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ESL forum >
Games, activities and teaching ideas > Project - photo stories
Project - photo stories
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Ivona
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Project - photo stories
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Here �s sth for you.
Very often i see links on the forum that offer activities that enable students to make their own comics with the already given characters and all, and while they seem to be stimulating the ss´ creativity, i don �t find them involving enough.
The modern (computer) technology has encroached upon all the spheres of our lives (just take a look at us addicts here!) and and it �s become sth we simply cannot do without, but why force it in our classrooms, too?!? (This is an answer to one of the posts earlier about video games in ESL) Don �t our ss already spend enough of their free time at the PCs? Why not combine the Effective (using the language) and the Affective (taking their feelings, emotions into account) together and help them create 100% THEIR OWN photo stories in which they will be the characters, the writers, the editors - all in one! Here �s a pic. We also made films based on the stories. (Btw, i have the vids, if you �d like to see ... )
It takes about 3 classes to get them done. First, they create a story and divide it into sequences. Then, they take the pics (make sure you have LOOOADS of space on your memory card, because it takes about 100 shots per scene until you get a proper photo in which they �re not giggling or making faces!  ) Finally, they write in the bubbles and paste.
I�m going to upload a ws with detailed explanations.
  EDIT: (16 June 09) Here�s a link to the films made after doing the photo stories. You can download them. http://www.mediafire.com/file/dymyeo2wmjn/One potato - shrunk.mpghttp://www.mediafire.com/file/yvzi1zkjm3o/Oops - shrunk.mpgSorry, they�re a bit big ... but that was all i could do re shrinking. EDIT2: You can see them here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEVwGPwSNLg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3a3vUWKyYA
(In the first vid you can see the yellow poster on the floor (when the
robbers are counting the money). In the second one, there�s a boring
scene with Britney and the fan, but i had lost patience with the giggly
students after 200 takes!!! so i kept �rolling�  .
Btw, it took us only a 65-min class to record each of the videos with
NO prior practice. Everything was done on the spot. The acting and the
lines, i mean.) P.S. You can always involve other teachers in your school too and do it on a higher level,
just like i did at the beginning of the school year with the Serbian
and French teachers. Each one of us worked with two different classes
and different grades, so that in the end each class in the school had
their own Photomic framed and hung right next to their classroom door.
Just imagine what compliments we got from our visitors to school.
They were amazed and some of them even envious. The one in the picture
was the one i did with MY students, and the woman in the picture is me.
Yes, the students wanted me in the story, too.
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17 Feb 2009
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Victoria-Ladybug
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 Ivona!
Thanks for sharing this great idea with us!
have a nice day! Victoria |
17 Feb 2009
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marta73
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I love your idea ivona ! How long did it take you to carry it out? I �m really interested!
On the other hand, I �m still interested in video games as a learning device. It �s not forcing ourselves to do it, but trying to use their interests and reality to make them learn. It �s another way of developing problem solving strategies, and they would NEED to understand the language in order to progress in the game, don �t you think? When I was younger, we did it through music and no teacher told us we already spent a lot of time listening to disgusting music( pop and rock). They just took advantage of our likes and we learnt a lot. Nowadays, at least here in Spain, teens don �t usually listen to music in English ( some hits, and that �s all), so they don �t sing the lyrics at home or discos, and don �t seem very interestd when you bring a song to the class. Well, this is an example, do you know what I mean? |
17 Feb 2009
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Ivona
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Yesterday i was at a seminar where this Cambridge Univ.Press guy, Gary Anderson, said the following:
... In the past people said that the pen was mightier than a sward. Today �s version of it would be �computers are sexier than the pen �.
And it �s true. They are the future, there �s no doubt about that. BUT, that future ensures further and further alienation from the natural in us. And i don �t like that. By doing video games, you make your students sit and stare (bad for the back, bad for the eyes) for a long time. You just add to the hours of them being inert (i don �t know about your SS, but mine spend a lot of time with video games and surfing on the net (the older teens)) ... So, i rather opt for the classical over modern. It might be less appealing to the eye and maybe more time consuming, but i think it �s more in keeping with the biological in us.
I �m not totally against computers - they do facilitate teaching/learning - still, whenever there �s an option to do sth without them, i �m for it!
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17 Feb 2009
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marta73
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Yeah, I used to think like that. But my students are sitting and staring six hours a day, and I think an activity like this might be less passive and more engaging than our 19th century teaching learning process. I don �t use computers in class very often, and I �m coming to think that maybe I should. Thanks for your feedback Ivona. |
17 Feb 2009
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MissMelissa12
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It is true, using computers was something new a few years ago, nowadays Students live next to a computer and their natural world has become computaryzed. That is why I share the idea with you Ivona that we should give them something different from their daily lives. If I did not missunderstood your original idea. This might be a useful idea, Im pretty sure.
-->I �ve tried with my students to make comic series, flashcards using their own pictures, and they have loved it. The trend in teenagers ( I dont know if it is the same in your countries) but teenagers go everywhere with their cameras, they love taking pictures of themselves. So what I usually do is make them have their own flashcards. They present this sentences using their own pictures. They love it and Im sure those will be examples and tenses they will remember forever. One student also told me, she has it on her bedroom �s wall so she sees practices them everyday.
--> We usually have on fridays: Karaokes, cooking, cinema activities. And these have become such a social interaction ( while learning English of curse) among the students in the institute where I work. So on the noticeboard we usually stick some outstanding pictures and bookmark the pictures, creating some dialogues clouds, and other funny comments. I love it!!
Miss Melissa.  |
17 Feb 2009
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Ivona
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@ Marta
I agree. The SS do sit all day. But it �s us teachers who should be imaginative and creative and think of activities that will be both effective and affective, as i said. If they are supposed to practise a simple dialogue, my SS don �t stay at their desks. I have them lined up in two rows, facing each other, or in two circles (inner and outer). They practise the dialogue, or Q&As, and at the sound of my whistle or clap, they quickly change places so that they are facing sb else.
When they are supposed to write sentences in order to practise a grammar point (say, have to), i have them paired up and i have pieces of paper stuck on the walls around the classroom. The pairs have two-three mins to write their example and again, at the sound of my whistle (or at the stop of music), they move clockwise to the next paper where they read what the pair before them wrote and try to think of another example. They use different colour markers. The papers are then gathered and a poster is made.
It �s all up to our imaginativeness and creativity.
@ Melisa - Cameras are a much better gadget to be used in class, than a computer. They allow greater creativity. Of course, if they are not abused. As anything else.
Here �s the pic.
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17 Feb 2009
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marta73
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Ivona, you have gorgeous ideas! I don �t know if I �ll be able to do them in my school ( the noise my Ss would do , would affect other classes, I �m sure ) but I �ll try. Anyway, I �ll probably send you a private message one of these days so that you can tell me more about this kind of activities, or rather, you should upload them as lesson plans or articles!
As for computers and everything, my school is carrying out a project about "Reading Comprehension using the new technologies", so I really have to think about what to do with these new tools in these new times so that learning is long term. I don �t know if it happens to you , but whenever I try to practise structures using games, they actually work IN the class, but practise and efficiency finish there, they don �t engage Ss beyond the class.
Another member said she used cameras to learn vocabulary. Say , for example, feelings. Students would take pictures of themselves miming feelings ( i.e. angry, happy) and showing the word written in a card. Then, they would stick them on board. It works great, although you cannot overuse this, either. |
17 Feb 2009
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marta73
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Sorry, melissa, I hadn �t read your answer. You already do the camera thing with vocabulary.
Well, sometimes, when learning, I don �t think the important thing is to bring something new, but to relate what they learn to their everyday lives. The difficult thing, in a country where people are not very keen on learning languages, is to create the need to use that language, not only in class but outside, too, so that they can enrich their use of the internet, for example. That �s why I �m so interested in your experiences.
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17 Feb 2009
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guidinha
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Thanks IVONA!
It�s a really great idea! I must try it one day. brilliant!!
Thanks again |
4 Sep 2009
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