Session given at the Braz-Tesol Pernambuco one-afternoon event in Recife on May 4th at SBS Livraria.

1. Using Images to Improve
the Teaching of Skills
Eduardo Santos

2. Think of one adjective to
define the images in the
next slides.

8. exotic

10. objectives
• To examine some possibilities and reasons for
using images in the classroom.
• To demonstrate how some course books
integrate images with the 4 skills.
• To inspire teachers to look out for engaging
images and create activities around them.
• To show how it is possible to integrate images
with the 4 skills.

11. reasons to use images
1. A perfect marriage
2. Engagement
3. Meaning
4. Memory and language reactivation
5. Technology and the image era
6. Convenience
7. An international ‘language’

12. reading
Source:
Global Elementary pages 30-31. Macmillan.

14. Interpreting signs

15. Predicting book covers
• Show students pictures of graded readers.
• Tell them to guess the name of the book.
• Ask students to predict what the story is
about.
• Read the summary of the book together and
ask students why/why not they would like to
read that book.

16. Food for Thought
This Rough Magic
The Ghost
A Second Chance

19. listening
Source:
New Total English Elementary. Pages 80-81.
Pearson.

21. Predicting the listening
• Tell students they will listen to a short
program about tourists who visit London.
• They should predict 5 must-do activities in
London which will be shown in the program.
• Watch the video, compare answers.
• Watch again and write down the
places/activities shown in the video.

23. speaking
Source:
New English File Intermediate. Page 117. OUP.

25. The story behind an image
• Choose an image which contains a powerful
message.
• Ask students to imagine the story behind that
image and tell their classmates.
• Share their stories with the whole group and
choose the most creative one.

28. Quotes & Images
• Choose a theme for the lesson: travelling,
happiness, money, etc.
• Ask students to find a quote about the given
theme which represents themselves.
• Ask students to find an image to go with the
quote (Google, Flickr, etc.).
• Share the image with the group and discuss
the meaning of the quotes and pictures.

33. writing
Source:
The Big Picture Pre-Intermediate page 115.
Richmond.

36. Jumbled story
• Use print screen to capture images from a
short video which tells a story.
• Show the images to students and tell them to
write a story using the pictures given. (set the
plot, characters, scene, etc.)
• Students compare stories.
• Students vote on the most creative story.

38. How I see me
How I see me. How my students see me.
How society sees me. How I really am.

39. conclusion
• During lesson planning always think: “How can this
activity be enhanced, improved, strengthened, and
become more memorable to my students through
the incorporation of an image?”
• Start to look at the images around you and your
students and think, “How can they be used with the
teaching of skills?”
• Don’t start off a class with a word of phrase written
on the board when an image can easily be used
instead.

40. “Images speak to us. They give rise to
outbursts of emotion, thought, and
curiosity. They bring back memories and
remind us of the experiences we have
had. Images refresh the part of the
brain that words alone fail to reach.”
Jamie Keddie – author of Images by OUP