Week 4 has started and I can't wait to tell you about using pictures in teaching English. I've learnt some interesting things and am going to tell you about them. First, I need to mention this great idea with Linguistic Landscape - when bloggers document the uses of English (in this particular case) and bring them to class. The idea is not new for me (I used to make such photos at every step when I studied Chinese in China, I'm still doing this here in Israel when I find something worthwhile. In fact, this is the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, public signs on government buildings and so on. From the pedagogical point of view it gets students to make connections between the content of classroom
lessons and the world beyond the classroom walls. Second, it allows
students to think creatively and analytically about how language is used in
society and become more aware of their own sociolinguistic context. These are my photos of linguistic landscape from China and one from the Levinsky College:
Another resource is EFL Picture Sets. There are plenty of such sites (EFL or ESL), so nothing is new for me here. But I saved it to my Symbaloo webmix, because I want to print these cards from General Communication part and use them during the procedures: the cards "I need help", "I have something to say", "I don't understand" will help students to grab my attention immediately.
Third source of inspiration is PhotoFunia. How can we use this entertaining tool in teaching English?
- Edit photos for class websites and blogs.
- Have students edit photos for presentations and publications.
- Have students tell a story in photos that were edited in PhotoFunia.
- Discuss the power of the media to revise history through image manipulation and have students manipulate images to change their meaning.
- Create motivational or content posters with PhotoFunia.
- Have students create vocabulary flash cards using PhotoFunia.
- Have students create photos for a fictional story that they write about themselves.
Free comics for classroom use - I still don't know how to do comics due to the lack of time. I need to practice it. This is what my students will definitely love! Here are some links:
As far as my blogs-to-follow are concerned, blog Free Technology for Teachers provides some information (in two recent posts in a row) about teaching with video, so I'm not going to cover it and will wait for Week 7:) Two other blogs are still not updated to my deep regret.
But. I think there is enough information here to save, learn and remember to use. So, practice it and I am going to improve my MS Paint skills now.
Hi
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you showed here the different items from the course and combined them with your previous experience of image landscape and editing from your Chinese world.
L for Linguistic landscape is a great blog. It's also such a contemporary manifestation. It is all around us and enters the sociolinguistic culture of our time. You are right, it brings students to reflect on the use of their language.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog. You helped me see how to use all of these new tools in the classroom. I wished I had read about Linguistic Landscape before I took a wrong turn and drove through Nazareth this weekend. It would have made the adventure a little more enjoyable if we were looking to share the experience through photos instead of just trying to find something we could read and understand. Thanks for all of the ideas.
ReplyDeletethan you very much for your comment, Randi
DeleteFani,
ReplyDeleteI love your Public signs pictures, so far I have only collected ones with English misspellings...though I bet I can find a use for that in my clasrooms too...now you got me thinking...