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"A picture is worth a thousand words ..." blog

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Learning English and creative writing through the use of photographs

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” More than the mechanical recording of events, photography has the power to convey a mood or share our insights with others. It has the power to capture not only our perfect moments of love and happiness, but also searing images of cruelty and poverty. It has the power to preserve in a rectangular frame the beauty of a thousand sunsets, the joys of parents seeing their child just learning how to walk on its own, and the sublime happiness of students graduating after years of hard work and sacrifice.

Photographs (whether your own, those of others, or cut out from newspapers and magazines) can be a very effective way of teaching and learning the English language. Joep van der Werff, in his very informative article entitled “Using Pictures from Magazines” from The Internet TESL Journal, discusses how pictures can be a good source of materials for practicing speaking, listening, writing, vocabulary and grammar. In this article, van der Werff relates the inspiring story of how one student overcame his shyness and reluctance to participate in the English class through an activity involving pictures.

We will be posting pictures in our blog “A picture is worth a thousand words.” As a good way of learning how to write in English, you can write descriptions, narrations, dialogue, expositions, etc based on your thoughts and feelings about these pictures. For a good discussion on how to describe pictures, please read the article “Picture Description” from www.ego4u.com.

You can compose short essays about any of the pictures, e-mail them to us, and we will publish them in the blog. Other ESL and EFL teachers and students from around the world can then read your essays and give their comments on your grammar, coherence or unity of ideas, style of writing, and areas for improvement. We will just publish your essays without your name or e-mail address to protect your privacy and prevent spam. You can just give a general description about yourself like nickname, age or school level, gender, country, etc.

Below are some pictures you can use as a starting point. For other pictures, please go to the blog “A picture is worth a thousand words.” If you are an ESL or EFL teacher, you are free to use these pictures in your classroom activities. You cannot however use these pictures commercially, post them in the Internet, or publish them in yearbooks, newspapers, magazines or any other publication. The proper credits must also be given. The pictures below were taken by Atty. Gerry T. Galacio and have been published in the yearbooks of Rizal High School, Pasig City, Philippines from 1989 up to 1996. If and when you use any of these pictures, the credit must read, "Picture by Atty. Gerry T. Galacio, www.e4aa.org".

Listed below are some discussions and activities on the teaching and learning of English through the use of pictures.

[01] Teach Them To See - Higher Level Thinking And Tasks Through Photojournalism

[02] Picture games, from Compass

[03] Picture Stories and Thought Groups, from Developing Teachers.com

[04] Catchy Captions: Students write captions for pictures cut from newspapers and then match the real captions to the pictures, from Education World

[05] Fun with pictures, from ELT Newsletter

[06] Here’s Me – Showing Photographs (Lesson plan: showing pictures to describe personal experiences and share information), from English Language Institute (The University of British Columbia)

[07] Activities from EnglishLearner.com

Variations on a theme
Which picture is it about?

[08] Activities from eslflow.com

Adjective Gallery
Pic Tac Toe (A fun visual-linguistic lesson plan for presenting, reviewing and comparing verb tenses)
Pic / sentence prediction for present continuous
Superlative island

[09] Lesson Plan - Describing Picture Scenes, from ESL Lesson Plan (Carol Rueckert)

[10] Advanced picture dictation (science), from ESOL Online

[11] ESL Work with illustrations, from Heinle and Heinle Grammar Activity Inventory (Georgia State University)

[12] Adapting a picture story, from Malta Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language

[13] Activities round a Group Picture, from Pilgrims English Language Courses

[14] Modern art (PDF) using connectors to compare and contrast, from Skyline-English

[15] Picture Stories, from Strategies for Empowering Students (Urban Programs Resource Network)

[16] Teaching ideas for using pictures, from teachers.net

[17] Activities from teAchnology.com

Award Certificate Maker
Bus Pass Maker
Grammar Lesson Plans
Grammar Teaching Theme
Ideas For Teaching Writing
Meeting New Vocabulary Graphic Org
Memory and Observation Skills Worksheets
Phonics Worksheets
Photographs
Pictures Internet Secret/Tricks
Project Rubric Generator
Sentence Building Worksheets
Spiral Vocabulary Worksheet Maker
Visual Art Lesson Plans
Word Game Sites
Writing Lesson Plans

[18] Activities from teaching English

Dating Game: describing people activity using pictures with the aim of getting students talking
Picture Dictation

[19] Junk Mail Catalogs: A Treasure-Trove for Language Teachers by Susan L. Schwartz, from The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning and Teaching

[20] Partial Pictures teaching idea, from Three Wise Monkeys

[21] Pairwork with pictures, from Using English for Academic Purposes
A Guide for Students in Higher Education

[22] Picture dictation, from University of Virginia

[23] Improving writing through the use of imagery, from Workforce Education LAB

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