American English
Teach and Learn
American English
In this Teaching Tip topic, Crystal will
present three photography activities that
engage and inspire students to create
and learn in the English language classroom.
Welcome, Crystal!
Hi, everyone! And, thanks for joining me
today to learn more about engaging
and inspiring students with photography.
Let's get started!
Our goal for today is to examine three
photography activities that engage and
inspire students to create and learn in
the English language classroom.
Why use photography in your English language classroom?
Well, first of all most most students are already actively
engaging with cameras, smartphones, and computers.
Secondly, many studies show that visual
and interactive learning increases language retention.
Photography itself also stimulates student interest
and motivation, even amongst our shyest
learners. Cameras are more widely available
and accessible than they have been in the past.
And finally, and most importantly, it's fun!
There are many photography-based activities
you can use with your students to engage and
inspire them. The first activity I'm going to present
is called the adjective scramble.
This is a really good warm-up activity, especially
on Monday mornings.
Project or show an active or interesting photo,
one that has a lot of things going on.
Give students one minute to work in pairs to
list as many adjectives about the photo
as they can within that one minute.
When the time is up, student pairs count up
their adjectives to see who has the most.
The team with the most adjectives reads their list,
and the other pairs can listen to see how their
list compares. Afterwards, you can continue to use
the photo as a further conversation or writing
prompt.
The learning objectives of this activity are
to review acquired adjectives, provide a fun, active,
and quick learner-centered oral warm-up, and
build confidence through sharing opportunities.
The second photography activity is making
personal vocabulary albums.
In this activity, students take photos of
what they feel best represents the meaning
of the assigned vocabulary words.
Students can either create their vocabulary
albums in the word document, or they
can upload their photos into a free
online photo sharing website.
Instead of just memorizing abstract words
and abstract meanings, students now
visualize their own image with the word.
If you decide to have the students create
their personal vocabulary albums in a
word processing document, it helps to
provide them with a template.
Here is a close-up of a simple vocabulary album
template. You can see that the student's
photos come first, followed by the vocabulary
word, a very simple definition in English,
and then the student's own example
sentence using that word.
Our last activity in today's Teaching Tips
is the "Day in the Life" photo essay.
For this activity, students take a minimum of
five photographs demonstrating a typical
day in their lives.
Because we all have different aspects of our lives,
this could be a variety of things. For example,
I can do a photo essay showing the day
in a life of an English teacher, or a day
in the life of an American, or the day in
a life of a photographer.
After uploading their chosen photos, illustrating
which aspect of their life they'd like to show,
students then tell a story to accompany them.
This activity lends itself to many other subject areas.
Students could illustrate daily routines, habits,
or practices. They could show their daily
school life, including classes and teachers.
They could photograph their friends
and socializing time outside of school,
or even their family and home life.
The learning objectives of this particular
activity involves storytelling and sequencing, oral or
written expression in English, and
sharing and understanding different
perspectives as they view the photo
essays of their classmates. Additionally,
students can create photo essays to send
via e-mail, with electronic pen pals in other
regions or countries. They can also make
how-to photo essays illustrating the
steps to make or produce something familiar to them.
Summing up, today I showed you three
photography activities that engage and inspire
to create and learn in the English language classroom.
Thanks so much for joining today, and
I hope that you'll check out all the other fantastic
Teaching Tips on the American English YouTube channel!
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