FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FINAL PROJECT’S TITLE

Bringing images and online videos into the English L2 classroom: Image and video based
activities to improve language and communication skills of upper intermediate1 students.

Thesis to qualify for:

Master’s Degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language

Presented by:

Jone Guillén Baqué

ESFPMTFL1195049

Director:

Lidia Casalini

London, UK

25.05.2020

1 Based on European Framework - B2 level students: Independent user

Bringing images and online videos into the English L2 classroom: Image and video based
activities to improve language and communication skills of upper intermediate2 students.

2 Based on European Framework - B2 level students: Independent user

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 ACKNOWLEDMENT

I would first like to thank my project supervisor Lidia Casalini who has supported me
and guide me through this enriching learning process. I would also like to thank my
friends and colleagues who have tested some of my teaching materials and have
provided very constructive feedback. Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude
to my family for supporting and encouraging me throughout my years of study.

Jone Guillén

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………… 6

2. JUSTIFICATION ……………………………………………………… 8

3. OBJECTIVES ……………………………………………………… 10

4. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ……………………………………. 11

4.1 Visual literacy in the educational context 11

4.1.1 Defining Visual literacy 11
4.1.2 Visual literacy in education and in 13
ELT material design
4.1.2.1 Videos in education 14
4.1.2.2 Images in education 16
4.1.3 Visual literacy in action 18
4. 2 Review of approaches that have used visuals 20
4.3 Theories of visual cognition 22
4.4 Benefits of using visuals 25
4.5 Limitations and possible solutions when using visuals 27
4.6 Summary and Implication of using visual materials in 29
the classroom

5. METHODOLOGY OF THE PROJECT ……………………………… 31

5.1 Eclectic approach 31

5. 2 Target group 33
5.3 Description of the structure that surrounds the materials 35
5.4 Description of the creative process 35
5.5 Description of the typology of materials 36
5.6 Description of the general learning objectives of the 38
materials
5.7 Teaching style 39

6. TEACHING MATERIALS …………………………………………… 41

6.1 Teacher-led activities 41

6.1.1 Reading 41
6.1.1.1 The story behind an image 41

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 6.1.1.2 Images that have changed History 44
6.1.2 Listening 49
6.1.2.1 Who Am I? 49
6.1.2.2 True Story? 54
6.1.2.3 Mistakes 58
6.1.3 Speaking 63
6.1.3.1 Let’s Protest! 63
6.1.3.2 Where in the world am I? 67
6.1.4 Writing 70
6.1.4 .1 The Reporter 70
6.1.4 .2 Cooperative story building 76
6.1.5 Vocabulary building 78
6.1.5.1 What Children Around the World Eat 78
6.1.5.2 The Bucket List 82
6.1.5.3 Dream Crazier 85

6.2 Student-led activities 93

6.2.1 Conspiracies 93
6.2.2 Twitterature 94
6.2.3 Art Memes 96
6.2.4 Dialogues 97
6.2.5 Is it real? 97
6.2.6 Homophones 98

7. CONCLUSIONS ……………………………………………………… 99

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………… 101

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1. INTRODUCTION

Nowadays we constantly find ourselves surrounded by different sorts of visual stimuli.

Images speak to us; pictures, photographs, videos, and more recently gifs and
memes, are something that can be seen daily and surely have an impact on our lives,
both consciously and subconsciously. In other words, visuals have become a
commonplace for today’s society and therefore not implementing them into language
teaching would be a big mistake.

The power of visual imagery to convey messages, to send affective signals and to
stimulate the imagination is well attested. There are indeed a number of books on
language teaching on this topic, and also almost all current language books and
resources for students consider the power of images. However, so far, this rich
resource has been relatively poorly understood or exploited.

I see a great potential in all kinds of visual materials for different reasons. I believe that
when we combine words with images the whole learning experience may become
more memorable, significant and productive. Images also help create meaning and
can help avoid misunderstandings or learner confusion since visual communication can
potentially surpass boundaries that a given spoken language cannot. And most
importantly, our class will be highly communicative since images will engage our
students; will motivate them to participate and will create many opportunities to share
and discuss different ideas.

For all these reasons this project will focus on presenting 18 image and video based
activities to improve students' language skills (reading, listening, writing, speaking,
grammar and vocabulary building). The materials have been designed for B2 level
students but they can be adapted to other levels. All the activities are carefully
designed considering the students’ level and aims. They include important information
such as; learning objectives, competences covered, content, order of the content,
warm-ups, follow-ups, variations, homework suggestions and duration.

The project is divided into 2 main parts. The first part consists of the theoretical
background which provides a literature review of concepts and theories that are
relevant to the topic and that relate to the broader areas of knowledge being
considered in this project. In this part the justification of the topic, key terminology,
objectives and methodology are also defined. Once the theoretical background and
methodology are defined, the practical part is presented. There are 18 practical
activities in which images and videos are central. This part contains all the necessary
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information and materials to carry out the activities by any teacher. The project ends
with reflections and conclusions on whether images are effective when implemented
into everyday English lessons.

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2. JUSTIFICATION OF ACADEMIC AND PERSONAL INTEREST

As a language student and also a language teacher I have witnessed how unsuited the
pedagogical approaches can be with the learning styles of students of this generation.
Despite the fact that today many schools are using more innovative methods and
resources, there are still many schools that continue to be reluctant to “give voice” to
the students, asserting instead a singular top-down authority in the classroom
(McWilliam, 2009). Unfortunately ‘the basic instructional approach of teachers talking to
students as they sit passively in their seats continues to be the main teaching strategy
in many schools’ (Kelly et al, 2009, p. 12).

With the hope to change this scenario, I have created a variety of teaching resources
to try to engage the new generations as active learners and meaning creators. I
believe in order to be able to meet the educational goals of the 21st century, teachers
need to reflect on the ideas and pedagogies of yesterday and explore ways of
developing the learning dispositions that students need for their future. This means
spending less time explaining through instruction and investing more time thinking
critically, collaborating in group activities, and participating in error-tolerant modes of
engagement.

There is no doubt that technology has opened new possibilities in the language
classroom. Now, thanks to computers, projectors and interactive whiteboards,
teachers can very easily bring the outside world into their classrooms. Even though
integrating visual materials in lessons is relatively simple and new possibilities arise
every year, I believe that they are not fully exploited due to a number of different
reasons.

During my twelve year experience as a language teacher, it has been clear to me that
often, images have not been considered an important factor in the everyday lessons;
the focus has always been in the written word. Textbooks have been using images for
decades now; however they have too often ignored the power of visuals, treating them
as something purely decorative, and adding little educational value. The use of
multimedia visuals, such as activities based on videos, is often left for special
occasions, or in some cases not even used at all. Not exploiting them is, in my
opinion, a big mistake, since there is something that cannot be denied; we live in a
media world in which a big part of the information is now transmitted by visual input
through different technological devices.

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Language learning and teaching today has to take into consideration that the
messages we receive on a daily basis do not just arrive to us via the written form but
rather in multimodal ensembles that need analysing and unpacking. For all these
reasons and also for my passion for resource making, I have decided to create a wide
range of 18 activities in which I integrate visual aids in my practice.

The activities that I suggest in this project are all student-centred and provide many
opportunities for collaboration, research, critical thinking, sharing and evaluation. The
activities aim to demonstrate how images can be used to engage, boost curiosity,
provide inspiration and motivation for writing, reading, listening, speaking, grammar
and vocabulary building; and generally to enhance learners’ classroom experience.

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3. OBJECTIVES

- Main aim of the Project:

To create a Teacher Toolkit containing a bank of diverse, original and practical step by
step teaching ideas that involve pre-existing images and videos that will help B2 level
learners develop their receptive and productive language skills and boost their
vocabulary and grammar.

- Specific aims:

● To demonstrate how existing images and videos can strengthen

productive (speaking and writing) and receptive language skills (reading
and listening) and boost vocabulary and grammar

● To explore the huge number of possibilities and reasons for using non-
moving and moving images in the language classroom.

● To present a bank of diverse and adaptable activities and to

demonstrate how images can help teachers to create engaging lessons.

● To engage, boost curiosity, provide inspiration and motivation to carry

out language tasks and generally enhance learners’ classroom
experience.

● To inspire and motivate other teachers to look out for engaging images
and videos to create their own activities around them.

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4. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter reviews concepts and theories that are relevant to the topic and that relate
to the broader areas of knowledge being considered in this project. Firstly, it defines
the concept of visual literacy and its impact in the educational context. Secondly, a
theoretical overview of methods that have used visuals in language teaching and
learning is introduced. Then, the benefits, some challenges and limitations (and
possible solutions) of using visuals in the language learning context are explained.
Finally, this chapter explores some of the implications of the use of multimedia
materials in the language classroom.

4.1 Visual literacy in the educational context

The main aim of this chapter is to define key terminology and to find references of the
use of visuals in the educational context, search for evidence of its effectiveness and
make connections with current teaching methods. The chapter also explores issues
and topics closely connected to visuals in education.

4.1.1 Defining Visual literacy

Traditionally the term literacy had to do with the acquisition of a set of cognitive skills, in
most cases this was connected to print media; that is, the term was linked to the idea
of the ability to read and write. Being literate meant having the necessary knowledge to
function in society and being able to communicate effectively. Even though nowadays
literacy is still connected to the idea of effective communication we also know that there
is much more to add to it.

According to UNESCO’s report Literacy for Life (2005), being literate comprises not
only acquiring basic cognitive abilities, but also being able to apply these skills
‘to contribute to socio-economic development, to developing the capacity for social
awareness and critical reflection as a basis for personal and social change’ (p.
147).

Therefore, it can be said that literacy is now considered a broader competence. All
texts, regardless of the media through which they are delivered need to be interpreted
critically and creatively. In order to communicate effectively, one needs to be able to
also read, understand, interpret, create and select images to convey a range of
different meanings. This means that being literate today is about questioning and
decoding messages, no matter how they are communicated.
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This idea has led to the notion of ‘multiliteracies’, a concept that suggests that there are
different types of literacy going through constant transformation, especially in this
digital age. One of these types of literacy is 'visual literacy', a term that was first used
by John Debes in 1969. Debes founded the International Visual Literacy Association
and defined visual literacy in these words (Debes, 1969):

Visual Literacy makes reference to a group of vision-competencies a

human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and
integrating other sensory experiences. The development of these
competencies is fundamental to normal human learning. When
developed, they enable a visually literate person to discriminate and
interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural or man-made,
that he encounters in his environment. Through the creative use of
these competencies, he is able to communicate with others. Through
the appreciative use of these competences, he is able to comprehend
and enjoy the masterworks of visual communication. (p. 27)

A more contemporary states that: ‘In the context of human, intentional visual
communication, visual literacy makes reference to a group of largely acquired
abilities i.e. the abilities to understand (read), and to use images (write), as
well as to think and learn in terms of images’ (Avgerinou, 2001, p. 26).

The term has been defined in a number of ways since it first appeared in the 1960s. It
can be said that visual literacy is, by nature, an organic concept that is under constant
change, thus needs to be redefined as the world changes around us. It is then
complicated to have an exact definition of the term due to its complexity and
multidimensional nature of the skills involved, but at its core ‘visual literacy refers to the
ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in an
image’ (Avgerinou & Ericson, 1997, p. 23). It is important to note that this definition is
connected in a way to critical thinking since it acknowledges the multiple meanings that
can be generated by exposure to such diverse media.

Children now appear to have highly developed visual instincts compared to children
from earlier generations, this could be because they are being brought up in an era in
which digital technology has had a great impact on them. Not only younger
generations are influenced by the digital era, it is now possible for anybody with an
internet connection to set up their own blog or online video channel and upload their
own content as a response to others. This means that we are all experiencing a
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change towards a more participatory culture — today's literacies are about
encouraging the audience not just to be passive consumers but active contributors of
their own digital experience.

This change in paradigm towards a more collaborative culture is also taking place in
education. There is a clear shift from the emphasis of individual efforts to group work,
from independent and individual work to community. It is common to see teachers
using collaborative teaching strategies and students collaborating to complete a task in
or outside of class because the focus now is moving away from competition and
individual’s knowledge to that of interaction and cooperative learning. Students have
now the freedom to introduce their own content into their learning instead of just
receiving and learning from what has been handed out to them.

The following section will focus on the new role of the visual and its impact on
education.

4.1.2 Visual literacy in education and in ELT material design

Until quite recently, images were seen as either decorative or not relative to the text. In
most cases, they were used as a visual aid to practice a very limited range of
structures or lexical items. In other cases, they were simply used as starting activities,
such as warm-ups, in which students merely had to describe what they saw in the
picture without the need of thinking critically or interpreting. On top of this, the image
has been seen as a distraction from the text rather than complementary to the text.
However, this idea is changing and it is usual to see the new multimodal ensembles in
today’s classrooms, such as infographics, image based presentations and visual
poetry. These examples show how images enhance and support the text, rather than
causing a distraction.

Having said that, it seems clear that there is a need in education to adapt to this new
idea by shifting the old parameters and creating tasks in which the image has a more
prominent role and in which learners are engaged on a more cognitively challenging
level. When activities around images are introduced in the class, learners will have to
put into practice their critical thinking skills to dig in a little dipper to look 'beyond the
frame' of the image, in the same way that 'reading between the lines' is required in
order to interpret written texts. These kinds of activities can be done with all language
learners, even those with a low level of proficiency.

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The visual turn of recent years has led to important changes in the design of English as
an Additional Language (EAL) material. Media organizations such as National
Geographic, TED or Discovery Education have contributed to the prominence of visual
material in EAL materials, especially video, which had never been previously integrated
into course design. At the same time, a big number of websites and blogs have been
created with the aim of exploiting images and particularly video for the English
language classroom.

Meanwhile, from the academic point of view, The Image Conference (an annual
English language teachers' event devoted to images, video, film and gaming) was
created in 2012 and has been held subsequently in Spain, Brazil and Germany with
international speakers sharing their expertise in the field. In the 2014 Image
Conference, the organizers issued what they called 'A Visual Manifesto' — a three-
minute video clip in which critical reflection of the images in our daily lives is promoted
as a methodological advance, as is image and video creation on the part of the
learners, calling on skills acquired in their daily use of image and video.

A dominant theme is shared by many language teachers and experts in the field;
there are many educational benefits of using images and videos in language
teaching. Many speakers of The Image Conference highlighted how effective the use
of different types of images is in promoting creativity, critical thinking and
collaborative learning.

The following section analyses more closely the use of images in the classroom.

4.1.2.1 Videos in education

As it has been said before, until quite recently the use of videos in the classroom often
lacked education value since visuals were mostly left for special occasions or were
used ‘just for fun’ or even as a time-filler activity. However, many experts now agree
with the idea that videos are effective springboards for a variety of content based
classroom activities. It is generally believed that the most effective way to use videos in
the classroom is by integrating them into the weekly planning and everyday lessons,
and not just using them as a special or extra activity that often lacks connection with
the content that is being studied.

The positive impact of videos on students is proven by many language teachers, that is
one of the reasons why videos have now replaced the use of audios in many English
classrooms. For many students, especially the ones from younger generations, audio
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tracks with conversations between different people appear rather unnatural because
they cannot see the speaker, their body language and the setting in which the
conversation takes places. Videos, however, provide all this information and this helps
learners to understand the language and improve their long-term listening
comprehension skills, as well as their ‘confidence in speech’ (Shrosbree 2008).

Videos provide background information and stimulate the subsequent reading, writing,
speaking and listening activities (Stoller, 1993, p. 3). Tomalin (1991) adds that the use
of video in the classroom motivates and engages students because they feel
encouraged to acquire new words and phrases as well as different aspects of the
target culture.

A research carried out by Canning-Wilson (2000) concluded that body language should
be used in the scenes with utterances in order to make the listening input more
comprehensive. He also realised that students who were exposed to sound-only
conditions were less interested and concentrated in the listening activity. Canning came
to the conclusion that there are multiple advantages of using videos; one of the biggest
one is that they activate students’ background schemata which allows them to generate
predictions and speculations of what is happening.

Another great asset of multimedia technology is that it allows teachers to produce their
own videos or search for those that support in the best way the students’ needs and
interests (Shrosbree 2008).

It is important to point out that it is not just children and teenagers who benefit from
watching videos for learning. Current language lessons with adult students also include
videos such as TED talks and lectures, ‘how to…’ videos, short-films, YouTube clips
and training webinars and it is well attested that adults also benefit from them.

Despite the many benefits of the use of videos they can also bring some
disadvantages to the class. According to Hobbs (2006) one of the wrong uses of the
video is that it is still often used as a reward or to control students’ behaviour.

Another problem comes from not planning ahead the activities that can be done to
support the videos. As Stoller (1993) states, effective planning is key to learning
success; videos can introduce or present further information in regards to a particular
unit or topic, but to maximise its effect, educators should create pre-viewing, viewing
and post-viewing activities for their lessons. When these activities are included there
will be a greater opportunity to develop language and other skills. The purpose of the
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pre-viewing activities is to support the comprehension of the video and provide the
necessary information about the topic. During the viewing activities, teachers should
help students focus on important features. These activities also help avoid the passive
attitude that students usually show when viewing a video. During post-viewing activities
the use of new knowledge should be stimulated.

Teachers need to consider these ideas before planning their lessons. They should also
leave behind the fear of technology and realise that thanks to technology they can
easily bring current events, language and culture into the classroom. With platforms
such as YouTube, teachers can make a playlist of the videos that are needed to
illustrate or further study the concepts of a lesson or spark discussions about a topic.
YouTube brings infinite possibilities to the classroom; students can benefit from
watching videos of real life clips, movie trailers or TV shows scenes. The use of
videos, such as tutorias, are getting more popular every day and they are extremely
helpful for teachers that have chosen to ‘flipped their classroom’.

At this point it is necessary to clarify that this project is not suggesting that videos are
the best form of education; that video should replace teachers’ instructions or that
sitting students in front of screens will solve our educational problems. As with any
other technology, video can be used to supplement students’ learning and if it is well
planned and exploited it can be a fantastic tool.

4.1.2.2 Images in education

It is not easy to imagine the modern language classroom without visuals in today’s
increasingly visual world. Coursebook images, photos, icons, posters, infographics,
picture books, flashcards, student-created artwork, films and YouTube clips are part of
current teaching materials. It is a good sign that more and more teachers are making
use of these visuals but it is important to analyse the way these images are being
used, that is, whether they are merely used as an aid to support text, or as a significant
component to facilitate communication in a foreign language, and therefore as a central
part to foster students’ communicative competence, creativity and critical thinking skills.

The way in which images have been used in education has been a recurrent topic
since the 60s. In order to analyse the role of images in the language classroom it is
necessary to examine how images have been approached in resource books and
coursebooks. In 1966, Pit Corder, carried out a study called The Visual Element in
Language Teaching, in which he made the distinction between ‘talking about
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images’ (merely describing images) and ‘talking with images’ (responding personally to
images). His work had a great influence in many other books to come and that have
served as a basis to develop this project. Some of these books are Alan Maley et al.’s
The Mind’s Eye (1980), Andrew Wright’s Pictures for Language Learners (1990), David
A. Hill’s Visual Impact (1990), Ben Goldstein’s Working with Images (2009), Jamie
Keddie’s Images (2009).

However, despite the many books to promote the critical and creative use of non-
moving images to encourage students to interpret and critically analyse images,
discussion and creativity are still underexploited in the vast majority of language
lessons. According to coursebook writer Ben Goldstein (2014):

With the advent of large-scale English Language Teaching (ELT)

publishing, images were used not only as visual reinforcement, but in
order to make the finished product more attractive and hence more
marketable. However, although texts are largely taken from ‘authentic’
sources to reflect the real-life language that the books promote, the
images are still largely made up of archive photos. Such images not
only lack originality, but more often than not project and promote an
affluent and aspirational lifestyle to learners. For this reason ELT
materials, however, contemporary they are in topic and outlook, often
appear to have a superficial, colour-supplement ‘look’ to them.
Teachers and learners tend not to be presented with images that they
would encounter in the real world, but rather a safe cleaned-up version.
(p. 4)

In addition to this cleaned-up use of images in coursebooks that Goldstein

mentions, there is the criticism that images are still largely used as aids and for
decoration. A research carried out by David A. Hill analysed the usage of images
in three intermediate English language coursebook and it was found that over 50
percent of the images and drawings were used only for decoration:

It seems to be that having over half of the pictures in a given

coursebook used for purely decorative purposes is a great waste of
effort on the part of the publisher and a great waste of opportunity
for the language learner and teacher. (David A. Hill 2013, p. 163)

Another criticism that has been made when examining EAL coursebooks is that in
many of them there is a dominance of monomodal texts over the type of
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multimodal texts. However, as Donaghy, K. & Xerri D., (2017) points out, despite
the fact that the majority of coursebooks still use images largely for support and
decoration, and monomodal texts are generally dominant, recently there has
been a clear trend towards using images to stimulate ideas and promote critical
thinking.

There is an increasing number of coursebooks, such as Eyes Open/ Uncover

(Cambridge University Press), Life (National Geographic Learning), Keynote
(National Geographic Learning), and The Big Picture (Richmond), that use
images at a higher level. In these coursebooks units start with large high-impact
images to help establish the topic, activate students’ previous knowledge and get
them talking. Although there is a recent attempt to develop learners’ visual
literacy and also to focus more on multiliteracies pedagogy there is still a lot that
needs to be done in order to normalise this new approach to language learning.

4.1.3 Visual literacy in action

Visual literacy is now a concept which many experts would agree that should be
incorporated into the classroom practice. For this reason there is a growing number of
EAL publishers that are taking into consideration the power of visuals. Many
investigations have been carried out to explore ways in which images could stimulate
learning and enhance students’ language abilities. Callow (2005), for example,
established an interesting and accessible paradigm for various ways of viewing an
image. According to him there are three dimensions: affective, compositional and
critical. The affective focuses on the individual's sensual and immediate response; the
compositional includes the identification of semiotic, structural and contextual
elements; and the critical foregrounds sociocultural considerations and highlights the
image's message, requiring us often to look beyond an image's literal meaning (Callow
2005, p. 13).

More recently, Serafini (2014:43) proposed a renewed paradigm which defines the
dimensions of viewing as perceptual, structural and ideological. Based on these two
models, useful questions which could be asked to learners when they are confronted
by any still or moving image are shown in the table below. These questions have been
selected from a list in Language Learning with Digital Video (Goldstein et al. 2014, p.
11—13).

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 Questions and task to help learners analyse images
Three dimensions of viewing

AFFECTIVE/ COMPOSITIONAL/ CRITICAL/

PERCEPTUAL STRUCTURAL IDEOLOGICAL
How does the image make What elements can you What message does the
you feel? see in the foreground/ image transmit?
background, etc.?

Why do you think it makes What text accompanies Who created it? For what
you feel that way? the image, if any (a purpose and in what
caption, a title, etc.)? What context?
does this add to the
image?
What other images have How is the image framed In what forms of media will
made you feel that way? or composed? the image be seen?
What other images come What do you think lies Who is the intended
to your mind when you beyond the frame? audience for the image?
see it?
What does the image From what angle or point In what context did you
remind you of? of view has the image view the image? Is it the
been taken? original context or another
one?
Do you identify with or Which parts of the image In how many different
relate to the image in any are centrally focused? ways could the image be
way? If so, how? interpreted?
Does the image have any What has been altered, Are any of the images
personal relevance for omitted from or included in stereotypical, idealized,
you? the image? non-representative or
anachronistic?

Do you think the image is What part stands out and What criticism could this
positive or negative? Or why? image have?
do you feel indifferent
towards it? Why?

Table 4.1 Source: Goldstein et al. 2014, p. 11—13

According to Goldstein (2016) in order to complete this list, we need to consider the
viewers as an active part of the viewing process and we must encourage them to
respond in a creative way. These are some of the activities suggested by the author
(Goldstein, 2016, p. 12):

• Embed the image in a different genre or context.

• Rewrite the accompanying text or script as if it were a different genre. What
changes need to take place?
• Sequence images in a different order to create your own narrative.
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 • Design or visualise your own video sequence for a song or poem.
• Narrate a live video sequence.
• Identify the subtext of a particular image or video sequence and present this to
others.
• Research and find similar images or videos online.
• Create a collage or mash-up of different images or videos related to what you
have seen in class (e.g., create a mosaic of different images which say
something about yourself).
• Create a storyboard trailer for a movie and then compare it with the original.

4. 2 Review of approaches that have used visuals

Visuals have become very popular in many English classes in the past years, but their
use of in language teaching is not a new trend. Most teaching methods have taken
into consideration the power of visuals and many have seen them as a significant part
of the language lessons. To be more precise, the use of visuals to present, train, and
teach languages have played an important role since the 1920s and 1930s influenced
by The Direct Approach. The aim of this methodology was to minimise the use of the
mother language in the classroom. Teachers that used this approach were encouraged
to make use of objects, images, film strips, pictures or concepts to make themselves
understood in the target language.

The Direct Approach has been considered the first one to give relevance to visuals but
there have been many more. For example, a few decades later, in the 1950s and
1960s, picture slides, tape recordings and ultimately language labs became very
popular with the growth of the Audio-Lingual Method in the United States. The
popularity of this method was largely rooted in the military's need during World War II;
there was a need to train large numbers of people in different foreign languages in a
short period of time. Like in The Direct Approach students were taught in the target
language directly, that is, the students' mother language to explain new words,
concepts or grammar was not used in class, visuals once again provided support for
clarification. This method, which was based on Skinner's behaviourist theory, which
claimed to provide students with the best phonemic, morphological and syntactic
system to imitate native speakers.

Also in the 1950s and like the previous method, based on a behaviourist approach ,
French Scholars developed the Audio-Visual Method. This approach claims that
language is acquired by habit formation. It considered that audiovisual technology and
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resources were a great supplement to language teaching. Teachers used a variety of
resources, such as textbooks, films clips, tape recordings, slides and classroom
presentations.

Around the same time in Britain, the Oral-Situational Approach became very popular
and it was very influential until the 1980s. Its focus was learning language situationally
and pass-on objects, pictures, photos, realia, charts and flashcards were widely used
in the class with the aim of recreating real life scenarios.

Not only behaviourist methods gave importance to visuals, Humanistic methods made
great use of them too. For example, in the 1960’s the Silent Way Method emphasised
student autonomy and participation. Again, the mother tongue was not used and
silence was used as a tool to achieve comprehension; the teacher used a mixture of
silence and body language to attract students' attention, to elicit responses from them,
and to encourage them to correct their own errors. The teacher also worked with
several visual aids: wall posters containing useful vocabulary, colour coded phonetic
charts, posters, drawings, pictures, photos, worksheets and slides.

Another method called the Total Physical Response made use of body language,
physical movement and actions in order to mimic the process of the acquisition of the
mother tongue. Total physical response was a comprehension based approach of
language teaching in which the importance of listening was highlighted. Teacher input
was the most relevant component for learning according to this method (spoken output
was not required at early stages), therefore, teachers would use actions and visual
aids, such as large pictures, to complement their spoken language.

In the late 1970s The Natural Approach was developed by Krashen based on his
Monitor theory. Similarly to the previous method, students were not required to produce
output immediately since according to this method they should first go through a period
of listening comprehension. Magazine pictures, cut-outs and other visual and
kinaesthetic aids were used to reinforce listening comprehension and early language
production stages.

Comprehension-based approaches were based on the idea that the Second language
(L2) learning was similar to First Language (L1) acquisition. That is why it was
believed that students in the first stages of the learning needed to be exposed to a lot
of audiovisual input. When teachers were not native, tapes were seen as the most
appropriate aid to provide input to students.

21
However, in recent years, against the trends that focused on developing
comprehension skills first, language teaching has leaned towards giving prominence to
a number of different communicative approaches. Their main objective is to give
students the necessary skills to communicate effectively in the real world from early
stages. These approaches have emphasised the value of bringing the real world into
the classroom to make the learning more authentic and meaningful for students. In
other words, these approaches are based on the idea that language learning takes
place successfully when there is a need to communicate real meaning.

Communicative Language Teaching gives a great importance to the real life objects,
authentic pictures or texts to give authenticity to the communicative situation: ‘non
native speakers (both inside the classroom and outside the classroom) make use of
the here and now objects in the immediate environments’ (Brinton, 2001, p. 459).

Another method that has been very popular in recent years is Task-based Learning.
This approach offers an alternative to traditional language teaching. In Task-based
lessons the teacher will not necessarily pre-determine what language structures will be
studied, instead, the lessons are based around the completion of a task and the
language studied will be determined by what happens while students complete it. At
the beginning of each lesson input is often introduced through visual aids such as
gestures, actions, pictures, photographs and slides.

It is important to consider that technology has increased the opportunities of bringing

the real world into the language classroom through the use of a range of visuals. The
access to the internet has made finding appropriate visuals accessible to all and
sharing those with students has never been easier. All the different approaches that
are present in today’s classrooms make use of visuals in one way or another.

4.3 Theories of visual cognition

Many cognitivists researched about the importance of visual resources in the process
of learning a language. These scholars came to the conclusion that The Input
Hypothesis, Dual Coding Theory and Image Schema Theory are key in language
acquisition and realised that visuals play an important part in these theories.

For example, the cognitive approach to second language learning, gives a lot of
importance to language input. Gass (as cited in Fotos, 2001) states that second
language acquisition is shaped by the input one receives. Fotos (2001) adds that the
input that learners receive in the classroom can be manipulated or adapted in order to
22
make it easier to understand. She defends her position by arguing that teachers
constantly do so in their lessons by using different teaching strategies such as
simplifying meaning or grammar activities; physically highlighting the most relevant
ideas of a particular topic in the presentations or in the work that they give to students.
This is regularly done in order to adapt to students’ needs, abilities and language level.

Fotos’ ideas are deeply linked to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, which claims that ‘we
move along the developmental continuum by receiving comprehensible input.
Comprehensible input is defined as ‘second language input just beyond the learners’
current second language competence in terms of syntactic complexity’ (Krashen, 1985,
p. 2). Visuals will play an important role in understanding the input students receive,
since the use of visuals will make the second language input more comprehensible for
students. According to Nation and Newton (2009) they provide conceptual scaffolding,
thanks to clues (such as cultural context) that they give us, and they bring the natural
associations of images and words.

Another theory developed by cognitivists is the Dual Coding Theory which explains
how the brain processes the new information, that is, the input. The Dual Coding
Theory proposed by Paivio (1986) attempts to give equal prominence to verbal and
non-verbal processing. Paivio states (1986):

Human cognition is unique in that it has become specialized for dealing

simultaneously with language and with nonverbal objects and events.
Moreover, the language system is peculiar in that it deals directly with
linguistic input and output (in the form of speech or writing) while at the
same time serving a symbolic function with respect to nonverbal objects,
events, and behaviours. Any representational theory must accommodate
this dual functionality. (p. 53)

Figure 4.2: Source: Representation of Dual Coding Theory (A. Paivio, 1986, p. 41)

23
As it can be seen in the graphic, The Dual Coding Theory hypothesises with the idea
that our cognitive processes handle verbal/linguistic (logogens) and visual (imagens)
representations in separate memory channels and that each one has a certain capacity
for information processing in working memory (Paivio, 1986). In other words, Paivio
suggests that the sensory systems process in different ways verbal stimuli (stimuli that
comes in verbal form) and non-verbal stimuli (the one received through sound, touch,
sight or taste). This means that visuals are very important in L2 acquisition because
they complement verbal processes. A research carried out by Sadoski & Paivio (2001)
concluded that presenting students with a written text accompanied by visuals, as
opposed to just written text on its own, allows readers to activate and integrate both the
visual and the verbal systems, and this interconnection helps readers generate
inferences about the text.

Another important theory in relation to visuals developed by cognitivists is the Image

Schema Theory. It derives from the claim that knowledge is not static, propositional and
sentential; it is rather grounded in and structured by various patterns of our perceptual
interactions, bodily actions and manipulation of objects (Gibbs, 2006).

Latkoff and Johnson’s studies (as cited in Gibbs, 2006) concluded that there are over
two dozen different image schemas and several image schema transformations that
appear regularly in people’s everyday thinking, reasoning and imagination. These
image schemas are defined as ‘dynamic analogical representations of spatial relations
and movements in space and each one of them reflects aspects of our visual, auditory
and kinaesthetic bodily experience’ (Gibbs, 2006, p. 240).

The Image Schema Theory can be better understood with a practical example. If we
think of the preposition ‘in’ to direct or indirect interactive experiences with objects,
such as having a cat in the house, putting some apples in a basket, and arriving in a
town, the interactions are all somewhat similar: we have something in or are putting
something into something else. These examples lead us to develop an abstract
pattern, an image in our heads, to better understand the meaning of ‘in’, as shown in
Figure 4.2.

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Figure 4.3: Source: Representation of the preposition ‘in’ using Image Schema Theory
(Johnson, 1987, p. 36)

Image schemas provide the basis for the meanings of many lexical and grammatical
concepts in a language (Johnson, 1987). The inclusive relationship schema in Figure
4.3 therefore provides the basis for the meaning of the preposition ‘in’:

a. My cat is in the house

b. Put these apples in the basket
c. He has arrived in town

According to cognitivists through the use of image schemas, as it can be seen in the
previous example, it is possible to foster students’ understanding of English
grammatical and lexical concepts that on their own could be tricky or easily
misunderstood.

4.4 Benefits of using visuals

Visuals have the potential of enhancing language teaching and learning according to
most teachers and experts in the field. There are a number of benefits in using visual
aids in teaching according to many authors.

Using visual material in the language learning benefits both the teacher and the
student because the message becomes more clear; visuals enhance, support or
supplement the language, as Canning-Wilson (2001) indicates in her work. These
advantages imply that visual aids complement the text and message and make a task
or situation more meaningful and authentic. Brinton (2001) adds that learning is more
significant and more exciting for students when images bring the outside world into the
language classroom. The foreign language teacher needs to consider the fact that
teaching a foreign language does not only consist of teaching vocabulary and
grammar, but also teaching the target cultures. Otherwise, the whole teaching process
may appear to be useless and artificial. Using videos and images as authentic
materials also bring intercultural awareness to the classroom.
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Arthur (1999) claims that:

Visual aid and video can give students realistic models to imitate
for role-play; can increase awareness of other cultures by teaching
appropriateness and suitability; can strengthen audio/visual
linguistic perceptions simultaneously; can widen the classroom
repertoire and range of activities; can help utilize the latest
technology to facilitate language learning; can teach direct
observation of the paralinguistic features found in association with
the target language; can be used to help when training students in
ESP related scenarios and language; can offer a visual
reinforcement of the target language and can lower anxiety when
practicing the skill of listening. (p.4)

According to Bradshaw, A.C., (2003), visual literacy is also the key factor to obtain
information, construct knowledge and build successful educational outcomes. As
Mannan (2005) points out:

Visual aids can be a helpful tool in the language classroom as they

help the teacher to clarify, establish, correlate and coordinate
accurate concepts, interpretations and appreciations, and enable
him to make learning more concrete, effective, interesting,
inspirational, meaningful and vivid. (p.108)

Moriarty (1994) states that visual literacy is acquired before verbal language
development; that is why obtaining visual language skills is vital in language learning
since it serves as the foundation for linguistic development. This can possibly explain
the need of pictorial information rather than textual among young students (Arif and
Hashing 2009). Paivio (1986) had already explained this with his theory based on the
idea that cognitive growth is stimulated by the balance between verbal and visual
experiences in the early stages of learning. Research carried out by Arif and Hashim
(2009) proves that young learners put more attention to pictures than to words;
moreover, pictures provide the main clue to interpret the meaning of the words.

Another very important positive effect of using images in education has to do with
students' motivation. Studies from different researchers conclude that visuals help
maintain interest among students in different ways. For example, using visual aids
creates strong engagement between students and the texts. They also encourage
students to read texts with interest, making it easier for them to comprehend the more
26
complex or abstract ideas in the texts (Bowen, B. M. 1982). This proves the idea that
the use of visual aids act as ‘vehicles’ that can be used to enrich and enhance the
process of learning. Thus, it allows the students to have full concentration on the texts
which leads to a deeper comprehension of the story and flow of the texts.

4.5 Limitations and possible solutions when using visuals

Despite the positive aspects of using a visual approach in teaching and learning there
are also some limitations that need to be taken into account. It is important to consider
that visual processing is a complex phenomenon, and therefore, it is at times difficult to
understand. According to McDonald (2009), semiotic research suggests that in order to
read a multimodal text effectively, the reader must initially and perhaps unconsciously
decode two semiotic systems: the spatial system of design to decode the images and
the linear system of the writing to decode the words. The reader then must interpret
how the two systems combine to make one overall meaning (ibid). Therefore, it can be
said that even though multimodal texts have simple ways of presenting information, the
underlying relationships may be complex.

Indeed, in an EAL context, processing multimodal texts can be seen as extremely

difficult because learners not only have to process the graphic and written modes, but
they also have to translate them into their own language (Liu, 2004). Chmela-Jones et
al. (2007) add that aimless and inadvertent application of visual aids can give rise to
misconceptions and confusion. Similarly, the unnecessary implementation of visual
aids may also have a confusing rather than an enlightening effect (ibid).

In reference to the use of multimedia, Cakir (2006) suggests that teachers need to be
well trained in using and exploiting the media, especially video, otherwise it may
become boring and insignificant for students. Stokes (2002) adds that the visuals in
education must be well thought and carefully integrated into planning in order to be a
successful aid in learning. When they are only used in a decorative or entertaining way
rather than as a tool to encourage thoughtful analysis they may interfere with the intent
of the lesson.

Regarding the theories of visual cognition, special consideration is given to the

possibility of cognitive overload in the use of multimedia. Cognitive load is the amount
of information being processed in working memory at one time (Chandler & Sweller,
1991). Cognitive Load Theory attempts to explain that there is a certain amount of
information that can be used and stored in working memory at one time without
exceeding our processing capacity (Pastore, 2010). The literature on cognitive
27
overload also refers to this problem as the split-attention effect; this happens when
learners are required to split their attention between different sources of information
(e.g. text and images).

These issues may be avoided if lessons are carefully planned and if visuals are smartly
integrated. It might be worth taking a note of Mayer’s principles of multimedia design
(Mayer & Johnson, 2008, p. 58):

1. The multimedia principle—you use both words (as spoken text) and pictures (as
animation or a series of still frames).
2. The coherence principle—you minimize any extraneous words or pictures.
3. The modality principle—you present the words as narration rather than as on-
screen text.
4. The temporal contiguity principle—you present the narration at the same time
the corresponding event is depicted in the graphics.

In addition to these ideas, Mayer (2008, p. 123) presents ten theoretically grounded
and evidence-based principles for the design of multimedia instruction: five principles
for reducing extraneous processing, three principles for managing essential
processing, and two principles for fostering generative processing:

1. Reduce extraneous material.

2. Highlight essential material.
3. Do not add on-screen text to narrated animation.
4. Place printed words next to corresponding graphics.
5. Present corresponding narration and animation at the same time.
6. Present animation in learner-paced segments.
7. Provide pre-training in the name, location, and characteristics of key
components.
8. Present words as spoken text rather than printed text.
9. Present words and pictures rather than words alone.
10. Present words in conversational style rather than formal style.

These principles have been followed to create the materials with the intention of
helping to reduce the negative impact of the visual or multimodal approach in teaching
and learning and to encourage thoughtful analysis of the underlying meaning.

28
4.6 Summary and Implications of using visual materials in the classroom

The literature discussed in this chapter mostly supports the idea of the usefulness of
visual materials in language teaching and learning. Visual aids have been present in
many different language teaching theories such as the Audio-visual method, The Silent
Way Method or Comprehension-based approaches; and more recently the
Communicative and the Task Based Approach have validated the power of visuals in
the foreign language classroom. It has also been proved that in EAL classrooms,
language teaching becomes more interesting and authentic when the teachers use
different audio-visuals. Learners are highly motivated, engaged and attentive when
different audio-visual materials are used. Other literature suggests that visual aids are
useful to facilitate language skills and get students talking. However, there are also
challenges when using audio-video materials in language teaching.

Regarding the impact of visuals in education, it could be said that exploiting visual
literacy can have a number of important implications in education; both for materials
and the classroom dynamic. Firstly, with regard to materials, focusing on the image for
its visual stimulus and moving towards a more communicative class will enable
students to engage with images in a number of different ways. As it has been
previously mentioned, visuals will provide teachers numerous ways of working with
them since they are easily created and adapted; this also means that the same piece
of visual material can be used for classes of different levels of language proficiency.

However, although the focus on the visual is important, it has to be clear that to do this
exclusively and ignore the textual would be a mistake. Rather than seeing text, video
and images as independent and separate entities, it would be more beneficial to see
them as complementary units. This switch towards a multimodal approach would seem
a more sensible approach to take.

With regard to the classroom, clearly, the increased use of image and video is
changing how students learn. It is perfectly possible now for students to engage with
materials and interact with peers in online platforms once they have left the classroom;
this means that students can develop their learning at their own pace and time. In most
blended learning programmes, the visual material accessed at home via video in their
virtual study platform acts as a way to engage learners and reflect on previously learnt
concepts and further develop them outside of class. Another advantage is that students
then have the opportunity to share this with peers and teachers not only in the online
platform, but also in the physical classroom space, contributing more to the input and,
to a certain extent, changing the role of teacher and learner.
29
It seems clear that learners today are far more visually literate than the previous
generation because they have so much greater access to visual material. It has to be
considered that not only the younger students are exposed to a more visual style of
learning, language lessons for adults also includes visual literacy. In order to engage
learners and tap into this literacy, those who mediate the learning process, such as
language teacher and resource makers, will have to access motivating material and
also ask the right kinds of questions. Exploiting visual literacy has the potential to
trigger any number of enlightened responses and interpretations but in order to achieve
so the materials need to have accompanying questions and/or notes which will guide
the learner and help structure their responses.

30
5. METHODOLOGY OF THE PROJECT

5.1 An eclectic approach

An eclectic approach has been used to make these materials. The eclectic approach is
a conceptual method that does not only include one paradigm or a set of assumptions
but rather it is a mixture of several theories, styles, and ideas. The main aim of the
approach is to gain a thorough insight about the subject by making use of not only one
specific methodology but a range of techniques and activities from a variety of
language teaching approaches and methodologies. Every method has its strengths
and weaknesses; according to Brown (2002) eclecticism provides the solution to
different weaknesses because the approach allows the teacher to select what works
within their own dynamic contexts.

Eclecticism has become so widely accepted that, as Weidermann (2006) states, many
good teachers use it proudly as a tag to describe their teaching, wearing it almost as a
‘badge of honour’. Even almost all modern textbooks contain a mixture of approaches
and methodologies (e.g. communicative, audio-lingual, situational, cognitive approach
etc.) in order to suit the requirements of the learners. Ali (1981, p. 7) lists the
following benefits that derive from using an eclectic approach:

● (a)Teachers are given a chance to choose different kinds of teaching

techniques in each class period to reach the aims of the lesson.
● (b)There is flexibility in choosing any aspect or method that teachers think
suitable for teaching inside the classroom
● (c)Learners can see different kinds of teaching techniques, using different kinds
of teaching aids, that help to make lessons much more stimulating and ensures
better understanding of the material on the other hand.
● (d)Solves difficulties that may emerge from the presentation of the textbook
materials
● (e)Finally, it saves both time and effort in the presentation of language activities.

The main approaches used in the making of the materials are:

● The Communicative approach
The purpose of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is to help students produce
authentic language and communicate with others. But to produce authentic language

31
does not mean developing speaking skills only. CLT integrates multiple skills, such as
speaking, reading, listening and writing. As Littlewood (1981, p. 1) explains one of the
characteristic features of the Communicative Approach is that it pays systematic
attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language combining these into a
more fully communicative view.

In CLT, meaning exceeds forms, but this does not mean that grammar is not important.
Teachers should teach grammar within contexts and through communicative tasks.
Grammar activities in these materials are presented within a context. In this way,
grammar is not presented as a list of rigid rules, but natural patterns that students
acquire in the learning contexts. According to Wilkins (1983) to help students
communicate, the teacher needs to provide rich and ‘authentic materials’ as opposed
to 'non-authentic' materials; also there must be an emphasis on 'process' rather than
'product' and a desire to establish autonomy in language learning through genuine
communication rather than through participating in pedagogically motivated and
structured activities.

This project will use Task-based teaching (TBT) ideas as well as other communicative
practices. Task-based teaching is one of the most common communicative teaching
approaches at this moment. Teachers set up a goal, give students real-life language
tasks, and students respond in a meaningful way. In this process, students are
motivated to use the language to serve the purpose of communication. According to
Larsson (2001) one of the main virtues of TBT is that it displays a significant advantage
over traditional methods in how the communicative skills of the students are improved.
The general ability of social interaction is also positively affected.

● Audiovisual approach

Even though the audiovisual method was first developed in France in the 1950s it has
gained prominence in recent years thanks to Internet-age tools and resources that can
be used in particular teaching contexts. The audiovisual method refers to both sound
and pictures which is typically in the form of slides, photographs, pictures or video and
recorded speech or music; all these visual presentations are shown by the teacher to
the students.

Canning-Wilson (2001) suggests there are many benefits of using audiovisuals in

teachings and that is why teachers must not lose sight of the educational purpose that
these have in the language classroom. For example, through the use of audiovisual
materials students remember concepts more easily since students use more than one
sense. Moreover they can remember them for a longer amount of time. New topics
32
and vocabulary are introduced in an easier way. The class also becomes more
interesting, dynamic and effective. Visuals convey the same meaning as words but
they present concepts more clearly, thus they help bring effectiveness in learning.

The materials presented in this project incorporate images and digital videos into
lesson plans; they also provide effective guidelines for teaching languages with the
help of images.

● Interdisciplinary approach
Through interdisciplinary teaching teachers can successfully engage students and help
them foster knowledge of the language, insights, problem solving skills, self-
confidence, autonomy, and a passion for learning.

Repko (2009) asserts that interdisciplinary instruction fosters advances in cognitive

ability, for instance it, develops the acquisition of foundational knowledge, promotes the
outcome of ideas from multiple disciplines and provides insight on how to apply
knowledge all of which supports students’ autonomy and understanding of how to
learn. Students are also encouraged to contribute through caring and social interaction
when fulfilling the tasks. Thus, it can be said that the structure of interdisciplinary
learning is consistent with the core features of significant learning; students will have to
find their own ways using interdisciplinary approaches to understand the topics under
investigation.

These teaching materials will use information from other subjects to teach English, that
way students will not only learn English but they will also develop their knowledge in
other disciplines, such as: science, social science, geography, arts, etc.

5. 2 Target group

The materials have been designed for adults, young adults and teenagers (+16) who
are not native speakers of English who wish to achieve a high level of linguistic
competence that will allow them to function in the workplace in English. It is mapped to
the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and is
designed for B2 level learners who are able to communicate independently in English.

It is important to take into consideration that the materials have been developed for a
digitally native group or for students that are comfortable and familiar with technology,
especially with computers and the Internet. The Digitally Native or Millennial generation

33
is typically defined as individuals born from 1982 onwards. The literature states that
this generation learns differently and has different learning preferences to the
preceding generation due to the pervasiveness of technology and digital media, with
the emergence of the internet and social media as well as wider changes in the social
climate that they have grown up in. They are also socially orientated and are attracted
to activities that foster social interaction through interactive learning, peer to peer
learning and group work (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005).

Digital Native learners are visual learners who retain, on average 30% of what they see
but only 10% of what they read; therefore such students are more comfortable with
image-rich environments than with text. They have an enhanced visual literacy with the
ability to read images and an innate ability to communicate through visual methods,
combining images, text and sound. They are also characterised by their ability to
multitask, quickly shifting their attention from one task to another and are able work on
multiple tasks simultaneously (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005).

All these characteristics have been considered in the making of the materials; that is
why a range of images and multimodal activities are presented. There are also a large
diversity of tasks and many opportunities for group work and peer assessment. Ideally
these teaching activities would be used with a small group of students (less than 20)
but they can be also used with bigger groups if they are split into smaller groups.

5.3 Description of the structure that surrounds the materials

The materials focus on different still and moving images, and activities are created
around them as the starting point or basis for language learning. This helps create a
student-centred learning environment. The key features of tasks for learners have been
summarised by Cameron (2001, p. 31):
● have coherence and unity for learners (from topic, activity and/or
outcome)
● have meaning and purpose for learners
● have clear language learning goals
● have a beginning and end
● involve the learners actively

The structure of the materials has been designed following Cameron’s (2001, p. 21–22)
suggestions. She states that learning opportunities can be deliberately created by
making sure there is an appropriate balance between demands on learners and
support for learning. Teachers can achieve this through setting 5 clear language
34
learning goals; she proposes a task framework in which learning opportunities are
enhanced. The framework has the following three-stage format:

WARM-UP⇒ CORE ACTIVITY ⇒ FOLLOW UP

According to Cameron (2001, p. 32), preparation or warm-up activities help prepare

learners to activate previous knowledge such as key vocabulary that may need to
successfully complete the core activity. The core or main activity is central to the task
and is designed in order to cover the language learning goals. The ‘follow up’ builds on
the successfully completed core activity and might require oral or written work based
on language or topic covered in the previous activity.

The main benefit of this three-stage framework is that when implemented with clear
language goals it creates the appropriate environment for language learning, because
it provides the appropriate balance between demands on learners and support for
learning that students need.

5. 4 Description of the creative process

The creative process carried out in this project is intended to be followed in a flexible,
fluid, and cyclical manner as it can be seen in figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1 : The creative process. Source: own creation (2019)

35
These are the most important parts of the creative process:

Defining the idea

Taking into consideration the power of the image in today’s world visual literacy seems
to be an important skill for students. That is why I come up with the idea of creating
different materials based on still and moving images.

Preparation
Once the idea of the project is clear I research different materials on the topic to take
ideas and inspiration before creating my own activities. Also at this stage I define the
target group, their level and the main objectives and aims that students need to
achieve.

Reflexion
The necessary connections are made in order to ‘lay’ the idea. I start getting ideas
how to make this project possible and gathering interesting images and videos that
have the potential to be used in this project.

Elaboration
I keep gathering materials and I also think of the structure of the activities. I develop
two full activities (one using a still image and the other one using a moving image) as
examples and with the intention to test them before elaborating the rest.

Evaluation
I reflect on the two activities made and evaluate them myself. I ask colleagues for
feedback and I make improvements and get further ideas for future materials.

Further elaboration
At this stage I elaborate the rest of the materials constantly looking for new digital

images, videos and activity ideas and also reading work already made on this topic.

5.5 Description of the typology of materials

The project consists of a bank of diverse activities and practical teaching ideas, all of
which involve an aspect or aspects of a moving or still image. All the images and
videos that I have selected were pre-existing and the sources are various and marked.
Reading activities from different newspapers have been included to support images.

36
All the different activities have been organised the same way and they are
accompanied by the following information.

● Level: This is the minimum proficiency level with which the activity can be
carried out. With a little thought, however, most of the activities can be
adapted for lower or higher levels.
● Time: A rough indication of how long the activity will last is. However, since
good images can give rise to spontaneous, unplanned discussion, it is difficult
to predict exactly how long an activity will take.
● Skills: the main skills (speaking, listening, writing, reading, vocabulary or
grammar) that will be developed.
● Aims: a mention of the language points or skills that the activity addresses.
● Preparation: a description of the materials the teacher will need for the activity
and how to prepare them.
● Warm-up: an idea of an optional quick activity (no more than 5 minutes) to
activate the vocabulary or language skills needed.
● Procedure: the step-by-step guide to the main activity.
● Follow-up: follow-up activities or homework assignments are often suggested.
● Variation: some activities offer ideas on how to modify the task.

The activities have been designed to cover different skills, topics, vocabulary and
grammatical aspects. They can complement other resources or a textbook used by the
teacher and they do not need to follow a particular order since they are independent
activities. Each activity covers at least one of the following skills.

Receptive skills
There are different reason for incorporating images into the listening and reading
activities:
● An image has the ability to stir up curiosity and motivate a learner to read or
listen. For this reason, stories behind images, pieces of art, famous
photographs, newspaper/magazine covers as the basis for reading or listening
activities can be used.
● When a student is given access to an image that complements a listening or
reading activity, his or her comprehension of the text may be reinforced.
● By studying texts which describe images, learners may be equipped with
language that is vital for a wide range of diverse situations.
● An image may be used at later dates to refresh, revisit and revise the language
that was studied in conjunction with it.
37
Productive skills
Images have been used to spark the imagination, awaken memories, uncover issues,
and much more. That is, images can be used to unlock language in learners’ minds
and be used as the basis for diverse writing and speaking activities. They can also
provide reason and motivation to write or encourage speaking and conversation.

Grammar and vocabulary

Images have been used to elicit, teach, drill, and revise the vocabulary, idioms, and
grammar that our learners require and request.

5.6 Description of the general learning objectives of the materials

According to The European Framework for Languages (2001):

A B2 level learner can understand the main ideas of complex text on

both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in
his/her field of specialisation. The student can interact with a degree
of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native
speakers quite possible without strain for either party. The student can
produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a
viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages
of various options. (p. 27)

In order to achieve these skills the following objectives will be covered in the materials.
These objectives are based on the Common European framework of reference for
languages (2001, p. 31).

● Range
To have a sufficient range of language to be able to give clear descriptions,
express viewpoints on most general topics, without much conspicuous
searching for words, using some complex sentence forms to do so.
● Accuracy
To show a relatively high degree of grammatical control. Not to make errors
which cause misunderstanding, and to be able to correct most of his/her
mistakes.
● Fluency

38
 To produce stretches of language with a fairly even tempo; although the student
can be hesitant as he or she searches for patterns and expressions, there are
few noticeably long pauses.
● Interaction
To initiate discourse, take his/her turn when appropriate and end conversation
when the student needs to, though he /she may not always do this elegantly.
To help the discussion along on familiar ground confirming comprehension,
inviting others in, etc.
● Coherence
To use a limited number of cohesive devices to link his/her utterances into clear,
coherent discourse, though there may be some ‘jumpiness’ in a long
contribution.

5.7 Teaching style

When leading the activities presented in this project the role of the teacher is mainly
based on three important factors. The teacher should be a facilitator, who facilitates
classroom communication and establishes situations and contexts likely to promote
communication. The teacher is also a co-communicator, participating in activities with
their students. Finally, the teacher should be an advisor when presenting activities,
answering questions from students, giving feedback and monitoring their performance.

These are some useful tips for teachers that would like to use these materials.

1. Challenge the role of the teacher, learner, and community as creative thinkers,
designers, and innovators.
2. Teach character education, problem solving and critical thinking skills; practice
cooperative learning.
3. Remember that educators are facilitators of the learning process who should
guide students in the learning process.
4. Remember that continuous training to master the tools of multimedia
technology is essential for academic success.
5. Integrate brain-compatible strategies and mind-mapping techniques in your
lessons and teaching strategies.
6. Be an interdisciplinary teacher and utilise differentiated instructional approaches
and different disciplines when teaching the language.
7. Allow your students to influence your teaching techniques and the educational
technologies you employ.
8. During reading instruction, do not isolate phonetics.
39
9. Try to avoid rote memorisation. Exercise conceptual and inductive strategies.
10. Focus on creativity, critical visual thinking, and exercise of the imagination, as
opposed to a focus on facts alone.

40
6. TEACHING MATERIALS

6. 1 Teacher-led activities

This bank of activities present practical ideas to practice different English skills,
such as, reading and listening comprehension; speaking and writing
expression; and vocabulary building. The topics are varied and cross-curricular,
so they provide numerous opportunities to learn not only the language but a
range of different subjects.

They are teacher-led, meaning that it is the teacher who suggests activities for
students. However they are all student-centred and designed to boost students’
autonomy, creativity and critical visual thinking skills.

6. 1. 1 Reading

6. 1. 1 .1 The story behind an image

Level B2
Time 60 minutes
Skills Reading and speaking
Aims To read about and to comment the story behind the image. To practice
participial clauses. Vocabulary building

Preparation
Project (or print) pictures (projectable 1). Make photocopies of Worksheet 1 for each
student (or 1 between 2 if they are working in pairs).

Procedure
0 Warm-up Ask students if they have ever run a marathon or if they know of anyone
that has done so. Ask them to share experiences on the topic or to mention anything
they know about marathons.

1 Show your students the pictures of Kathrine Switzer and ask the questions below.
Note that the students will not know it is the same person in both pictures, so make
sure you do not reveal this information yet. If any students recognise the image and
know her story, ask them if they could keep quiet at this stage.

41
 Who do you think is the woman wearing the 261 number tag?
What is happening?
When and where do you think these pictures were taken?

Projectable 1 - Kathrine Switzer, 1967 and 2017.

Retrieved from:The Guardian

2 Give out copies of Worksheet 1 and ask your students to read the text and find out
who she was and what was happening to her. Encourage them to work out the
meaning of any unknown words using context whenever it is possible. Offer help
whenever it is not.

3 Tell your students that there is a glossary at the bottom of the text and ask them to fill
in the blanks using a synonym or a definition.

4 Allow your learners to compare their answers before giving feedback to the whole
class.

5 Point out the following sentence (line 2) “Having registered under the name KV
Switzer, her gender went unnoticed by officials at the start line” and focus on “having
registered”. Ask students if they can say the same thing using another structure.

42
Explain that participial clauses are very common in written English. Give a few more
examples and make sure students know how to use them.

Follow up 1
a. Watch the 3 minute video about her story. In pairs (or small groups) answer these
questions.
Why was running a marathon questionable back then?
How did she get away with signing up for the marathon?
How did the director of the marathon react?

b. Think of 2 more questions you could ask about the video. Write them down on a
piece of paper and pass them to the group next to you.

Follow up 2
Ask your students to imagine they had to write an article in a newspaper or magazine
about this story. Ask them to come up with a title. Share the titles with the group and
show a few authentic examples of this story published in some important English
speaking newspapers.

Guardian: First woman to officially run Boston Marathon does it again – 50 years later
Washington Post: She was attacked 50 years ago for being a woman in the Boston
Marathon. On Monday, she ran it again at 70.
New York Times: First Woman to Enter Boston Marathon Runs It Again, 50 Years Later

Follow up 3
For homework (or in class if you have access to Ipads), ask your students to find out
more about Kathrine Switzer. Alternatively, ask students to find information about other
women that fought for gender equality. They could share this information during the
next lesson.

43
Worksheet 1
Kathrine Switzer, first woman to officially run a marathon
Kathrine Switzer became a hero of the women’s rights movement in 1967 after she
officially completed the then all-male race. Having registered under the name KV
Switzer, her gender went unnoticed by officials at the start line, but a few miles in
she was attacked by an angry official who tried to pull her off the course – creating
an enduring image of women’s rights history.

With the help of a bodyblock from her boyfriend, Switzer evaded the official and
finished the race in four hours 20 minutes. [...] Switzer recalled the moment she was
attacked. “A big man, a huge man, with bared teeth was set to pounce, and before I
could react he grabbed my shoulder and flung me back, screaming: ‘Get the hell out
of my race and give me those numbers!’.

“I knew if I dropped out no one would believe women could run distances and
deserved to be in the Boston Marathon. They would just think that I was a clown,
and that women were barging into events where they had no ability.”

On Monday, aged 70, she ran it again, finishing just under 25 minutes slower in
4:44:31.
In a sign of how times have changed, Switzer was cheered by crowds, and fired the
starting gun for the women elite runners’ race.

Switzer told CNN that running in the two races 50 years apart was “like night and
day”. On having heard her name called out by supporters, she said: “I’ve got to tell
you it was one of the most gratifying emotional experiences I’ve ever had [...] it was
a wonderful moment.” She wore her original number – 261.

Source: Topping, A. (18.05.17). “First woman to officially run the Boston Marathon
does it again – 50 years later”. Retrieved from: the Guardian

Glossary

pull sb off the course ____________________________________

enduring ____________________________________
to evade ____________________________________
to grab ____________________________________
to drop out ____________________________________
to cheer ____________________________________
“like night and day” (expression) ____________________________________
gratifying ____________________________________

44
 6. 1. 1 .2 Images that have changed History

Level B2
Time This activity should be proceed over two stages: preparation for the oral
presentation (45 min) and then time for the oral presentations (5/10 min per student)
Skills Reading and speaking
Aims To research the facts, events, people and issues behind a historic image. To
present this to the rest of the class.

Preparation
Select some images that have changed the course of history. You can use the one
below (projectable 2) and the ones in projectable 3.

Projectable 2 - Giroux, R. (2011) September 11, 2001. Source: Business Insider

Procedure

0 Warm-up
Divide students in small groups and ask them to make a list of ten images that, in their
opinions, show moments in which there has been a change in the course of history.
Make sure you tell them they need to come to an agreement of which ten to choose. It
will be quite easy to agree on the first five or so, but surely there will be some that will
cause disagreement. Go around listening to their interactions. Show projectable 4
(‘how to interact and follow a conversation’).

45
1 Show students four pictures that have changed history and find out how much they
know about each one. You can show the one above and the ones found in projectable
3 or you can select your own.

2 Tell students that you would like each of them to choose a different picture (they can
use one of the ones shown, but ideally they will find one that interests them). Explain
that they will be using Ipads to find a powerful image and create a text around it to later
give short presentations to the rest of the class. Guide students on what to include in
their presentations.

Example: What is happening?

Where and when did it happen?
Who was involved (people, organisations, countries, etc.)?
How and why did it happen?
Backgrounds events?
Outcomes?
Issues raised?
Opinion on the matter?

3 Share ideas on sources on the Internet that will be helpful to carry out the activity
(online encyclopedias, magazines, etc.).

4 Encourage students to look at the texts they are reading critically – some will be
more informative and others will have more of a political content and there will be
factual discrepancies between them.

5 Ask students to take notes while reading the text, identifying the main points and
planning their talks. Clarify that you do not want students to read directly from their
texts, rather you would like them to have a go at having a more natural presentation.
They can make use of cue cards if they would like.

6 Allow time for students to work on their texts and prepare a slide show presentation
that includes the picture/s that have been selected. Alternatively they can print out the
pictures.

7 Organise presentations that last 5-10 minutes including participant interaction (ask
everyone to think of a question that can be asked at the end).

46
Variation 1
Instead of historic photographs, ask students to research about a famous piece of art.
Alternatively, use well-known self-portraits of artists to explore the person behind them.

Variation 2
Rather than using the image to give talks on the stories behind images, ask your
students to create a visually stimulating informative collage or poster for the classroom
wall.

Projectable 3- Further images (images that have changed History)

Fall of Berlin Wall, 1989. Retrieved from: History.com

First Man on The Moon, 1969. Retrieved from: CNN

47
Women’s Suffrage, 1918. Retrieved from: The Guardian

Projectable 4 - how to interact and follow a conversation: own creation (2020)

HOW TO
interact and follow a conversation

Recognise phrases that give speakers

time to think: well, you know, kind of, um,
etc.

Notice turn taking:

- Inviting someone to speak with
questions and statements you
want them to confirm: so you...,
and then you..., do you mean
that ...?, are you saying/
implying...?
- Interrupting: can I just say ...?,
can I add...?
- Returning to the topic: I was
going to say..., going back to
what we were talking about, etc.

Listen and understand why the

speaker’s saying something:
- Anyway changes the subject.
- Basically introduces a summary.
- Having said that introduces an
explanation or conclusion.
- I mean introduces a reason or
explanation.

48
 6. 1. 2 Listening

6. 1. 2 . 1 Who Am I?

Level B2
Time 60 minutes
Skills Listening comprehension and vocabulary building
Aims To listen, understand and interpret a video. To practice vocabulary related to
the arts.

Preparation
Project (or print) pictures. Have the video and post it notes ready.

Procedure

0 Warm up Project/show a painting by Salvador Dalí (projectable 5). Do not reveal the
name of the artist yet. Ask students the following questions:
What elements can you see in the foreground/ background, etc.?
What part stands out and why?
Who do you think is the author of this painting?

Projectable 5: Dalí, S. Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire, 1940.
Retrieved from: Dalí paintings

1 Explain to your students that they are about to watch a ten minute clip from the
famous American 1950s game show “What’s my line”. The guest of the show is going

49
to be Salvador Dalí. As a warm-up project some of the important vocabulary related to
the arts that will be shown in the video. Encourage students to take turns in pairs or
small groups to explain those words (Projectable 6) in their own words.

2 Ask students to say all they know about Salvador Dalí. Explain that apart from being
a great painter he also did many other things, such as: publish books, make films,
theatre, sculptures etc. (this information will be key to understanding the video).

3 Project 2 questions before the viewing to be answered after watching the clip (check
below). Show the clip3 for the first time (start in 0:18).

Explain the rules of the game. What is the aim of the game?
Why is there so much laughter?

4 Show the clip again and ask students to write down some of the questions that have
been asked to Dalí. Comment them and talk about why the audience finds the
answers so humorous. Check worksheet 2 to see the full question list.

5 Play “Who Am I?” game (have post-it notes ready). Explain to students that they are
going to play the same game they have seen in the video. Many of the students, if not
all, will know the rules of the game since they have probably played before. However a
reminder of the rules would be convenient. (Worksheet 3)

Follow-up 1
The definition of the word “art” may have come on trial during this activity. Ask your
students to write down their own definition for the word “art” and then compare them.
Be open to a debate.

Follow-up 2
The previous activity may have led to an interesting debate about art. The debate can
be extended by commenting on interesting thought-provoking art quotations that can
be found in books or online.
Examples:
! ‘Painting is another way of keeping a diary.’ (Pablo Picasso)
! ‘It’s clever, but is it art?’ (William Hazlitt)

3Salvador Dali on "What's My Line?". Retrieved October 2019, from https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXT2E9Ccc8A
50
 ! ‘The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.
(Michelangelo)

Obtain a few of these, dictate them to your students, and ask them to consider if any of
them can be applied to the work that has been previously shown or to the work on
display in the classroom.

Follow up 3
As homework, ask your students to research about Salvador Dalí and to write a short
essay with the following title: ‘Salvador Dalí: Genius or madman?’

Variation
Instead of asking your students to write an essay, ask them to gather information to get
ready for a debate that will take place on the next lesson called ‘Salvador Dalí: Genius
or madman?’

Projectable 6: own creation. Painting by S. Dalí, Meditative Rose, 1958. Retrieved

from: Dali.com

51
Worksheet 2 : List of questions

1. Are you associated with any of the arts?

2. Would you ever been seen on television?
3. Are you a performer?
4. Would you be considered a leading man?
5. Have you achieved eminence in some r field other than tv?
6. Do you think that we would recognise you by sight?
7. Are you accustomed to appear in front of audiences?
8. When you appear in front of audiences do you wear less than you
wear now?
9. Do you have anything to do with sports?
10. Do you appear continuously on TV?
11. Do you use anything in your hand for your job like a pencil or
typewriter?
12. Would you be considered a writer?
13. Are you well known because of a book that has been published of
yours?
14. Have you had something published?
15. Do you write humorously?
16. Do you do any drawings like comic strips?
17. Have you ever written a book that has been published by my firm?
18. Do you have a mustache that is rather well known?

52
Worksheet 3: Instructions of “Who Am I?” game

Who Am I? is a simple icebreaker.

! Materials required: post-it notes or small sheets of paper and

pens.
! Number of players recommended: 4-16.
! Time required: 15 minutes (or more)

How Do You Play Who Am I?

Setup

Ask everyone to form a circle. Hand a post-it note and a pen to each player.
Tell each player to write a famous person on the post-it note (make sure
nobody sees what each person is writing).

Playing the “Who Am I?” Game

Have each player stick a post-it note on a nearby person, with the name of
the person showing. Go around the room and have a player ask the “yes/
no” question to the group. The goal is for each player to successfully guess
the person written on their forehead. If the player does not guess correctly,
the next person gets to ask a question. Continue play until everyone
successfully guesses their name, or until time given runs out.

“How am I?” game - Picture of a scene from The Office.

Retrieved from: Collectively

53
 6. 1. 2 . 2 True Story?

Level B2
Time 60 minutes
Skills Listening and speaking
Aims To listen to two stories behind two images and assess which text is real and
which one false.

Preparation
Have images, video and texts ready.

Procedure

0 Warm-up In pairs ask students to define in their own words some of the key
vocabulary they will need to know for the main task. Once they are done, correct it in
class and give necessary explanations.

plague ______________________________________________
predecessor ______________________________________________
‘second-rate’ ______________________________________________
to tally ______________________________________________
prominent ______________________________________________

1 Show your students the two images below (projectable 7). Allow students to view
them in silence (it is important they stay quiet at this point). Explain to them that you
are going to tell them two stories (one for each picture) and they will have to guess
which one is true and which one false.

2 Tell students that you are about to read the two stories behind the images. Note that
they will probably hear some words that are unfamiliar but they should do their best not
to let these impair the overall comprehension.

54
Projectable 7 - own creation (2019) based on the following images: Da Vinci, 1501.
Retrieved from: history links. The Plague Doctor, 1656. Retrieved from: wikipedia

3 Read out the text to your students. Speak clearly and at a relaxed pace.

Story A - da Vinci’s lie detector

Though Leonardo da Vinci may be most famous for his works as an artist, he actually
spent quite a bit more time working on his endeavours in science and technology. Of
course, his detailed sketches and distinct artistry played a large role in his inventions,
and his sketchbooks later provided evidence that da Vinci had envisioned many
ideas long before the technology to build them actually existed.

Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most prolific inventors in history. He dreamed up

inventions and innovations across a variety of fields. One of these inventions was
the polygraph machine, also known as the lie detector. He was 28 in 1480 when he
came up with the idea and worked on it for 3 years. Even though it got tested on
more than a 100 people and he claimed that it was functional people did not believe
him and the detector did not have success.

However, it is now believed that da Vinci’s sketches from the late fifteenth century
were the predecessor to the modern day lie detector.

55
 Story B – The Plague Doctor

The Black Death was the deadliest epidemic of bubonic plague in history. It wiped out
some 25 million Europeans alone in just a few years. Out of desperation, cities hired
a new breed of physician, so-called plague doctors, who were either second-rate
physicians, young physicians with limited experience, or who had no certified medical
training at all.

What was important was the plague doctor was willing to venture into plague-stricken
areas and tally the number of dead. After more than 250 years fighting the plague,
hope did finally arrive with the invention of the 17th-century special plague doctor
suit.

The suit consisted of a waxed leather coat, leggings, boots, and gloves. The suit was
then coated in suet, hard white animal fat, to repel bodily fluids. The plague doctor
also wore a prominent black hat to indicate that they were, in fact, a doctor. A long
wooden stick was used to communicate with his patients, examine them, and
occasionally ward off the more desperate and aggressive ones.

4 In pairs ask your students to relay back to each other all the facts that they
understood from your reading. Share ideas and write these on the board. Also, make
a list of any new or problematic vocabulary/collocations/structures that they have
identified.

5 Ask students to individually vote for the story they believe is true. Reveal the true
story (the plague doctor) and clarify that da Vinci’s story was partly true; he did work on
many different inventions, but the lie detector was not one of them (more information
can be found here 4). Provide more information on the story of the plague doctor by
watching this animated 3 minute clip5.

6 Play the video again and ask students to answer the following questions:

What was thought to be the cause of the plague in the 17th

century?
What were the symptoms of this deathly illness?
What did the Plague Doctor wear?

Capture of youtube clip

7 If additional questions arise, encourage students to investigate these themselves as

a homework task.

4Da Vinci Inventions. Leonardo da Vinci: an Inventor Ahead of His Time. Retrieved from:
http://www.da-vinci-inventions.com/
5Simple History, The Plague Doctor. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=6t5QL3ksAPA

56
Follow up 1
Ask students to create a similar activity as the one we have just completed. Students
will have to select two interesting images and create a story behind each image. One
text will be real so it can be adapted from an already existing text, however they will
have to be very creative to invent the made-up story. Discuss what kind of features a
story may have to sound real (dates, names, historical references, details etc.) and
encourage students to include these in their writing.

Note:
If students have Internet access during class time, allow them to find the images and
write their text (use this time to guide them through the writing process). If not, they will
have to do this at home.

Follow up 2
Allow students present their two stories to the rest of the class. Students will have to
listen carefully to decide which story is true. Use this time to give formal feedback on
their presentation. See printable 1.

Feedback template: own creation (2019)

57
 6.1.2.3 Mistakes

Level B2
Time 60 minutes
Skills Listening and writing
Aims To listen to the story behind a picture and then reconstruct the text from
memory (dictogloss)

Preparation
Select a picture that represents a well-known invention that was developed simply from
a mistake made by a scientist on alternative quests. Then prepare a short text that
summarises the facts that relate to it. You can use the image in projectable 8 :

Projectable 8 - Sir Alexander Fleming at his laboratory, 1940. Retrieved from: Past
medical history website

Procedure

0 Warm-up
Ask students to work in pairs. Find out what they know about these people
(projectable 9)
58
 "A person who “Freedom is not “Mistakes are “I’ve been imitated
never made a worth having if it always forgivable, if so well I have
mistake, never tried does not include one has the heard people copy
anything new." the freedom to courage to admit my mistakes.”
― Albert Einstein make mistakes.” them.” ― Jimi Hendrix
― Mahatma ― Bruce Lee
Gandhi

Projectable 9: Albert Einstein, circa 1939. Retrieved from Space; Gandhi, circa 1930.
Retrieved from Wikipedia; Bruce Lee, circa 1965. Retrieved from Hollywood Reporter ;
Jimi Hendrix, 1967. Retrieved from the LA Times

1 Read the quotes together and discuss what they say about mistakes. Compare
ideas amongst students.

2 In groups, ask students to discuss these questions. Encourage students to use the
phrases from projectable 10.
Why are we often afraid of making mistakes?
Why does a fear of making mistakes stop us from learning new things?
How could losing our fear of mistakes help us at school?

3 Explain to students that many important and well-known inventions were developed
simply from a mistake made by scientists on alternative quests. Tell them that the
picture that you are about to show them represents one of these inventions. Find out if
they know anything about it. Can they guess...
when and where was it taken?
who the man is?
what he is doing?
what did he invent?

4 Tell them that you are going to read them a short text about the image. Emphasise
on the fact that they will probably hear some words that they don’t recognise but that
they should do their best not to let these impair the overall comprehension.

59
Note:

The task that is being presented is based on a dictogloss, which is a classroom

dictation activity where students are required to reconstruct a short text by listening and
noting down key words, which are then used as a base for reconstruction. This activity
is often regarded as a multiple skills and systems activity. Learners practise listening,
writing and speaking (by working in groups) and use vocabulary, grammar and
discourse systems in order to complete the task.

5 Read out the text to your students. Speak clearly and at a relaxed pace. Ask
students to listen carefully for the overall message.

Fleming’s discovery
In 1928 a bacteriologist named Alexander Fleming was working in the inoculation
department of St. Mary’s Hospital in London when he accidentally discovered what is
now known as penicillin. He had been on a summer holiday in Scotland and when he
came back to his messy lab he found that a green mould had contaminated a culture
plate and was killing some of the bacteria he had been growing.

It took Fleming a few more weeks to grow enough Penicillium mould so that he could
confirm his findings. His conclusions turned out to be phenomenal: there was some
factor in the mold that not only stopped the growth of the bacteria but, more
important, might be used to combat infectious diseases.

Published reports credit Fleming as saying: “One sometimes finds what one is not
looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t
plan to revolutionise all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria
killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.”

Text adapted from The Story of Penicillin, (Dec 15, 2017). Retrieved from: Past
medical history website

6 Ask your students to relay back to you all the facts that they understood from the
reading and write their main ideas on the board. Also, make a list of any new or difficult
vocabulary (e.g. inoculation, culture plate, mould, infectious etc.).

7 Read the text two more times. Ask students to take notes to add more facts and
language to the existing ideas on the board. After the three readings, the board might
look something like this:

60
Example: 1928 St Mary’s hospital
Alexander Fleming
accidentally discovered
had been on a holiday
found mould
killing bacteria
his conclusions
stop the growth of bacteria
combat disease
published report
Sep 28, 1928
revolutionise medicine
world’s first antibiotic

8 Put students into pairs or small groups and ask them to work together to reconstruct
the text as accurately as they remember it. Tell them to compare their notes and to
incorporate all the facts and language items that they have written. Hand out some
large papers for students to write their texts.

9 Stick students' texts on the walls. Ask them to go round the classroom reading the
different versions. Then show the original version and allow them to compare it with
their texts. Vote for the text that is closest to the original one.

Follow up 1
Show the original text again. Ask students to write down 10 pieces of information
(words, short phrases or idioms) they want to remember to be able to retell the story
from memory. Ask students to work in pairs; student A will recite the story to student B
using the structures he/she has chosen and adding the rest of the language. Then
swap the roles.

Follow up 2
Ask students if they know of other “accidental” discoveries. Share ideas (for example,
the pacemaker, microwave oven, fireworks or ink-jet printers) and add a few more. Ask
students to find some images about an “accidental” discovery of their choice and to
write a text about it.

61
Projectable 10: own creation (2020)

PRASEBOOK
Ask for an opinion
What do you think/make of
it?
What do you reckon?
What is your opinion on...?

Give an opinion
If you ask me, ...
As far as I am
concerned...
To be quite honest, ...
If you want my opinion, ...
The way I see it, ...

Express strong
agreement or
disagreement
I completely/totally agree/
disagree

Disagree but recognise

the other’s opinion
Do you really think so?
I see what you mean,
but...
I’m not sure I agree.
I think that’s true up to a
point, but...

62
 6. 1. 3 Speaking

6. 1. 3.1 Let’s Protest!

Level B2
Time 45 minutes
Skills Speaking
Aims To participate in a debate. To learn how to support your own views and react
to others.

Preparation
Obtain a selection of images of current protests that have been somehow
controversial. You can use the ones below (projectable 11).

0 Warm up
Ask students what they think of protests, if there are any happening at the moment in
their home countries or where they are living, and if they have ever participated in one.

1 Lay out the pictures on a table or project them so that students can see them
(projectable 11). Ask them if they have seen these pictures and if they can infer what
these people are protesting for.

Projectable 11 - protests

Protesters dressed in their underwear, 2018.

Front cover of Time Magazine, October
Retrieved from: Daily Mail
2016. Retrieved from: Time magazine
63
Peta wants you to go naked to protect animals, 2018. Retrieved from: Peta

3 Show three short texts about each protest and ask them to match the text with the
picture. Focus on words they may not be familiar with (e.g. condemn, on the eve,
stripped down)

Text 1
Nearly naked models protested for PETA outside Somerset House on the eve of
London Fashion Week to condemn the fashion industry’s use of fur.

Text 2
Kaepernick has refused to stand for the anthem (instead he decided to kneel) all
season in protest of police brutality and racial oppression in the United States.

Text 3
Protesters stripped down in front of Victoria Secret’s to promote diverse and realistic
body images.

4 Ask students about their first impressions on the matter. Would they support these
protests or similar ones?

5 Divide the class into two groups. One group will be in favour of this type of
“controversial” protests and the other one will be against them. Show projectable 12
that contains vocabulary they can use in a debate. Encourage them to use these
structures.
64
6 Give them time to prepare themselves for the debate, either during lesson time or at
home. Then create a debate on the topic. The teacher will be the moderator and will
raise questions such as:

Are these types of protests necessary?

Is there any good way of protesting?
What should and should not be allowed?

Follow-up 1
Ask your students to explain some other controversial protests they have taken place
in their countries. Encourage them to bring photographic evidence. Ask them about the
reason for the protests, issues concerned, reactions from the press, etc.

Follow-up 2
Ask students to find some good slogans that have been used in some protests.
Comment them, explain why they are powerful and try to make up some new slogans
for different causes or situations.

Follow-up 3
Encourage students to find further information about the three pictures shown in class

65
Projectable 12 - useful structures for a debate

Useful Debate Vocabulary

Stating an opinion
• In my opinion...
• I (don’t) think that…
•The way I see it...
• If you want my honest opinion...
• According to the other side/ our opponents…
• As far as I'm concerned...
• My position/view is the following…

Sequencing
• Firstly…, secondly…, my/our third point is that…
• The first good reason to… is that… ; next ; what’s more ; moreover….
• To begin, I think that… ; in addition, you have to know/consider that… ; last but not
least…
• The first point I would like to raise is …
• Here/ This is the main point I want to raise/discuss…
• I’d like to talk about two points here. The first one is… The second one is...

Listening to the others’ point of view and reacting to it

• I see your point, but I think…
• Yes, I understand, but my opinion is that…
• That’s all very interesting, but the problem is that…
• I’m afraid I can’t quite agree with your point...
• I think I’ve understood your point, now let me respond to it.
• I can see/understand what you’re saying. This is what I think about it…
• Let me just respond to what you are saying/ that, please.

Disagreeing
• I don’t fully agree with your idea because...
• Excuse me, but that’s not quite correct.
• Sorry, I just have to disagree with your point/idea/that.
• You said that… but you have not replied to our point.
• I’d like to focus on two points that the other side has failed to address.
• There are two issues our opponents have failed to dispute, for example…
• Our opponents have claimed that… but ...
• To recap the main points we don’t agree with ...
• Let’s sum up where we stand in this debate.
• In summary, we want to point out that ...

66
 6.1.3.2 Where in the world am I?

Level B2
Time 30-45 minutes, depending on the number of images shown
Skills Speaking
Aims To look at google Street View images from all over the world and decide the
location of such images. To use images as a springboard for discussion and
vocabulary building.

Preparation
Print out worksheet 3. Have the game geoguessr (check the ‘note section’ to find out
about the game) and a timer ready on the computer.

Caption of Geoguessr website. Retrieved from: Geoguessr

Procedure

0 Warm-up In pairs or small groups fill in worksheet 4. Ask students to write down the
name of a country starting with each letter of the alphabet. Give 2:30 minutes to
complete the activity (use a timer). The group with the most names written correctly
wins.

E.g. A - Albania
B - Bolivia
C- Colombia
D - ...
Note:

GeoGuessr is a web-based geographic discovery game. The game uses a randomised

Google Street View location and requires players to guess their location in the world
using only the clues visible.
67
How to play
The Street View window of GeoGuessr does not provide any information beyond the
street view images and a compass. Players will have to look for clues, such as road
signs, vegetation, businesses, climate, and landmarks to determine their location. In
order to look for more clues the player may also move along the roads through the
normal directional controls provided by Street View. Once the player is ready to guess
the location, he/she will place a location marker on a zoomable Google Map. After the
placed marker is submitted as a guess, GeoGuessr reveals the true geographic
location and assigns the player a score depending on how far away the player's guess
was from the true location. The player with the higher score wins.

1 Explain to students that we are going to play a game called GeoGuessr (explain
what it is). Ask what kind of things we may see in the google street view that will help
us locate where the image was taken. Brainstorm ideas and make a list of the board.

Example: vegetation, landmarks, climate, road signs, route number signs and
road markers, language, type of businesses, terrain, landscape, left vs right driving etc.

2 Model how to play the game. Ask for two volunteers.

3 Put students into pairs and give a laptop or a tablet to the groups of four students.
Explain they are going to play in pairs and will compete against another pair. Start
playing the game – remember that the aim of the game is to guess where in the world
was the image taken, therefore each pair of students will have to negotiate to come up
with an answer.

4 During this discussion step, you could draw attention to the following structures by
writing them on the board. Encourage students to use them.

It looks like...
I reckon...
It could be...
It can’t be...
I am positive…
Perhaps it is ...

5 Finally, pick in the map where the image was taken. GueGuessr will reveal the true
location and will give the pair a score based on how far away they guess was from the
68
true location. Take it in turns to keep playing. Remind them that you want to hear them
negotiating the answers in English.

Follow up 1
Ask each student to choose a country or city and use it as a basis for a project, poster,
or presentation. Encourage them to use interesting images to support their work.

Worksheet 4 - Alphabet: own creation (2019).

Write down countries starting with ...

69
 6. 1. 4 Writing

6. 1. 4 .1 The Reporter

Level B2
Time 60 minutes
Skills Writing
Aims To guess details of a story behind a photo. To write a news report.

Preparation
Find a photograph of a newsworthy event. This activity uses a photo of parachute
pioneer Franz Reichelt just before his fatal jump from the Eiffel Tower (1912).

Projectable 13- Parachute pioneer Franz Reichelt just before his fatal jump from the
Eiffel Tower (1912). Retrieved from: Reddit

70
Procedure

0 Warm-up Show your students the photograph and use it to teach vocabulary or
language structures that are central to it.
Example: man standing on a stool/chair
the edge of a building
an onlooker
...

1 Ask students to discuss in the groups what they think it is happening in this scene.
You could guide them by asking the following questions.
When and where do you think this photo was taken? What makes you believe
that?
What do you think the man is doing?
What is he wearing? Why?
What is about to happen?
How did it end?
Who is the other man? What is he doing?

Write the key vocabulary on the board.

2 Show the video6 of what happened after this picture was taken. Give a bit more
information on who this man was.

Note:

Franz Reichelt (1879 – 4 February 1912), was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor
and parachuting pioneer. He designed a suit for aviators that would convert into a
parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft.
After conducting successful experiments with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of
his apartment building he decided to jump personally from the Eiffel Tower to prove his
invention’s efficiency. The parachute failed to deploy and he fell 57 metres to his death.
The next day, newspapers were full of illustrated stories about the death of the
"reckless inventor", and the jump was shown in newsreels.

Text adapted from Wikipedia.

3 Give your students the following task (read it to them or project it on the board).

6Franz Reichelt’s Death Jump off the Eiffel Tower (1912). Retrieved from: British Pathé
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBN3xfGrx_U

71
 Imagine you are one of the news reporters who were sent to cover this story. Write a
news report explaining what happened.

Before they start the activity make sure they know the differences between headline,
leading sentence and article content are clear. Here is a short guideline to the main
differences:

! Headline: Simple tenses, idiomatic, flashy vocabulary, no use of function words

! Leading sentence: Present perfect tense often used to give a general overview.
! Article content: Proper tense usage, including a change from present perfect to
past tenses to give detailed, specific information about what, where and when
something happened.

4 Encourage students to plan their reports using any key words or language that were
written on the board during steps 0 and 1. Also ask them to consider what tenses and
structures they are most likely to use in a news report (past simple, past continuous,
there was/were, passive voice etc.). Project some report writing tips on the board
(projectable 14)

5 Ask students to draft their texts. Go round the class offering support and guidance.
Encourage the use of dictionaries.

6 Once students have finished their reports ask them to exchange their work with a
classmate. Explain they are going to be editing each other’s work. Hand out ‘Editor’s
Checklist (worksheet 5) and ask students to use this to check each other’s work and
write any comments or suggestions for improvement. Monitor and help here.

7 Give the checked report back to the original writer to make any corrections or
changes and to produce a final draft.

Tip:
When possible ask students to write their texts on a computer. The process of drafting,
adding comments and redrafting works best when done on a computer as it is much
easier for students to make changes to their text without having to rewrite the whole
thing.

Follow up 1
Put the reports up on the walls around the class and get the students to walk around
the class looking at them. Ask them to choose the one they think is best.

72
Follow up 2
Collect some short authentic news articles from either this event (check projectable 14)
or find different ones on the internet or newspapers and tell the students to compare
them with their own. They should look for – the way the information is organised (how
many paragraphs, what is the focus of each paragraph, what is the general structure?
etc.), the verb forms or structures used (present perfect, present simple, active or
passive?), ways in which the writer has made the writing more exciting (use of
adjectives, adverts, variety of vocabulary)

Projectablable 14 - Tips for news report writing

Remember to cover the 5 Ws:

▪ What's happening?

▪ Who is involved?

▪ Where is this happening?

▪ When is it happening?

▪ Why is it happening?

And be:

▪ Clear - use simple language

▪ Concise - keep sentences short

▪ Correct - check your facts, grammar and punctuation

Make use of:

▪ Quotes

▪ Rich vocabulary

▪ Different verb tenses

73
 Worksheet 5: Editor’s checklist
● Is the information divided into logical paragraphs?
● Do paragraphs follow a logical order?
● Is there any unnecessary information?
● Is any necessary information missing?
● Are there any parts that aren’t clear or that you can't understand?
● Are the same words repeated?
● Can more precise words be used?
● Is there too much repetition of linkers like and, but, then etc?
● Do all the verbs agree with their subjects?
● Have articles (the, a, an) been used correctly?
● Have the correct verb forms been used?
● Is the punctuation correct?
● Is the spelling correct?

Projectable 14: Original news report, Successful and fatal Parachute Drops (April
2012). Retrieved from: Old Magazine Articles

74
75
 6. 1. 4 .2 Cooperative story building

Level B2
Time 40 minutes
Skills Writing
Aims To write a story collaboratively

Preparation
Find a picture that could lead to an interesting story. You can use the one below.

Projectable 15: Norman Parkinson (1950) New York, New York. Retrieved from: Lucas
Museum

Procedure

0 Warm-up Show the students the picture and brainstorm ideas behind this image.
You can guide them by asking these questions that will engage them with the
characters in it.

Example: Where and when do you think the picture was taken?
At what time do you think it was taken?
76
 How long do you think the couple has known each other?
How did they meet?
Why is the man carrying a briefcase?
What happened before this picture was taken? And after?

1 Arrange students into groups of four and ask each group to sit in a circle. Tell them
they are going to make up a story about the couple in the picture.

2 Ask students to come up collaboratively with the beginning of the story. Once they
know how their story is going to begin, members should take turns to add to it. You
can tell students to proceed turns clockwise from the first storyteller and to write 5-8
lines each.

3 Once the group has finished writing the story, ask all members to go through the
story again and to rewrite it making as many changes or improvements to their stories
as they like.

4 Ask your students to choose a storyteller from their group. Invite a storyteller from
each group to share their story with the rest of the class.

Variation 1
Hand out different pictures to each group of students so that they can each write a
different story.

Variation 2
Tell students to imagine that the photo shown comes from a film scene. Ask them to
write a script taking into account this picture. Students will have to write what
happened before, during and after this picture was taken.

77
 6. 1. 5 Vocabulary building

6. 1. 5.1 What Children Around the World Eat – In pictures

Level B2
Time 30 minutes
Skills Vocabulary building
Aims To build up vocabulary on the topic of “food”.

Preparation
Print pictures by the photographer Gregg Segal who travelled the world to document
children and the food they eat in a week. Have projectable 16,17,18 and this website
ready.

Procedure

Projectable 16- Segal, G. What children around the world eat – in pictures (July 2019).
Retrieved from the guardian

0 Warm-up Tell students that they are about to view some pictures taken by the
photographer Gregg Segal. Read out the following text.

78
 Photographer Gregg Segal travelled the world to document children and the food
they eat in a week. Partly inspired by the increasing problems of childhood obesity,
he tracked traditional regional diets as yet unaffected by globalisation, and ironically,
found that the healthiest diets were often eaten by the least well off.

Text: Gilbert, S. What children around the world eat – in pictures (July 2019).
Retrieved from the guardian

Ask students if they could guess what food they think children eat in the following
countries. Brainstorm ideas and write them on the board.

France
Brazil
Dubai

Note:
Note that B2 students will already know a lot of vocabulary related to food. However
they will not know many words for food from different countries. One of the aims of this
activity is to expand vocabulary and also work on intercultural understanding.

1 Ask your students if they believe that some people can really have photographic
memories. Ask them if they know anyone who claims to have it.

2 Explain that we are going to do an experiment to find out who has the best
photographic memory in the class. Tell them that they are going to have two minutes to
look at a picture from an article from the Guardian called ‘What Children Around the
World Eat – In pictures’ and after that they will have four minutes to write down
anything they remember from the picture.

3 Put the selected pictures six from the article on the wall (check projectable 17) .
Allocate a picture to each student (or group of students). Put the timer on and let
students view the pictures for two minutes.

4 Ask students to write down as many words as possible in four minutes. Allow
access to bilingual dictionaries if necessary.

5 Ask everyone to read out their words and decide who has the most photographic
memory in the class. Finally, make a list of all the new words.

79
Follow up 1
Divide students in two groups. Give students 10 minutes to gather some pictures of
what children eat in their home countries. Then ask them to tell the rest of the group
what children eat in their countries with the support of images. If there is no internet
connection in class, ask students to bring the images from home.

Follow up 2
Ask students if they know any particular food that is trendy at the moment. Then share
the image of a London map (projectable 17) that tells us what trendy foods are out
there, and precisely where to find them. Discuss what these could be ( e.g. What is
the pink beetroot latte? What is it made of? Is it sweet or savoury? What does it taste
of?).
Show more images of these foods and explain what they are (information at pictures
here).

Projectable 17: Segal, G. What children around the world eat – in pictures (July 2019).
Retrieved from the guardian

Brazil Malaysia

80
Germany USA

Projectable 18: Trendy London Food. Retrieved from: Secret London

81
 6. 1. 5. 2 The Bucket List

Level B2
Time 60 minutes
Skills Vocabulary building, speaking and grammar (‘have you ever...’ questions and
pronunciation of past participles)
Aims To talk about goals and build up vocabulary around the topic.

Preparation
Have the image, video, projectable and timer ready.

Film poster: The Bucket List, 2007.

Retrieved from : Warner
Procedure

0 Warm-up
Show the poster of the film ‘The Bucket List’ and start
the lesson by writing the expression ‘to kick the bucket’
on the board. Ask students if they understand the
meaning of the title of the film and the expression.
Clarify the meaning of ‘to kick the bucket’ (= to die)
and ‘bucket list’ (=a list of things that one would like to
do before you die). Find out if anyone has seen the
film.

1 Project or write the following verbs on the board.

Organise students in pairs and ask them to complete
the sentences for an imaginary bucket list in a
humorous manner if possible. Give a few examples so that it is clear what needs to be
done. While completing the lists go around giving feedback and making the necessary
corrections.
Appear …
Be …
Catch …
Do …
Donate …
Dye …
Gatecrash … *
Get …
Go …
Invent …

82
 Milk …
Participate …
Photocopy …
Plant …
Visit …

*Explain the meaning of ‘gatecrash’ (give an example: if you gatecrash a social

event, it means that you go without an invitation).

2 Compare the lists and vote for the most humorous one.

3 Show the following list which has been adapted from the book 101 Things to Do
Before you Die (2004) by Richard Horne.

Projectable 19- own creation (2020)

If necessary explain the

meaning of:
-Doing a runner in a
restaurant (=leaving without
paying)
-Going skinny dipping in a
swimming pool (=bathing
naked)
-Being an extra in a film (=
having a small part, often with
no lines)

4 Tell students they are going to have 2 minutes to memorise as many verbal phrases
as they can. Once the two minutes are up students in pairs or small groups will
replicate the list but instead of writing the list as it has been shown, they will convert the
phrases into “have you ever...?” questions. Take this opportunity to ask each other
these questions and create conversation.

5 Ask students if they can spot a pattern for the pronunciation of the regular
participles. Check projectable 20 for more information.

83
6 Play the trailer7 for the film ‘The Bucket List’. Ask students if they can infer what is in
the list of the main characters. Write down these ideas and discuss them. Finish the
activity by asking the following or similar questions:

! What would your bucket list look like?

! What would you do if you had unlimited time, money and resources?
! What have you always wanted to do but have not done yet?
! Any countries, places or locations you want to visit?
! What are your biggest goals and dreams?
! What do you want to see in person?
! What achievements do you want to have?
! What experiences do you want to have/feel?
! Any special moments you want to witness?

Follow up 1
Play ‘the lying game’. Write five sentences about yourself on the board using the ‘I
have + participle’ structure.

E.g.: I have visited all the continents.

I have written a book.
I have got arrested.
I have done a runner in a restaurant.
I have caught a fish with my bare hands.

Three of them will be true and two false; students will have to guess which ones are
false. Then ask students to write their own five sentences and allow them to read them
one by one in front of the class for the group to guess which two are false.

Follow up 2
Ask students to collaboratively write a list of things they would like to achieve this year.
Print this list (a copy for each student) and ask them to keep track of their
achievements (encourage them to add a few more personal ideas to the list). Come
back to the list at the end of the academic year to see who has ticked the most things
off their list. This will be fun and will stir up discussion.

Follow up 3
There are various theories as to where the idiom ‘kick the bucket’ comes from. Ask
students to research its origin and discuss all the plausible theories during the next
lesson.

7Reiner, R (director) & Zackham, J. (writer). The Bucket list, 2019. Warner
Brothers. Trailer retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc3mkG21ob4
84
Projectable 20- Pronunciation of the participles: own creation (2020)

6. 1. 5. 3 Dream crazier

Level B2
Time 90 minutes
Skills Vocabulary building (expressions and phrasal verbs)
Aims To view and listen to a commercial and to build up vocabulary around it.

Preparation
Have the projectable, worksheet and video ready.

85
Projectable 21 - Dream Crazier. Retrieved from Nike webpage

Procedure

0 Warm-up Ask students if they have lately watched any powerful ad/commercial in
TV, cinema or YouTube. Share ideas and discuss what makes an ad powerful. Explain
that you are going to show them the empowering commercial by Nike called Dream
Crazier (February 2019).

Note:

Dream Crazier 8 is narrated by Serena Williams and shines a spotlight on female

athletes who have broken barriers, brought people together through their
performance and inspired generations of athletes to chase after their dreams.
The spot is the start of a celebration of women in sport ahead of this summer's football
tournament in France and features a compilation of moments by some of the greatest
athletes in the world, including Simone Biles, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Chloe Kim, members
of the US Women’s National Soccer Team and Serena Williams.

1 Show the clip for the first time. After viewing, encourage students to react critically
to the clip.
What do you think it is about? What is the main message?
Who do you think it is aimed at? (i.e. target audience)
What do you think it has been the reaction of the media to this ad? Why?
Why do you think the ad is (or is not) powerful?

8 Source of the information and image: Nike webpage

86
2 The voiceover narrated by Williams contains a lot of adjectives and expressions with
negative connotations. Handout the worksheet 6, play the video one more time and
ask students to fill in the gaps with those words. Also, ask: who does S. Williams refer
to we she says “we”?

Worksheet 6:
If we show emotion, we're called ___________ . If we want to play against
men,_______________ . And if we dream of equal opportunity, we're
___________. When we stand for something, we're ________ . When we're
too good, there's something ________________. And if we get _________ ,
we're _________ , _________ , or just being crazy.

But a woman running a marathon was crazy. A woman boxing was crazy. A
woman dunking, crazy. Coaching an NBA team, crazy. A woman competing
in a hijab; changing her sport; landing a double-cork 1080; or winning 23
grand slams, having a baby, and then coming back for more, crazy, crazy,
crazy, and crazy.

So if they want to call you crazy, fine. Show them what crazy can do.

Answers:
a. dramatic e. wrong with us
b. we are nuts f. angry
c. delusional h. hysterical
d. unhinged i. irrational

3 Correct the work and make sure all the words and expressions are clear. Ask if they
have ever heard the expression ‘to be nuts’ (=to be crazy) and ask if they have a
similar expression in their language. Take this opportunity to focus on the idea that
expressions change from language to language, that is why they cannot be interpreted
or translated in a literal way. Cut out worksheet 7: students have to match some more
idioms containing food words with pictures and meanings.

E.g.

( To ) b u t t e r To praise or flatter someone.

somebody up Maybe they deserve it, maybe they
don’t, but you’re doing this because
you want something from them.

87
Text and images adapted from from fluent.com

Correct work (check projectable 22 )

4 Go back to the advert and ask students if it is important to have goals and dreams.
Ask students to work in pairs to complete the following tasks.
! Each student writes three short-term and three long-term goals on separate
pieces of paper.
! Place the pieces of paper face down on the table.
! Take in turns to turn over each piece of paper. Ask each other about each
other’s goals.
! Tell the class about two of your partner’s goals.

5 Read the text (worksheet 7) about 17 year old Katia’s goals. Match the phrasal
verbs to the words in bold in the text.

Follow up 1
Create a debate on what makes an advert good. Explain that they are going to create
a powerful advert themselves. Ask them to brainstorm ideas first and then to write a
short text for their advert. They can use images or videos to support their texts and
create their adverts (they will need to use presentation slides such as powerpoint or
video making platforms such as Bitable).

Follow up 2
Present the advert to the rest of the class. Ask students to provide feedback.

Worksheet 7- (cut outs for students)

88
+

(To) Have your cake and eat To become hyper, wild or crazy.
it too

89
 To have or do two good things at the
(To) drop like a sack of same time that are impossible to have or
potatoes do at the same time.

It means that someone or something has

(To be) in a pickle fallen quickly and hit the ground hard.

To be in a difficult situation.
(To) go bananas

To put all of your resources in one place;

(To) butter somebody up e.g. putting your money or hopes or
future into one thing.

This phrase refers to two people who

(To be) the cream of the work well together or get along really
crop well.

To praise or flatter someone. Maybe they

(To) have all your eggs in deserve it, maybe they don’t, but you’re
one basket doing this because you want something
from them.

To work for a low wage.

(To be) paid peanuts

To be the best of the best. It essentially

Two peas in a pod refers to people or things that are of high
excellence.

Text and images adapted from from fluent.com

90
Worksheet 8

My short-term goals

To achieve my goals, I need more free time.

So the first thing I need to do is to stop
watching so many reality shows! They’re
addictive and make me lose the opportunity
to do other things. I want to start playing
tennis, so that’s my second goal. I also aim to
be more organised in the future. I always
postpone doing my duties. So I’ll finally do
that. And I’ll continue helping my family.
Phrasal verbs
1 carry on ______________
2 come up with _____________ My long-term goals
3 get round to ______________
I am to have a business one day so I want to
4 give back ______________ join the Teen Entrepreneurs Club. First I need
5 miss out on ______________ to think of a great business idea and then I
7 put off ______________ need to discover how to put it into practice.
8 sign up for ______________ Eventually I’ll create my own company. I’ll
9 start up ______________ employ people and return something to the
10 take over ______________ community. It’s all part of the ultimate goal to
control the world!
11 take up ______________
12 work out ______________

Text adapted from Campbell et al, 2019: 29. Beyond B2, Macmillan

Answers
1 carry on - continue 7 put off - postpone
2 come up with – think of 8 sign up for - join
3 get round to – finally do 9 start up - create
4 give back – return 10 take over - control
5 give up - stop 11 take up – start
6 miss out on – lose the opportunity 12 work out – to do

Projectable 22- Answers

(To) butter somebody up

To praise or flatter someone. Maybe they deserve it,

maybe they don’t, but you’re doing this because you
want something from them.

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(To be) the cream of the crop

To be the best of the best. It essentially refers to people

or things that are of high excellence.

(To) have all your eggs in one basket

To put all of your resources in one place; e.g. putting
your money or hopes or future into one thing.

(To be) paid peanuts

To work for a low wage.

Two peas in a pod

This phrase refers to two people who work well together
or get along really well.

(To be) in a pickle

To be in a difficult situation.

(To) drop like a sack of potatoes

It means that someone or something has fallen quickly
and hit the ground hard.

(To) go bananas

To become hyper, wild or crazy.

(To) Have your cake and eat it too

To have or do two good things at the same time that
are impossible to have or do at the same time.

Adapted from fluent.com

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6.2 Student-led activities

This part of the project contains 6 simple and easy to implement ideas that can be
used to encourage students to create their own work around an image. They all follow
a 3 step plan but they can be adapted or extended easily. Similarly to the previous
materials the aim of these activities is to develop language skills while also exercising
the imagination and critical thinking skills.

6.2.1 Conspiracies

Level B2
Time 45 minutes
Skills Speaking
Aims To present a picture and the possible mystery behind it in a critical way.

0 Warm-up Ask students if they have heard of any conspiracy theories. Brainstorm
their ideas.

1 Give them an example of a conspiracy theory by showing them an image. You can
use the example below (projectable 23). In small groups have them talking about what
they already know.

Projectable 23: Moon Landing (1969). Retrieved from. History.com

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2 Project/write these questions on the board to encourage discussion.
why are there no stars in this photo?
why is Apollo 11’s US flag waving in the wind if there's no wind on the Moon?
why are there no stars in pictures of the NASA Moon landings?

3 Ask students to choose a picture that represents some kind of unsolved mystery or a
conspiracy theory. Allow students to research either in class or at home and to present
their findings to the rest of the class.

Note:
Ask students to look at the picture and conspiracy theory or unsolved mystery with
critical eyes. Encourage students to present their work using their reflective and critical
thinking skills and basing their presentations on evidence. By no means this activity
promotes any conspiracy theory, but rather a desire to educate our students to look at
pictures and texts critically.

6.2.2 Twitterature

Level B2
Time 45 minutes
Skills Writing
Aims To write a story in twitter format around an image.

0 Warm- up Ask students if they have heard of the word “twitterature” and ask what it
could mean.

1 Present an example from Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin’s book called
Twitterature.

Projectable 24 - Image from the film The Great Gatsby (2013). Retrieved from Scmp.
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The Great Gratsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Got the new place today - kind of small, but great view! Not that I am
judging anything…

Visiting Daisy and her douchebag husband. They’re happy but her
superficially and his stubbornness are all that is wrong with rich America.

Tom is totally having an affair and EVERYBODY knows it. Open your eyes
bitch…

Some dude is standing on the bay with his arms looking at a symbolic light.
The Midwest didn’t have so many metaphors! What a CREEP!

NEVER MIND! THIS GUY KNOWS HOW TO PAAARTTTTYY! Quick:

Gatsby’s house!!! Txt for directions!

Sorry I haven’t updated more; between my lady friend and the G-Money, I
hardly have time! Did you know he got a medal from little Montenegro?

BFF Gatsby and I going to town today - should be fun! Wants me to meet
his friends…

The World Series is fixed. Every year. Don’t money and power come
honestly in this country???

Gatsby wants to meet Daisy. Weird. Oh well - no reason more friends can’t
kick it.

O shit. This is a lot heavier than I expected. Why do these people keep
sleeping with everyone? Keep it simple - that’s what I say!

Going downtown for the day - it is so hot out!!!

Everyone is yelling and fighting, it's very confusing. And it is hot! I feel like I
have nothing to do with any of this!!!

Two bad drivers met. :0

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2 Ask students to select an interesting image to write a story around it. Remind them
that they need to do it as if they were writing telling it through twitter.

3 After marking students’ work tell them that you are going to do a twitterature
competition. Each student will read their story and they will vote for the most original
one.

6.2.3 Art Memes

Level B2
Time 15 minutes
Skills Writing
Aims To boost creativity to create a meme based on a piece of art.

0 Warm up Ask students how they would describe a meme to their grandparents.

1 Show them an example of a meme based on a piece of art.

Projectable 25: Retrieved from Classical Art Memes

2 Tell your students that they have to find some interesting pieces of art to create
memes. Ask them to:
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 ● describe the image which gave birth to the meme
● investigate the story behind the image (who, where, when, why and how?)
● use the image to create a meme.

3 Hang their ideas on the wall and invite students to go round the class reading and
reacting to each other’s ideas. Vote for the funniest one.

6.2.4 Dialogues

Level B2
Time 30 minutes
Skills Speaking
Aims To improve creative and improvisation skills by improvising a dialogue based
on a film clip.

Warm up Ask students if they watch series or films in English. Share ideas and
recommendations.

1 Students are now going to select a clip from a film or series that they like. In groups
they are going to work on dubbing the clip.

2 Allow some time to discuss what they are going to be talking about. Then ask
students to present their clip (mute the video) and to play the parts for different
characters. Encourage them to do it humorously.

3 React to each other’s work by giving feedback

6.2.5 Is it real?

Level B2
Time 30 minutes
Skills Speaking
Aims To analyse viral videos with care and to discuss the authenticity of them.

0 Warm up Ask students if they can think of any viral video. Why does a video go
viral? Discuss their ideas.

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1 It is very important to educate students to look at texts, images and videos critically.
They must be aware that many of them may not tell the truth for different reasons. For
example, the authenticity of many viral videos is questionable. Ask students to pick a
viral video.

2 Have a discussion about the chosen videos on the following topics:

● authenticity: is the video real?
● creators: who is behind the video?
● motives: why was it created?

3 Write a small reflection about the authenticity of online videos.

6.2.6 Homophones

Level B2
Time 30 minutes
Skills Pronunciation
Aims To reflect on pronunciation. To find words that are homophones.

Warm up Raise this question: what is a homophone? Explain it if students do not

understand the meaning of it.

1 Encourage students to think of some homophones.

2 Explain that they are going to make visual posters to decorate the class. They will
need to include visuals to illustrate each word. They can make a collage with cut out
images or they could draw them themselves. Provide an example.

Projectable 26- Homophones. Retrieved from Envision

3 Ask students to present their work.

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8. CONCLUSIONS

The main aim of this project was to create a Teacher Toolkit containing a bank of
diverse, original and practical step by step teaching ideas that involve pre-existing
images and videos that would help B2 level learners develop their receptive and
productive language skills and boost their vocabulary and grammar. My idea was also
to get feedback about the materials by sharing these resources with colleagues so that
they could use them in their teaching practice. Also to inspire and motivate them to
look out for other engaging images and videos to create their own activities around
them.

Based on the reflections of the activities that have been piloted, the main aim was
fulfilled; the activities based on existing images and videos have proven to be useful
and efficient to strengthen productive (speaking and writing) and receptive language
skills (reading and listening) and improve vocabulary and grammar. The explanation
for these results are various, for example; Thomas and Keinders (2010, pp. 25-26)
stress the fact that visuals ‘help the teacher to clarify, establish, correlate and
coordinate accurate concepts, interpretations and appreciations, and enable him to
make learning more concrete, effective, inspirational, meaningful and vivid’. Arif and
Hashim’s research also demonstrated (2009) that pictures gained better attention than
words and that pictures became the main clue in interpreting the meaning of the words.

Students have also shown an increase in engagement and motivation while carrying
out the language tasks, proving that images can generally enhance learners’ classroom
experience. Experts as teachers alike agree that visual materials can make a lesson
more interesting and attractive which helps boosting students' interest, curiosity and
motivation and therefore, the teaching-learning process improves. Carney and Levin
(2002, p.54) proved that the ‘visual materials make a difference in the process of
teaching and learning as they serve as scaffolds for the students and they help
teachers coordinate accurate concepts which makes the learning more attractive’.

The atmosphere of the classroom has also been friendly and motivational as the
students mostly appreciated a change from their common textbook-based lessons and
enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate, communicate and be creative. This is extremely
important, since without motivation pupils may not start the act of learning and for
those who have started to learn, they may not be able to continue the learning process
(Dörnyei, 2001). This means that highly motivated students have higher achievement in
learning English as a second language than those with lower motivation (Bernaus &

99
Gardner, 2008; Bernaus, Wilson, & Gardner, 2008; Fan & Feng, 2012; Kitjaroonchai,
2012).

In the future I would like to continue further piloting the activities that were not tested
due to time constraints and also to the fact that I am mostly teaching Spanish at this
moment. I would also like to collaborate with other language teachers to inspire and
motivate each other in order to look for more engaging images and videos that can
lead to interesting and engaging activities.

In conclusion, it is well attested that visuals, when appropriately chosen and integrated
into the daily lesson, are a great additional tool in the teaching and learning process
because they help boost students' curiosity, enhance motivation and focus. It is now
easier than ever to use visuals in class thanks to the integration of technology in our
classrooms. Teachers for example, can easily project a picture to illustrate something,
and students can use tablets to carry out tasks involving images, which would have
been complicated and very time-consuming in the past.

Considering the advantages of using visuals and also the fact that messages now are
conveyed in multimodal texts, not teaching our students how to ‘decode’ them would be
a great mistake. Teachers need to step up and use resources in which the images are
taken into consideration. Students can use a number of apps and tools, such as;
Glogster, Voicetread (digital storytelling), Movenot, Prezi (presentations), Wordle (word
clouds), Mindmeister (mind-maps) and Skitch (sketches), to help them in digital
storytelling and creating visual presentations, comics, sketches, mind-maps, word
clouds or their own videos.

We must consider that our classrooms are in constant transformation and that this
visual turn does not imply the end of the written word. This project has demonstrated
that still or moving images combine perfectly with written text to create multimodal
ensembles: ‘a variety of cultural and semiotic resources to articulate, render, represent,
and communicate an array of concepts and information' (Serafini 2014, p.13).

100
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