英语教学中故事的应用

Stories waiting to be told

英语教学中故事的应用

The power of an image often doesn’t lie in the image itself, but in its ability to trigger images and stories in the minds of our students and create a need and a desire to communicate. There are three types of images that I find particularly powerful as teaching tools.

The three image types have one thing in common; they need someone to interpret them, to fill the gaps, to pick out the details or to open them out into a bigger picture.

The first is close ups. I think close-ups are particularly useful, not for what they show, but for what they don't show. This is where the language lies, in exploring and explaining and telling the story that lies beyond and around the image. Here is an example of a lesson based on a simple close-up photo.

The first step is to make sure I have a camera with me when I’m out and about at the weekend - in my case this simply means having my phone at the ready – and taking close up shots of places or moments that have some kind of special significance for me. In the next class I share the photo and ask the students to place it in our local surroundings. I ask them to think about when I took it and why I was in that place and if it conjures up any particular mood. Once we’ve established the lo cation, I ask my students to position themselves as if they were taking the photo. They put themselves in the scene, they position the phone or camera as if they were taking the photo and then I ask them to take two steps back and "take" a second photo, this time a mental snapshot in their mind’s eye. They compare the photos they've just “taken” to give the original close-up photo a context. These second photos will have lots of things in common, but there will also be lots of differences. The discussion can throw up a lot of interesting language - and need for language.

There are lots of different directions we can take from here, depending on the class, their needs, their energy levels, their interest - and maybe too the teaching agenda. It can turn into a discussion of favourite places. It might turn into tales of travels or holidays or special occasions. One of my favourites is to turn it into a drama activity. We position characters in the scene, we explore who they are and why they're there. Then we put thoughts in their heads and words in their mouths. Being more of a writer than an actor myself, I prefer to ask my students to write scripts and then, if they want to, to perform them. But some classes (and students and teachers too I guess) prefer to improvise. Anything goes really. From a language point of view the important thing is that the students are processing language, making meaning and creating texts that can be explored and analysed and mined for learning opportunities. I think it’s important to remember that these activities are starting points, not ends in themselves and that it is the language, not the image, that is the final point of focus.

The second type of image I like, for very much the same reasons, is shadows. Again, the important thing is not what you see, but what you don’t. One way to exploit shadows is to ask the students to ask questions about a shadow. I first elicit question words and expressions (who, where, what, how long, how many, often etc) and then I show the students a photo of a shadow that I’ve taken recently and ask them to write as many questions as possible about the photo. Initially the students mechanically write a long list of questions without much thought for relevance or interest. I ask them to revise their list and cross out any questions that aren't worth