A picture paints a thousand words, an expression that is no truer than it is in the English classroom.
Visual aids are so perfect for the ESL classroom. When you present vocabulary using a visual aid, you are giving your students something that they can relate to. Later, when they try to recall the specific vocabulary, all they have to do is bring up the image in their mind, and in most case, the meaning and the context becomes clear to them.
Visual aids also help you to present clearly and smoothly, with minimum or no complications. They also allow you to explain the meaning behind various vocabulary and structures without the need for complex explanations or by having to waste a lot of precious classroom time.
Visual aids not only present the new vocabulary to your students, they also help to remind your students of the previous vocabulary that they have learned as their learning progresses.
For example, if your students make an error with the specific grammar that they are learning, or they use a different word when they could have used a recently taught word from the lesson, you can refer them back to the visual aid and ask them to present it once again, but in the same manner that they were taught.
Visual aids add some creativity and fun to your lessons and help take the focus off of you or the book that is being taught.
Using pictures
Pictures are great for presenting many nouns, adjectives, and simple sentence patterns. If you are using a textbook in class, use the pictures in it; they are sometimes very simple and effective. With younger students, solicit words by asking “What do you see?” Be sure to call on many students and meet all of their suggestions with positive feedback. With older, higher level students, you can have them predict what a chapter will be about based on the pictures from the opening page.
Now, if your textbook doesn’t have any good pictures, or if you’re not using a textbook, try using realistic photos, such as pictures from newspapers or magazines. If your school has flashcards or picture dictionaries, they also work well for teaching nouns, adjectives, and verbs in many different subjects and contexts.
Here are a few ideas of how to incorporate pictures into your teaching:
1. Use personal pictures: Whenever possible, use pictures of yourself or photos from around where you live in PowerPoints or games. This will make it much more interesting and memorable for the students, so words will stick that much easier.
2. Include celebrities for interest: Likewise, if you use pictures of a well-known celebrity in activities, presentations, or games, students will be far more enthusiastic and you will have grabbed their attention far more than before.
3. Draw stick figures: When you have no pictures available, use simple drawings or stick figures. Stick figures take only a second to draw, can be used to teach just about anything, and are guaranteed to be fun for the students.
4. Create Flashcards (ONE): First, compile a healthy stack of magazines or downloaded photographs. The material should be appropriate for your students’ ages and level.
Grab stacks of flashcards, glue sticks, and scissors. Hopefully, you have some of this stuff lying around already. Make a few flashcards yourself. Pick a new vocabulary word and cut out pics from magazines that represent it. These homemade illustrated flashcards will serve as examples for your students.
It’s class time. Present a few new words to your class, discussing the definition and usage of each.
Show examples of your creative flashcards and let them loose in groups to develop their own using the words you presented at the beginning of the activity.
Once your students have developed their flashcards, it’s time for them to present. Each student will explain their new word, definition, and the photos they chose for that specific word. This creates a lasting visual memory, boosting comprehension when opportunities for practical use come knocking.
5. Create Flashcards (TWO)
Have students make their own flashcards by looking up vocabulary words online and finding pictures that show the definitions. Ask them to print the picture, glue it on a card, and write a silly sentence under the picture to help them remember the word. Then have them write the definition of the word on the back of the card.
Use these handmade flashcards to make a word wall, where new, and current, vocabulary words can be displayed for your student to see and read daily.
Teachers can then turn their students into vocabulary word detectives! Every day, change a few pictures on the Word Wall, then offer the student(s) who find the changes some sort of prize. Every day they’ll rush in to see what’s changed, and they’ll be actively engaged with reviewing the words on a daily basis.
6. Timelines
One thing that pictures aren’t very helpful for is introducing grammatical structures, particularly anything beyond the present simple or present continuous.
For this, we have timelines.
Timelines are a great way to illustrate tenses and time expressions. For instance, suppose you are trying to teach the difference between “by” and “until.”
You could draw simple timelines to illustrate the following sentences:
Maria has to finish her homework by Friday.
Juan will work on his project until 10:00 tonight.
Maximize your Student Talking Time by presenting timelines interactively and then helping your students to work out the answer.
For instance, if you’re using timelines for the above sentences, ask questions like, “What is Maria working on now?” “When must it be finished?” "What time will Juan work till?"
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7. Cartoons
There are a number of benefits to using cartoons in teaching because they can motivate students to engage with the lesson’s teaching point arouse interest in a particular idea or topic grab and maintain attention
- motivate students to engage with the lesson’s teaching point
- arouse interest in a particular idea or topic
- grab and maintain attention
- strengthen analytical and critical thinking skills
- give an insight into the world around us and help students think ‘outside the box
- encourage students to use their imagination
- help interpret the meaning that is otherwise difficult to explain
- make students laugh and, smile which can relieve their stress and anxiety
- help teachers build a closer rapport with their students by being able to laugh together
- help students retain information through a visual and memorable stimulus
8. Using video
There are few things that catch the attention of our students like the use of videos. Students today spend a considerable amount of time online. We too can also take advantage of this world to find useful resources that we can build into activities and integrate into our own teaching.
Documentaries, cartoons, television series, movies, advertisements or even infomercials are all beneficial as teaching tools in the classroom.
For children or basic level classes, there are many options for using videos, but in the case of Advanced level students, some options include:
- Show real-life situations to highlight the use of questioning techniques, communication skills, negotiation skills, and presentation skills, e.g. job interviews, medical patient consultations, manager and team working situations, a salesperson and customer.
- Show mechanical, science, or laboratory experiments to help students more easily follow and understand procedural steps.
- Pause a section of the video to reflect on the content then continue to the next section then pause and reflect again.
- Get students to find or create their own YouTube
- videos to illustrate class content or concepts.
These work beautifully for introducing and practicing a variety of structures and are particularly useful for preparing for the IELTS test. For example, you could use a pie chart or bar graph to illustrate comparatives and superlatives, such as:
CNN has a larger market share than FOX News
Coca Cola has the largest market share in the beverages industry.
Because line graphs indicate change, they also work very well for verbs of change, like “increase,” “decrease,” “dip” and so on.
When you are working on vocabulary building in class, use a chart. In my classes, I like to use charts to teach word families. I have columns for “noun,” “verb,” “adjective” and “adverb.” So let’s say the word “tired” comes up. I’ll expand on it by eliciting “tiredness,” “tire” and “tiredly.” Get the words in the chart, and refer back to it through the lesson.
10: Maps
"Thinking or contemplation" maps are powerful visual learning tools that can help us better organize our ideas or map out a process. There are eight kinds, ranging from bubble maps to flow maps. Using a flow map, for example, students can sequence the events of a story; mapping it out allows the brain to see the flow of events more effectively before writing about or discussing the story. Mapping through drawing combines words and pictures in a formatted way which allows the thinking to be processed out, helping the complex become understandable.
Using visual aids makes the lesson, and the materials that you are using more “user-friendly” Visual aids help us with our presentations and objectives by placing emphasis on whatever is being taught. Clear visual aids multiply the learners’ level of understanding of the material presented, and they can send clear messages and clarify points from teachers. Moreover, visual aids can involve the audience by providing a change from one activity to another, and from hearing to seeing. In addition, learners are more fascinated by gestures and movement in the classroom. Additionally, visual aids impact and add interest to a presentation. They can create excitement. Visual aids enable learners to use more than one sense at the same time. One picture could elicit unlimited words.
I hope that you enjoyed this article and find the ideas useful for use in your classroom, or personal language learning.
Good luck and good teaching/learning.
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