From flashcards to flash images is the title of a talk I gave recently at the 3rd International Symposium and Conference on ELT Materials (link here). I would like to say thank you very much to everyone involved, especially Sujatha, Jayakaran and the people from Pearson, for organising a great conference and of course, for inviting me. I would also like to say thank you to Alan and Brian for putting my name forward as a speaker.

Flash cards

In this presentation, we started off by looking at the pictures that we flash at our learners in order to teach, revise or drill language. We considered the following aspects:

Sources

Teachers lacking artistic abilities, have traditionally had to rely on ELT products or resources as a source for picture flashcards.

Themes

A typical set of flashcards will usually be based around a theme such as animals, actions, adjectives, parts of the body, weather, clothes, colours, emotions, etc.

Authenticity

We often hear discussions on the pros and cons of authenic and inauthentic materials for language teaching. The materials in question are usually always texts. By analogy, images can also be authentic or inauthentic depending on whether or not they are created specifically for teaching language to learners.

Format

Flashcards are usually paper-based.

From flashcards to flash images

At this stage in the talk, I showed some example flashcards of pictures of animals. I’m not going to reproduce them here because I could get into trouble. However, here are three online resources for picture flashcards that I recommend:

• www.eslflashcards.com
• www.onestopenglish.com
• www.englishraven.com

Some of the pictures that are on offer here are great. Whoever has drawn these animals, for example, has done an excellent job and I am sure that once printed off, they could be used for a diverse range of engaging classroom activities.

But if we want to teach the names of animals to learners, there is a much more powerful teaching tool at our disposal. The following pictures were obtained from an image search engine:

A site such as Google image search is nothing less than the biggest picture dictionary the world has ever seen.

Flash images

Perhaps picture flashcards have been suffering from a lack of self-esteem and are in need of a technological makeover. Let us consider how they can be improved:

Sources

Any online database of images can be considered a resource. As well as any standard image search engine (see above), any of the following can be exploited:

• www.amazon.co.uk (a great source for images of book and DVD covers)
• Stock images sites such as www.gettyimages.com or www.corbis.com
• Image sharing sites such as www.flickr.com

Themes

When we turn to the internet to obtain images, possibilities are almost unlimited. We may create series of images to teach specific language points that would not be possible with conventional flashcards. For example, the following images were downloaded in order to teach a specific language point. Can you work out what it is (scroll down slowly if you don’t want to see the answer)?

Answer: The images could be used to teach 15 do or make collocations:

Doing the dishes
Doing 100 mph
Making the bed
Making sure there are no monsters under the bed
Making a wish
Making coffee
Making money
Making a noise
Doing time
Doing business
Doing a bungee jump
Doing a striptease
Making a phone call
Doing housework
Making a funny face

Similarly, we could use online image resources to compile slideshows to teach:

• Idioms, expressions and sayings (link here)
• Superlative structures (pictures of the highest mountain in the world, the tallest man in medical history, the biggest animal that has ever lived on our planet, etc)
• Prepositions (at work, on the moon, breakfast in bed, etc)
• The difference between can and could (click here for a lesson plan which uses images of DVD covers each containing one of those words in the title)
• Specific words or items from a text that students are going to read or hear.

Authenticity

As a result of a higher authenticity factor, many of the above images could activate schemata or spark the imagination and be used for the basis of diverse writing or speaking activities.

Format

As well as being digitally obtained, Flash images can be digitally stored and displayed. We can make use of applications such as Windows picture and fax viewer (standard for PCs), Picassa (free to download and highly recommended) or Microsoft Power Point to create slideshows to play to students in class. Slideshows can even be uploaded onto the Web using sites such as Picassa web albums, and links can be sent to students.

In the classroom, images and slideshows can be:

• Displayed on a computer (students can be asked to gather around the screen)
• Projected from a computer onto a screen or interactive whiteboard
• Displayed on a handheld device such as an iPod (excellent for very small groups and one-to-ones)

Student-generated flashcards

Finally in the presentation, we considered that in cases when it is not possible to obtain specific images online, we can equip our students with paper and pencils and turn to them as a source for images (link here).