IMAGE AND VIDEO STORYTELLING FOR THE ENGLISH CLASS

PICTURE TELLING OBJECTIVE : To activate the students' knowledge of English in order to understand and make a description of a picture as well as to link it to its sociocultural context. o Language level: B2 o Learner type: Teens; Adults o Time: 50 minutes o Activity: Communication activity o Topic: Not so common situations o Language: Prepositions of place (Task One) o Materials: Picture STORY SEEDING (5 minutes) Teacher: I give them a short account of my weekend. It was last Sunday, November 22nd, when I came across this picture (I'm holding but students can't see). I loved it because it rings a bell on me about a story I know very well. Saint Cecilia's feast day is celebrated on November 22nd . She is the patroness of musicians and Church music. I know about Saint Cecilia because, in addition to teaching English, I am also a musician. It is said that, as she was dying, she sang to God. It is also written that as ...

  This photo shows a group of soldiers marching on a field. One soldier is carrying a baby donkey on his back. I first saw this photo on Facebook. There are two versions to the story . You will have to go to the link provided to find out : https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/15/fact-check-photo-soldier-carrying-donkey-algerian-war/5443306002/ Let me share with you first that my students are requested to bring personal headphones with them because this allows me to set up different listening tasks and they can go online with their phones and listen to the material (mostly Youtube videos) at their own pace and with good quality sound, which is important for many students. So I used an online voice recorder (Vocaroo) and made two voice recordings. Recording A with a description of the photo and one interpretation of the story . Recording B with the same description of the photo and the other interpretation of the story . Students were divided into pairs and were ass...

  T ECHNIQUE: JUST VIDEO - NO SOUND LEVEL : B1-B2 (any age) MAIN OBJECTIVE : Improve students' oral skills. Describe a sequence of actions in a variety of tenses. ACTIVITIES : Teacher shows a stillframe of the marathon and elicits vocabulary from students (overtake, cross the finish line, triathlete...). Then, the first part of the video is played without sound (up to 0.20''). Students are asked to describe the sequence in groups of 3-5. Teacher helps around with tenses but doesn't comment on content at this point. Then, the full sequence is played without sound and students are given time to adjust their description. Finally, the video is played with sound. Students check Will Smith's wording to their own. Teacher clarifies that there might be many ways to describe the same sequence but does monitor/check grammar and content at this point. The activities described above are the pivotal point around which the rest of the activities might revolve. Depending on ti...

 I n the first place, the image shows an image of an elderly lady and pigeons all over her. The title of my story is: Mrs. Hatchet's Pigeons and it is intended for students at levels B1 or B2. The learning objectives are : boosting students' oral skills, review every day vocabulary and practise past tenses. The technique I would use here is what Jamie terms: 'T eacher led Picture telling' and I would pre-teach vocabulary such as: Local Council; bird droppings; to make a complaint .... After that, I would show them the image and ask them : 'Who do you think she is?'; ''How old is she?'; 'Where is she?'; 'What do you think is odd about the picture?'; 'Have you ever seen so many pigeons around a lady before? If so, when?'; 'Why do you think that the pigeons have flocked towards her?'; Is it illegal in Spain to feed pigeons?' The story is about an elderly lady whose hobby is to feed pigeons but her neighbours compl...

  LEVEL: 1st ESO. OBJECTIVES: The first objective is to use modal verbs, as well as adverbs of manner. The teacher will also practise saying the long vowel sound /a:/ in can´t with students. Although they should already know the parts of the body, it will be very useful as revision. ACTIVITIES: 1. Story seeding In order to engage students to this activity, the teacher writes the following words: craziest, Alaska, narrow, extreme sport, do not try this at home. 2. Predicting They have to predict what the story is about by answering questions from the teacher. Modal verbs will be used in this questions and the students will have to include adverbs of manner in their answers. The teacher will ask questions to make students use parts of the body in order to review that vocabulary. 3. Watching the video They watch the video. 4. Post watching Once they have watched the video, the will be aked about questions prompting out modal verbs and parts of the body. 5. Writing For a f...

  Language level : Intermediate (B1) Time : 60 minutes Objectives : listening skills, predicting the end of a story, and speaking skills. Topic : Daily routines, work and school Language : Alike, adjectives to describe character and routines Materials : Short film Activities stages: Step 1 Explanation: The teacher writes the following sentences on the board. • I’m like my brother. • My brother and I are alike . The teacher elicits the two sentences mean the same thing and gives them an explanation. The teacher gives more examples and asks them to write a true sentence about themselves and a member of their family using alike. Step 2 Students watch a short film titled Alike in which they see a father and his son. As they watch they should notice in what ways the father and son, and their lives are alike. The teacher shows the film until 04:55. Step 3 The teacher holds a whole class discussion on how the father and son, and their lives are alike. The teacher...

  Level: For B2.2 students when we teach the topic of `Advertising and Emotions´ Objectives: - Making predictions in oral conversations using their creativity and imagination. - To learn the idiom ` Full of Vim and Vigor´ - To use modals of deduction/ Adjectives/ Narrative tenses, although grammar is not the main focus. First , I tell my students about my reaction the first time I watched this ad and how much I liked it, and I still do (giving no clues at all about the product advertised). Then , they see till 0:09´and they have to speak about what they think it´s gonna happen next ( making predictions or using narrative present tenses) (E.g. ` The whole population becomes a baby because of an alien invasion ´) They see until 1:08´and talk about what product they might be advertising (Modal Verbs of Deduction). We play it again( till 1:08´) and they have to describe the feelings&emotions of the people in the ad (Intermediate-Level Adjectives, e.g. o verjoyed/Compound Adject...

  I've used this video with B2 and C1 students for video telling and both ora l and written mediation . Firstly, I play the audio twice and tell the students to work in pairs. They have to guess what's going on. They come up with different versions and vocabulary that I write on the board ( prediction exercise). After listening to all the versions, I tell half of the class to go out. The others watch the video again and take notes. Then, we do an oral mediation exercise : using all the vocabulary written on the board, they have to summarize the video and tell their classmates about it (retelling). After that,they all watch it again and for their homework I ask them to send me an email telling me about the video they’ve watched. I do this with very short videos, about 2 or three minutes long. They really enjoy doing it and it’s good pratice for their monologues and mediation .

  The video could be used at any level, using different vocabulary and language. I have prepared these activities for 1º - 2º ESO . The main objective is to get students talking and to motivate them into using English in class. We will also use this video to revise routines and use present simple, although grammar is not the main objective. These activities have been designed using an advert called “The life of the Mayfly”. We will not tell students from the beginning that the video is an advert. Firstly, we will introduce the “story” by using a slide with the title of the video and several story seeds : a mayfly, a river, fish, toad, monkey, just one day .... We can ask students to predict the story and let them ask Yes-No Questions. After introducing the story with the story seeds, we will show students the video (without showing the logo). Finally, depending on the level of the students we can retell the story together as a class or we can ask them to retell the story in pair...

TIKI HEAD TISSUE BOXCOVER In the link above there is an image of a certainly odd sculpture or object with a paper tissue. Firstly, this activity would perfectly fit for 1º Bachillerato students , although it can be used in other years as well, if we adapt it to our students’ needs. The activity I have decided to carry out is videotelling and advert . I truly belief these types of oral practises help a great deal to improve the communicative competence in younger learners as well as in adult ones. The students would create their own adverts having in mind that the given picture is supposed to be the key gift for this Christmas . In order to convince the audience, they would create a very fun and original advertisement. To carry out this project, they could use more images, videos or they could even record their own material such as audios, videos, etc. The objective of this task is mainly to improve the speaking skills and secondly,to put into practice some grammatical structures lik...

  For this activity I will make use of the storytelling technique based on constructing stories from an image. The level at which the activity is aimed is 2nd CSE, concretely I will introduce this activity with my 2nd British class, but surely it will work with any other level of CSE. I will start the lesson explaining that they are about to watch a frame (or still) of a short video in which something happened to some people, creating some sort of intrigue for them. Then, I will show the frame of minute 0.26, which will be followed by guessing and hypotheses on the part of the students (a bomb will explode, a surprise might happen, they could get a prize…). Then, I will show them a frame of minute 1.42 and ask them “why are they all singing?”, motivating them to express their ideas. Finally, I will show them the whole video which is in fact an advertisement from the brand Coca Cola. After seeing it, I will ask them to write their name in a piece of paper and some questions about t...

  I think these are very funny and interesting videos. Two babies seem to be communicating but it is not possible for them to use any language yet. I will use this activity with my students from 3ºESO. First I will show them a still from the videos to ask them what they think will happen. After that, we will watch the videos, and I will ask them to write a script that could match the babies' gestures, expresions and body language. Once this is done, the most complex part comes, they have to edit the videos muting them and adding their own voices. The final result will be amazing and they will surely enjoy it a lot. This activity will not only allow them to practice their oral and written skills, but it also will have a great impact on their imaginative power. Furthermore, they will have a great chance to use ITCs! The only downside of this project is that it may take a lot of time, so we need to plan it long term.

I am a teacher in a bilingual secondary school and there’s one extra period of classes one day per week with the groups belonging to the bilingual section. I normally like using different things for these classes because they are from 14.15 to 15.05 and students are very tired after having spent all the morning in the school. I usually devote these hours to speaking activities and I very often use story seeding with the different groups that I have. I have chosen the advertisement in the link because it is humorous and matches the topic from the unit that we are studying now. At the moment we are dealing with t he future and we have also been discussing space travel . The group I will be using this video with is a 4th ESO group and the textbook used is a B2 level. However, not all of my students have the same level and using this technique helps them match their productions to their own level . Firstly, I would show students some images of a “monster, flag, hole, astronauts, bak...

  I wonder how… Level of students : 1st of Bachillerato Timing : 1 session + homework (a writing task: a narrative) Time frame : sometime in December meant to be the final session of a series of sessions dedicated to tenses review ( though this lesson is NOT a grammar-focused ) Objectives : develop my students speaking skills by making them use the construction “I wonder”, make guesses and predictions based on the images (stills from the video) and boost their creativity by asking them to imagine and express in writing the possible ending of the story Activity stages: 1) Teacher shows students a still from the short film “Momentos” where they can see a man sleeping on the street (evidently, a homeless person). Students are prompted to give their guesses by using “I wonder…” structure Language focus (I wonder + a variety of tenses / common lexis): The teacher may say: I wonder who this man is… I wonder what his life had been like before he became a homeless person…. I wonder...

PICTURE SOURCE: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/01/11/32BBC4D700000578-3518739-The_new_Viking_settlement_was_found_on_the_edge_of_Point_Rosee_i-a-28_1459505267293.jpg Grade: Secondary students Subject : Social Science Objectives: - To get familiar with vikings most famous explorers - To encourage students to make predictions - To improve students' oral skills (speaking and listening) as well as to foster students' writing skills - To review past tenses (in an indirect way, grammar is not the main focus of the activities) *By showing short sentences and the picture related to the story, it’s my intention to plant the story seeds , First activity Students will try to figure out the story line first individually. I I'll give students some words to make predictions about the story related to the picture.. Then, in pairs, they will share their ideas and write a quick story draft using the 5 Wh- and H questions prompts. Second activity : Story Bingo The teacher will...

  LEVEL: 1st or 2nd ESO. OBJECTIVES: · develop vocabulary through writing. · listen to and respect your partners’ opinions · use oral language with clarity to communicate a message. · use strategies to generate and develop ideas for speaking and writing ACTIVITIES: 1. Story seeding. 5Wh- and an H- questions. Oral practice. I would provide students with 4 story items ( cute, kitten, fridge and hungry ). I would ask students to predict a story using the items/seeding given. They can answer the the 5Wh questions. We will listen to the students’ stories and share ideas. 2. Predicting a story from an image. Oral practice . I would show the image of the video without playing the video. I would ask my students: what is going to happen next? what are the two cat doing? 3. Writing. (Three different options) After watching the video I would ask the students to tell a funny story about a pet o animal. Or I would ask them to express their feelings about pets. An...

  LEVEL : 1ST Bachillerato OBJECTIVE : To share with your classmates and teacher a legend you like/have heard of/know by heart ACTIVITIES: 1) (Technique: Seeding) Brainstorm ideas from the images shown in the photos / videos, guess what the story is about, as a springboard for different types of activities (*) 2) Teacher tells the story (filling gap exercise, gaps can be blank spaces or phonetic transcription substitution or image substitution, sentence ordering, etc.) (**) 3) In small groups (up to 3) in class, they negotiate which activity * they are going to do and plan at least a first draft. 4) Students investigate in their ancestors’ background to tell a story / legend in the type of activity they choose (real or fake) (*) (75 - 100 words) 5) Peer assessment, self assessment and teacher assessment of stories. (Rubric) * Types of activities to choose from: i. Write an email to a friend telling your story (include images). ii. Write an email to ...

T his story is aimed to students of second year of Secondary Education and the technique used is Story Seeding, specifically c onstructing a story from an image and constructing a story from story items . We first show the students a screenshot from the Short film and we start a conversation about the setting of the video just to engage the students into a conversation. Once the students are introduced to the activity, we ask them to create a stor y using some story items as for example: “ a busy high school, shattered, bump into, hear t” The following step is comparing the students’ creations , emphasising the vocabulary that may be useful or new to the group. This step should encourage their creativity, but the teacher must be prepared to fill in the gaps in the stories , to help the students to complete them using questions and to guide the process in general terms. Once we have completed this process, we play part of the video, but we stop just before the ending. At this point...

  I believe this activity would suit students of ESO or Bachillerato , as the language used could be easily adapted to any of those levels, mainly because the video has no conversation, it is just music. As its main objective, I believe it would be to develop storytelling skills, describing characters, settings, linking events... I would addresss the activity with the video as follows: 1st, I'd show the title of the video ("one man band") and I'd ask students to brainstorm what they thik it will be about. Then, I'd introduce the setting and characters that appear in it before watching the video (2 musicians and a girl), and I'd ask students to try to guess how they look like and what the relationship between them would be. After some ideas shared, I'd play the 1st video and I'd ask students to check if their ideas were right, and also to recall and report what has happened. In addition, I would invite them to brainstorm what they thik will happen n...

LEVEL : Old teens and adults (B1) OBJECTIVES : - Motivate students and grab their attention. - Get students talking in English. ( Great ice-breaker activity) - I wonder...... - Wh-words and interrogative structures. - Revise basic vocabulary. ACTIVITIES: Students are shown three different video stills from three different scenes from the ad. The first still shown corresponds to the scene where the man and the girl (presumably dad and daughter) are greeting someone in the air. At this point the students are asked to write questions with I wonder... . ( examples: I wonder why they are greeting? I wonder who or what they are greeting? I wonder if they are related? ). The second still shows the flying shed over the rooftops. Students get to ask questions of the sort: I wonder where it is heading?, I wonder who/ what is flying it? I wonder why it's flying?. The third and last still shows the shed soaring up in the sunlit sky. At this point students are asked...