A lesson about Picture stories

Lesson outline

This week, the students had to prepare for their speaking test. My co-teacher and I decided to give them six pictures and let them try to tell a story based on them within a 2-minute period.

The students were to practise this in my speaking class the week before their test. My co-teacher had supplied me with picture stories taken from the NEAT examination (Level 2) and it was then up to me to plan the lesson. I had to consider how best to prepare them for such a speaking test. It was a difficult task because each picture story can have so many variations and supplying them with suitable linking words, vocabulary etc. would not be easy.

In the end, I split the class into groups and gave them the first picture story on a worksheet. I decided that they should be encouraged to write down two vocabulary words for each picture during the one-minute preparation time that they had. In addition, I told them to share their vocabulary words with their group members and then finally, I presented them with my own chosen words. This procedure should have generated enough vocabulary words for each picture to at least give the students a good starting point.

The students then had to take turns telling their stories to each other. While listening to each story, the other group members were given the task of writing down ONE great expression that they heard from each member of the group. I thought this would give the listeners a focus and that they could learn from each other in the process. Upon listening to each group members' story, the students were then encouraged to share their 'great expressions' and were shown my own contribution as well. The students were also told to use at least two sentences per picture when telling their story and not to skip any of the pictures. On one occasion, I asked one of them to tell their story to the whole class and got the others to listen for some great expressions. This was a good exercise to do spontaneously, although a little time consuming.

Finally, the students were to finish off the lesson with a practice test scenario. Three students would take on the role of judge and one would tell the story. The students were to be given a set of criteria and the three judges would then split the criteria among themselves. For example:

In reality, it turned out that the students did not have enough time to do this and were only able to complete 3 out of the 4 picture story sets given to them.