Using pictures from the textbook and theme pictures for language teaching

Background of the school:

I work at a school that is located in an urban area. Having a total of 987 students (from the pre-primary to the 10th Std), the strength of the school can be considered as high. Most of the students hail from very poor and economically backward families.

I strongly believe that learning cannot be limited to the four walls of a classroom. Learning and understanding should go hand in hand so as to enable students to apply their knowledge in their daily life.

Using pictures from the textbook and theme pictures for language teaching—A case study:

Picture-based interaction is one of the key elements that I employ for teaching language in my classroom. I would like to recall one particular instance—my experience of teaching the lesson titled ‘The Winged Friends’. The objective of the text was to make the students understand the role played by birds in the sustenance of the ecosystem. It also aims to enlighten the students about how one can take up the hobby of bird watching and be responsible for the safeguarding of the biodiversity.

Before the students are made to read a passage, it is always helpful if they are sensitized about the theme that the lesson caters to. In this regard, pictures can be used as the trigger element to channelize the thoughts of the students towards reading the passage.

Pictures helps students make intellectual predictions, and it helps in facilitating the sharing of their ideas about a given text. It allows for the identification of the theme, which is captured as short phrases or sentences. The interaction revolving around the picture and the theme helps the students to comprehend a text better.

The students were quite eager to share their knowledge about the birds talked about in the text after looking at the pictures that were provided.

One student raised the question as to why there was a picture of a crocodile in the textbook when they were, in fact, talking about birds.

The picture of a sparrow also triggered the interest of the students. Pictures of some of the birds in the text, such as hornbill, tern, solai paadi, were new to the students. Such pictures made the students curious to know their names and habitat.

A video was shown to the students about the hornbill and its habitat, which their interest to know more about the strange behaviors of the hornbill, such as the locking of the female by the male during incubation.

There was a vibrant atmosphere in the whole class, and interaction played a major role in the classroom teaching. Language teaching is a holistic exercise that can be addressed if the learners are given the freedom to express their thoughts and their ideas in the classroom.

Activity after the transaction:

As a follow-up activity, the students were instructed to look out for observe the activities of the birds that they come across on their way to school. They were then required to fill an observation sheet with the features of the different birds that they saw—their names, their colour, the shape of their beaks, their habitat, their food habits, and their sounds or calls.

As a result of this activity, the students came up with a lot of information about the different birds that they saw around them. Most of the students, including a few low-proficient learners, were very enthusiastic about this task. The students also shared their experience of petting birds and the joy and fun acquired while spending time with their birds at home.

Outcome:

The students were able to improve their vocabulary by being able to identify and understand new words, such as “ornithologist”, “bill”, “habitat”, “bole”, “freak”, “predators”, etc.

The students formed a group and visited the Ossudu lake on weekends with the consent of their parents.

The picture of a caged bird under the ‘extra reading activity’ section made the students realize the importance of the freedom for their ‘winged friends’.

The pictures provided in the text sufficiently kindled their interest for this topic and helped generate a good interaction.

Way forward:

“Language is not a science to learn, but it’s an art to acquire.”

Any language can be acquired by a student, if he/she is able to understand its purpose and its utility in his/her life, or is even attracted by its appeal.

Teaching a language should begin with the creation of a live platform, rather than simply employing the traditional method of teaching from the text, so that the students are interested and attracted towards the language. If this can be accomplished, making the students acquire a new language would become an interesting task for the teacher as well.

Author: K. Sivasubramanian, TVGHS Kadirkamam