Is it necessary to prepare some pictures or photos to teach vocabulary in English Language Classes?

It is said that “a picture is worth more than a thousand words”. Can this saying be applied in English Language Teaching? This post will list some benefits of using pictures or photos in teaching English, especially teaching English vocabulary for English learners. Besides, readers who are working as ESL teachers will be also given some effective methods to apply using photos and pictures in ELT.
Pictures or photos are useful tools for teaching vocabulary in English language classes because of their being rich of advantages.
Firstly, teacher can attract English learners’ attention. As my own experience of learning English, I am totally impressed with the photos or pictures shown on the board or the screen when my teachers give me any English new words. As a result, I find the lesson equipped with funny and nice photos or picture very interesting ones to attend.
Secondly, English learners are supposed to be able to remember English new words better if their teachers use photos or pictures to illustrate for them. New words under form of letters can be easily forgotten in learners’ mind, but impressing colorful photos may remain longer in people’s brain. Moreover, in case teachers both explain vocabulary by words and show pictures or photos in term of meaning, there would be a connection between spoken words and their images, which finally supports learners’ ability in understanding and keeping vocabulary in their memorizing machine.
With great advantages listed above, the following tips will suggest some ways for ESL teachers to use photos or pictures effectively in teaching vocabulary for students. One of factors deciding succeeds of using pictures or photos to help learners understand and remember vocabulary is the way we choose them.
Firstly, the content of pictures needs relating to the objects or words that are going to be taught. For examples, we cannot use images about wild animals to illustrate for lesson about cattle.
Secondly, if we want to take colorful pictures to print, try to search the clear and bright ones. On the other hand, if we need print a black-white photocopy, the ones in dark or simple color are appropriate choices.
Thirdly, it is necessary for teachers to pay attention to the size and quality of pictures. The pictures in too big size will take a lot of spaces and the too small ones will be difficult for children to look at. Similarly, a picture with too many images will make children disordered.
By using pictures or photos, teachers can design various activities to teach vocabulary for English learners. These are 4 popular ones.
The first simplest activity is matching. Teachers show pictures and pronounce the words and let students practice speaking several times, then get them match the words with these pictures suitably.
Another activity is using these pictures when telling a story and trying to point at them as much as possible that students have chance to repeat name of these pictures many times and remember longer.
The third one is remembering the old vocabulary that has been taught before. Teachers show pictures one by one in a limited time and students have to write down the words related to those photos as fast as possible.
Also, instead of showing, teachers can stick them on the board and speak out loud any new words and students would slap at the correct pictures.
To sum up, pictures or photos play an important role in teaching English language in general and English vocabulary in particular. To know more about the benefits as well as the ways to use pictures in English languages classes, please read at:

By Bui Thi Chi (Proofread by ELTiCenter)

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