Hi teachers! Here are some quick tips on how to use pictures in your classroom. I use it in online teaching and for teaching German, but it can be easily adapted to other languages and classroom settings.

1. Bilder des Tages/ Pictures of the day

Use some pictures from the News and let students describe what they see. This works with all levels, for higher levels you can add discussions about the news topics. You can let students click through and find 5 interesting pictures to describe, or, if you have to be political sensitive, choose some photos before class. The page I ususally use for this is: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/thema/Bilderblog and then e.g. “Momentaufnahmen im März”.

Reuters is also a good choice for the pictures of the day.

2. Bildergeschichten /picture stories

Here students describe a sequence of pictures  as a story, you can even let them tell the story in different tenses. Good material: Vater und Sohn

Find tons more here: Bildergeschichten von Digitale Schule Bayern

Another good one is Five card Flickr stories : a sequence of 5 photos, students have to make up a story using these. Very creative exercise, you can also let students write the story as homework.

3. The classic: Use art to teach some culture and to get students talking. They can describe pictures and also tell about how they make them feel, what the intention might have been, how the colours work, etc.etc. If you want to make this also about culture, let students research some famous/favourite artists and give small presentations.

4. Comparing. Students have to find the differences in two pictures. For the pictures, I just google “Fehlerbilder” or “Suchbilder”.

5. Picture dictation. Simple idea, but especially children have a lot of fun with it. “Dictate” them a picture, tell them step by step what is in the middle, on the left, top of the picture etc. The student then has to to the same and dictate you a picture. This can get you some very funny results. For online lessons, let students either draw and then hold the picture into the camera, or use twiddla. For material, if you don’t want to make up their own: search the internet for picture dictations or just use any drawings or photographs you wish. This is also great for themed lessons, like picture dictating a monster on Halloween, or practising christmas words with a christmas picture. You’ll have a lot of fun with it!

Happy teaching ♥ And feel free to share your own ideas in the comments!