Thursday, October 31, 2024
For many years, there has been some debate within the world of education as to whether students have unique learning styles and therefore are more receptive to a certain style of instruction. It has proven impossible to provide any kind of conclusive evidence showing that learning styles do, in fact, have an effect on students’ performance in the classroom. So, why does this myth persist? Aside from the wishful thinking that Scott Thornbury mentions in his blog entry, it may be to do with the fact that we are confusing students’ learning styles with ensuring we offer a variety of activity types in the classroom. As language teachers, we focus on a variety of skills that students need to master if they are to use language proficiently in a number of different real-life situations. We don’t just use language to read books, nor do we use it just to have conversations on the phone with our friends- language use is multifaceted, and we have to reflect this when we select the teaching techniques we implement in the classroom.
Have you ever stopped to think about what your lesson would be like without any images? Imagine a coursebook you are using with your students, but with the images removed. If you were a student, how would you feel about this? Pretty overwhelmed, right? In the real world, we associate language with the objects that we see and the people that we meet, so the classroom needs to replicate this in some way. A lot of the time, we know that images and flashcards are an important part of our lessons, but we might not know how exactly to exploit them to their full potential. In this post, we will give you some of our top 10 ideas on how to use images and flashcards effectively with all of your groups.
Images are one of the easiest ways to conduct an effective lead-in. For any lesson you are teaching, be it language or skills-based, you can find images that will get students thinking about the topic and will provide an appropriate lead-in. Keep these images saved on your computer so that you can use them in future years for the same levels and coursebooks- your future self will thank you!
For any language point you are teaching, you need to have both controlled and freer practice. It can sometimes be hard to come up with ways to get students using the language more freely and finding ways to engage them. Images can help you with this! Find images that will require students to use the language you have taught them in a freer way so that you can see how well they produce it and can correct their errors when they have finished the task.
Students don’t remember vocabulary after learning it in just one lesson. Images can help provide you with the material needed to work on vocabulary recall in subsequent classes. You can do this in a number of way- try doing ‘back to the board’ in which one student sits facing away from the board and the rest of the class have to describe the image for that student to guess the word.
It’s much easier to talk or write about pictures rather than words on a page. You could show images and ask students to discuss a question related to the topic you have set in class or even create a dialogue based on what they see. For writing, you can get students to add captions to images or write an opinion text on a certain topic. The important thing here is finding the right image to get students producing language so that they have enough to say.
One of the most difficult parts of the First/Advanced exams is talking about pictures. In this part, students have to compare and contrast images, as well as speculate beyond the image itself. To aid students’ confidence when doing this task, incorporate the same type of activity into your regular classes. Prediction is also a very useful language skill that students need to practise, and images are perfect for this.
Remember that flashcards aren’t just for little kids, you can use them in a variety of ways with older students too. A great way of doing this is to order a variety of flashcards (that you can take from any coursebook that you are using) and get students to either tell or write a story in which the words appear in that order. Afterwards, get students to compare their stories to see whose is the most creative and original.
The written form of the word is also very important when students are acquiring new language. If they don’t see the written form, this can have a negative effect on their reading and writing skills later down the line. Put the written form of the words (word cards, if they come with the coursebook) around the room and show ss a flashcard. Get them to find the word or even just point to it. This can also be done as a matching activity as a whole group, or in pairs.
It can be hard to younger students to remember rules and routines that we have in class. Flashcards are a useful tool to give students a visual reminder of what they need to do. It’s also helpful for the teacher, as they can simply point to/hold up the picture as well as giving the instructions and reminding students what they need to do. Keep these on the wall for everyone to see and use them individually as and when necessary.
As well as ‘say and find’, you can get higher-level students to describe and find, using the flashcards that you are using with your group of students. Either you can describe what’s on a flashcard, or you can get students to do this for the rest of the students in the group and they can take it in turns.
This is a great way to use flashcards to create a quick fun activity with the vocabulary. Put a noughts and crosses grid on the board and put one flashcard the wrong way round in each square on the grid. Get students to pick a square and then turn the card around. If they can tell you what it is, they can put their ‘nought’ or ‘cross’ in the square. If they get it wrong, don’t give them the correct answer, and turn the flashcard back over so someone else can try.
Remember, teachers, language skills are never used in isolation, so our students need to practise these skills as much as possible using a variety of different materials and teaching techniques. Make sure that visual input is a regular part of your lessons and consider how you can use these visuals to effectively support what you are teaching, so our students can become multi-skilled language users!
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