When you ask a learner to draw a piece of language, the language is suddenly brought to life and made memorable. In this post, I would like to show you 15 examples of picture flashcards, all created by adult learners of English.
Student-generated flashcards
Student-generated flashcard (SGF) is a term that I first used in my book Images (Oxford University Press, 2008). The idea is simple – instead of using published sets of picture flashcards to teach language items, we can get students to create their own.
With a bit of imagination, there is virtually no grammatical structure or lexical item that cannot be represented visually. Here are some examples:
1. “Wide awake when you should be fast asleep“
This image was created in response to a student utterance. The student in question wanted to express the idea of being completely awake but lacked the appropriate collocation.
2. “When I got home, my kids were still up.”
Another piece of emergent language. In this case a student was unaware that the adverb up can mean “out of bed” or “not in bed”.
3. “I ordered a steak by mistake!“
I like to look for images which will help students to remember how to pronounce problematic words. Hopefully this one will help them remember that steak is pronounced /steɪk/ and not /stɪk/.
4. “This soup tastes funny.”
A reminder that funny has two meanings: funny (ha ha) and funny (strange).
5. “You might as well face it, you’re addicted to love.”
This song lyric by Robert Palmer provides a nice illustration of “might as well” – a phrase that came up in class one day.
6. “Oh baby, I’m dreaming about your body.”
Another song lyric, this one from Bobby McFerrin. I like to draw students’ attention to this line in response to a standard L1 error: “to dream with someone”.
7. “Barking up the wrong tree“
This image comes from a lesson plan that I will be sharing in the LessonStream membership very soon – “Visual idioms”.
8. “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.”
Another visual idiom.
9. “Please bear with me“
There is no text without an image and no image without a text. In other words, there is no piece of language that cannot be represented visually. And as you can see here, this also applies to functional phrases.
10. “Long time no see!“
Another functional phrase.
11. “Two friends out on a double date.“
This is a scene from “Love & karaoke” – a storytelling activity in the LessonStream Membership. The idea is that after the story, students work with the text and identify words, phrases, collocations and structures that they would like to remember. After that, we look for ways to capture the items visually. In this case, one student liked the phrase out on a double date.
12. “The bear was pushed off the ledge and into the net.”
Another selected phrase from a story. This one comes from “The blob on the bridge” – another activity coming soon in the LessonStream Membership.
13. “An old-fashioned cash register“
One of my students liked the compound adjective “old fashioned” which appears in “The story of Matthew & David” (aka “Blind Luck”) from my book Videotelling.
14. “A bank robber being chased by the police“
This image comes from “Passive Drawings” – a new lesson plan in the LessonStream Membership.
15. “Making up with someone after falling out.”
From “Make & do drawings” – the most recent lesson plan in the LessonStream Membership.
Why use SGFs?
Although we might associate drawing with young learners, all of the images in this post were created by adults. As you can probably see from the pictures in this post, drawing is fun. It will often result in laughter.
Importantly, when we get students to supply the images, they personalise the language and make it memorable. We don’t have to be limited to the familiar lexical themes provided by standard picture flashcards (animals, actions, clothes, daily routines, etc.) With a bit of imagination, there is virtually no grammatical structure or lexical item that cannot be represented visually.
Finally, there is so much we can do with SGFs. There are games, follow up activities, revision possibilities and more.
For more classroom ideas and activities, join LessonStream.
Thank you for reading!
Jamie
About the LessonStream Membership
The LessonStream Membership is a community of teachers, united by our passion for story and storytelling, in and out of the classroom. Members get access to the following:
- The LessonStream lesson plan library
- The online LessonStream Story Course
- The Fishbowl (our online forum)
- €8.99 per month or €89.90 per year
