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Picture activities

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 other’s 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)

Reveal/ Flash a picture Aim of the activity To focus the students' attention at the beginning of a lesson. Also can be used to write a story. Preparation 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.

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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 class’s 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.

Reveal a famous person Aim of the activity To focus the students' attention at the beginning of a lesson and to practise yes/no question forms. Preparation Find a picture of a famous person and stick "post-its" all over it to conceal it. Alternatively, if you have the necessary facilities, photocopy the picture onto an overhead projector transparency and cover that with "post-its". Procedure Display the concealed picture and tell the students that they are going to guess who the famous person is by asking you yes/no questions. Each time someone asks a question requiring the answer yes, take off one of the post-its in order to reveal part of the picture. Ensure their question form is correct! The person is thus revealed bit by bit as the post-its are removed. The activity ends when somebody guesses the identity of the famous person. N.B. If anyone thinks they know the identity of the mystery person before all the post-its have been removed, encourage them to write their guess down, rather than shout it out, so the rest of the class get a chance to carry on playing. Of course, this is a great activity to introduce the topics of celebrity, films, TV etc.

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.

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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.

Predict the other half of a picture Aim of the activity To practise present continuous for actions happening now. To recycle a vocabulary area. Preparation Find a picture with a lot of detail, people in action and vocabulary items as appropriate. Procedure Display the picture on an overhead projector or copy the picture with one half missing and hand out a copy to each pair of students in the class. Ask the students to guess what is happening in the other half of the picture. They can either shout out their guesses for you to write on the board, or write a list of sentences to be checked off by another pair of students when the other half of the picture is revealed. Set a time limit or a minimum number of sentences. Reveal the other half of the picture and award points for correct guesses.

Predict the headlines and stories from photos Aim To predict the headline and content of newspaper/magazine articles and to heighten motivation for reading. Preparation Choose a selection of newspaper/magazine articles (of interest to your students) with photos illustrating them, one for each pair of students. Stick 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.

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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, you’ve won. If not, they have. 5) Repeat the activity with one large photo (torn into eight pieces) per group of four students. 6) Once pieced together by one of the students, a group discussion relating to the topic can then take place.

Descriptions of places - associations Aim of the activity To practise creative writing and speaking. Preparation Get a large selection of picture postcard scenes. Procedure Ask each student to choose a postcard which appeals to them in some way. Tell them to imagine that they are walking just beyond the edge of the picture and to note

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down the following: 1 - something they can see on their right 2 - something they can hear 3 - something they can see on the left 4 - something they can smell 5 - something they pick up along the way 6 - something they can see coming towards them which they don't like

Tell students to compare and explain their ideas in pairs. This can then be used as a stimulus for writing a poem.

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/great-grandparents/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.

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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. 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.

Dialogue game/ secret thoughts Aim of the activity To practise creative writing and any recently learnt structure or vocabulary. Preparation Get a selection of people/animals/cartoon characters, either in dialogue or in thought, (at least as many students in the class.) Procedure Divide the class into groups Give a selection of about 10 pictures to each group and display them so that everyone in the group can see them.

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Ask the students to work in pairs and secretly choose a picture, but without pointing or touching it. Tell the students to write a dialogue between the people/animals/cartoon characters or the thoughts of the characters in the picture. When they have finished, tell them to read out their dialogue/thoughts to the other members of the group who should try to guess which picture is being illustrated.

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 artist’s 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”

Quick blind dictation Aim of the activity To practise prepositions of place and shapes. Preparation Draw some simple pictures made up of geometric shapes. Procedure

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Ask the students to close their eyes and then dictate one of your pictures to them. Stress that they must keep their eyes closed as they draw the picture. Students open their eyes and then compare their picture to yours. Now divide the class into pairs. Student A is the artist and Student B the guide. Again, the artist must keep their eyes closed as they draw. Give the guides another picture and ask them to stand behind their partner and dictate it for them to draw. Students compare their drawing to the original. If required, students now change roles using another picture you have prepared. Alternatively, students can prepare their own drawings.

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”

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Who's rt for?Pre-inlermediole fo

upper-inlerrnedicte level.

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How long?l0 minutes eoch hme

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How mony?Any closs size.

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Whsl's h for?Desoibing oppeoronte;

giving tleor insfiuclions; co-operolion;

listening; specking

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Longuoge needed?Whof does sfne laak lrke?, f onu,

thtnner, shorter, /ongel desuiption of

foriol ond bodily {eotures; tlotlring

hr rep0r0I t0nTh is oc t i v i l ' y con e i t he r be pe r fo rmed i n po i r s , o r i n f ou r g roups . Eoch po i r o r g roup w i l lneed one oF the D i r t od row p i c l u res .

In closs (groups)I D i v i de l he c l oss i n l o f ou r g roups ond osk f o r o vo lun iee r f r om eoch g roup l o be theg roup ' s o r l i s i .

2 On the bock of eoch or f is t p in or tope o d i f ferent drowing. Ask the four or t is ls to [ocethe boord ond g ive eoch o[ them cholk or o boord pen. Tel l rhem thot the other membe.-o f t he i r g roup w i l l co l l ou l i ns t ruc l i ons .

3 Po in t ou t t ho l t he cho l l enge o f t he oc t i v i t y i s t ho t t he o r l i s t s hove to d i s t i ngu i sh l he i rins l ruct ions f rom fhose of the other groups.

4 AFter o pre-orronged omounl of t ime, s fop the oct iv i fy ond remoue the drowings f romthe bocks of the or t is ts . The winner is ihe group whose boord drowing mosr c loselyresembles the p ic ture on lhe or t is i 's bock.

In closs (poirs)I D i v i de l he . c l oss i n l o po i r s . Exp l c i n t ho l one s fuden t w i l l be l he o r t i s t ond rhe o rhe r w i l lbe t he gu ide .

2 Ask the guides lo s tcnd behind thei r or t is i por iners. Disf r ibute ihe p ic tures io theguides ond osk them to p in or tcpe the p ic iures fo fhei r por tner 's bock

3 The guides descr ibe ihe p ic fure for ]hei r por tner ]o drow. Afuer o pre orronged t ime,stop the oc l iv i l 'y ond let the or t is ts see lhe p ic ture they were t ry ing to drow.

AdviceThe ocl iv i ty vor io i ions hove o d i f ferent emphosis: lhe groupwork oct iv i l .y is compel i t ive,whi le the poi rwork o l lernot ive emphosises co-operot ion. l t is up to you to decide whotyour c loss neeos.

You moy th ink thot work ing in groups wi l l be very noisy. My exper ience is fhot i t issurpr is ingly quie i o f ter on in i f io l ly noisy s lor l , Students soon reol ise lhol excessive noisesfops them f rom communicot ing ihe ins i ruc l ions c leor ly io ihe i r or i is t .

To ovoid one s iudent tok ing over the insf ruc i iongiv ing in groupwork, mcke i i o ru le fhotstudenls loke lurns fo g ive on insf ruct ion eoch.

l f you do nol hove the luxury of o lorge whi te boord, or i f you wish groups to work indiFferent por ts of the room, p in A3 sheeis of poper up in the four corners ond hove ogroup work in eoch corner .

l f your s tudents ore work ing in poi rs , you wi l l probobly t ind thot the or t is fs wont o turn otg iv ing fhe inst ruct ions ond v ice verso, Hove spore copies of the Dictodrow pic turesovoi loble in cose th is hoppens. Moke sure thol or f is ts ore nol seofed nexf to o poi r ofs ludenis work ing wi th the some pic ture.

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A Dag OutDescribe the picture below to your partner. Use prepositions of place

f f i , i n ,beh ind) toexp la inwhere th ingsare .Youmustno tpo in t to thep ic tu re .

Now listen to Student B and draw on the picture below:

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Describe the picture below to your partner. Use prepositions of place

(**t to, in front of, on, in, behind) to explain where things are. You must not point to the picture.

Now l isten to Student A and draw on the picture below:

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/vA /1/ /|AOT// /1/ f /WOKr QU/ZQuest ion: Your dog hasn' t got a nose! How does i t smel l?

t-t cr F f t ;3 l ie lb ci l . } 1/ Answer: Terr ible!

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