Photo Dictionary Teachers' Ideas

As an experienced ESOL tutor to lower level students in several Surrey hospitals, Anne Rubin, has shared a few ideas which you can immediately and easily put to use in the classroom when using the Longman Photo Dictionary to develop students’ vocabulary.

• Memory games – After studying one of the categories (e.g. food or work) students close their book and see how many words they can remember. Students answer the questions from their teacher, or partner, about what colour the objects are, where they are on the page, what they are next to or between, etc. One student makes a sentence about the page and the other says if it is true or false.
• Bingo - Students write down 12 words from a list of 20 words on a page they have learnt recently. The teacher reads out 12 words in random order. Learners tick off each word as it is heard. The first person to have ticked off all 12 words shouts out bingo!
• Spelling auction – Focus on recently learnt words. Give each pair of students a list of 12 words, half correct and the other half incorrect. They have to correct the incorrect words and make a sentence at the end of the exercise. Each pair with a correct sentence scores a point.
• Class survey – Give one question to each student. For a lesson on shopping, students could ask: Do you go shopping every day? Where do you shop? etc. Students mingle and ask their question to all the other students, noting how many people say ‘yes’/’no’. After the survey, collect the results on the board.
• Students write their own surveys – Divide the class into small groups and give them a topic. e.g. clothes, work. Students work together in groups to write 5 questions related to their topic, and then mingle and ask and answer questions.
• Dialogue building activity – Establish a dialogue using the pictures (e.g. at the chemist’s) I’ve got a cough, Drill this. Elicit the second line. You should take some cough medicine. Practice in open and closed pairs until they know them. Build up the dialogue, by adding two lines each time.

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