six months before I could make my tongue do it.  Was it worth it?  Well, as far as reducing my accent it certainly was and I love being able to do it now.  I am still battling the vowel sounds of Turkish though and routinely make my husband laugh when I totally butcher the word kopek (dog).  Somehow I am just not getting the O with the 2 little dots on the top right yet and apparently I sounds like a small child.  

So, how can photography help with pronunciation?  Here are 2 ways that it can help.
1.  Anchor sounds to colors and use bright pictures to illustrate those colors.  The Color Vowel Chart is one tool that students can use to master vowel sounds (these can be particularly tricky as English has so many vowel sounds and not enough letters to represent them).  Instead of creating new letters like the phonetic alphabets do, have students master how to say the colors correctly and then match the sound in the color with the dominant vowel sound in new vocabulary.  

Steps:

• Find an engaging picture that features each of the colors and attach them to poster-sized paper. Hang these posters around the room.
• Whenever students are learning new vocabulary, ask each student to take ownership of several words. 
• They must figure out which syllable(s) is stressed, what color the sound of that vowel is and using a marker, write the word on the correct poster.
• Put the students in small groups and ask each student to teach his/her group members how to pronounce their words. 

2.  Because English has such a creative spelling system, it is not always obvious how a word is pronounced just by looking at the letters.  In the last few years, I have been helping my daughter learn how to read and noticing just how crazy English spelling really is.  Gate and Giant both start with G, why don't they both start with the same sound?  It is enough to drive a learner crazy!  I find that I get much better pronunciation results if I bypass the written word and go straight for the sounds. Here are the steps I use.

Steps:

• Create a poster with all of the sounds in the English language.  
• Print out 1 picture for each sound and arrange them so that the vowel sounds are on top and the consonants are below with a line separating them.
• Introduce your students to the sounds by showing them where to put their mouth and tongue to make the sound but don't model the sounds for them, let them experiment and try to make the sounds.  
• When you hear someone make the correct sound, jump up and down, smile, point at the student who did it correctly and have them model it for the class.  
• Practice a few times and then move on to the next sound.  
• Once they have all of the vowel sounds down, point to yourself and the picture that corresponds to the first sound in your name.  Model the sound with your face but not your voice.  Again, let them try to figure it out. 
• Then using a pointer (or a stick), point to the pictures that represent the sounds in your name and signal to the students that they should follow the pointer to say your name.  
• Point to one of the students in the class and then point to the pictures that make up the sounds in his/her name.  
• Do this several times until the students have learned enough of the pictures and corresponding sounds that they can start to use the pointer to prompt their classmates to say each other's names.  
• Once the students have learned the picture - sound connections, you can start to introduce new vocabulary to them using the poster.

I have found that it only takes a few class periods to learn all of the sound-picture connections (not the whole class period, just 10 or 20 minutes each class) and then I have a wonderful tool to help students pronounce words correctly.  

The first time I tried this, I was amazed by how well my students could say each word, it really cleaned up their pronunciation because they were focusing on the sounds rather than the letters.  

I hope you have found these activities useful.  How do you use photographs to teach beginners?  Where do you find great photographs to use in your classes? Please add your ideas in the comments below.

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