You’ve probably heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It’s totally true, and for language teachers–pictures are worth a heck of a lot more than that!
One interesting image can give you something to talk about for five minutes, ten minutes, or an entire class period. It can introduce students to a new place, launch a story, or help students learn something about the world! Pictures can create all kinds of different responses: laughter, wonder, connection, learning, and more. In other words, pictures can give students something to communicate about. And when they do?
Well, that’s Picture Talk.
What is Picture Talk?
Picture Talk is exactly what it sounds like: you show students a picture, and you talk about it. It’s really that simple! So simple, in fact, you might wonder why I need a whole blog post about it. Don’t worry–I’ve got plenty to cover!
What is the goal of Picture Talk?
Let’s rewind a second and talk about the purpose of Picture Talk. Picture Talk is always going to have a language goal, and it might sometimes also have a content goal. The language goal will always be the same: creating an opportunity for students to acquire language.
We acquire language by processing language as we communicate. That means that three things are happening whenever acquisition is taking place:
- Communication
- Interpretation
- Comprehension
Now, those three things are actually redundant. Communication always involves interpretation, and interpretation always involves comprehension. The reason I’m breaking them down is to emphasize that language acquisition isn’t driven by the expressive side of communication; it’s driven by the interpretive side of communication.
When you use Picture Talk as a strategy to create communication in class, it’s not primarily driving acquisition because your students get a chance to describe what they see. It’s primarily driving acquisition because they get a chance to listen to you describe the picture. The language goal of Picture Talk is for students to acquire language by listening to and understanding communication about a picture.
Language acquisition is always a goal, and there is sometimes a second goal: a content goal! The content goal will be to learn about a topic or support learning students in learning about a topic. That topic might be a product, practice, place, person, or perspective. And if it’s a person, it might be someone from your target culture, some other random person, or even someone in your room: one of your students!
You don’t have to have a content goal for your Picture Talk. And what I mean by that is…you don’t have to have an “academic reason” for talking about a Picture. You are a language teacher, and your job is to help your students build proficiency by acquiring language. If you’re communicating in the target language and your students are understanding, you’re doing your job! You can choose a random photo that gives you something interesting to talk about, you can talk about it, and you can move on to something completely unrelated.
What pictures should I use for Picture Talk?
The picture you choose is going to depend on whether you have a content goal for Picture Talk or not. If you don’t have a content goal, and you’re just looking for something random and interesting to communicate about, pick a random picture!
One of my favorite sources is Wikimedia Commons. They feature one picture every day, and you can go through the archives to find lots of different, great photos. We used these to create our “Photo of the Day” simple text series (in Spanish, German, French, and English).
Social Media is another great source. I often have images cross my feed with the caption, “It took me 20 minutes to figure out what’s going on in this photo,” or “Comment when you see it”--implying that there is something weird or surprising in the photo, but it’s kind of hidden. Just do a quick Google search for “What’s going on in this picture?,” and you’ll find lots of interesting things to communicate about. (Just make sure whatever you choose won’t get you in trouble!)
Other times, you do have a content goal, and you’re using Picture Talk to create communication about a specific topic. Picture Talk could be the focus of the lesson, or it could be an anticipatory set. Here’s what I mean:
Picture Talk is the focus of the lesson:
Show your students a picture of an ofrenda created for Día de Muertos. The content goal is to learn about ofrendas; especially, the kinds of things that are typically included in them and why. You display the photo, point to different things on the altar de muertos, and communicate about them! You name them, describe them, and ask students personalized questions to create connections.
Another example might be to explain to your students the Chinese hot pot dining tradition. You display a photo of a group of people gathered around a hot pot. You can communicate about who the people are, what they’re doing, what’s in the hot pot, and why.
One final example is using art! Show your students a famous piece of art, such as Dürer’s Melancolia I, and talk about it! The goal of the lesson is to learn about a particular piece of art from an artist from your target culture (in this case, Germany). What better way to get to know a work of art than to examine and discuss it!?
Picture Talk is the anticipatory set:
Other times, Picture Talk might be a way for you to build content or language background knowledge that will help students understand or connect to something that’s coming later.
It might be a way for you to establish meaning for or introduce some new words to your students so that they understand those terms later on when they encounter them in communication in the lesson. If you’re going to explain the rules of soccer later on in the lesson, maybe you want to show students a picture of a soccer field so that you can introduce students to words like goal, field, corner, and more.
Or, you might use it as a way to introduce a concept or create context for what’s coming later. Recently, we wrote a story about how scientists are using AI in Costa Rica to study how capuchin monkeys learn. Before reading the article–which would be the main communicative experience of the lesson–you might show students a picture of a capuchin monkey in its natural habitat, maybe holding a banana. It would allow you to make sure all of your students know what a capuchin monkey is, the fact that they live in tropical rainforests, and like eating bananas. If students know these three facts, the article they will read later on will make so much more sense to them!
A quick note about what photos you can use:
If you’re just showing pictures to your own students in your own classroom, I feel pretty confident saying that you can use any image: even copyrighted images. Using them in your own class with your own students would likely fall under Educational Fair Use. (But I’m not an attorney, and this isn’t legal advice!) However, you can not share copyrighted images outside your classroom. If you find a picture that you think other teachers would want to use for Picture Talk, you cannot download it and drop it into a presentation or platform for others to be able to access–even if it’s free. If you’re collaborating with other teachers or distributing your work–make sure you are using Public Domain images or images with the appropriate Creative Commons or paid, commercial licensing for what you’re doing!
How do I lead Picture Talk?
Once you’ve got your picture–or series of pictures–it’s pretty easy!
Display the picture and start communicating about it. You might begin with a question or a statement!
A statement: Name, define, or describe the image or something particular in the image. Do it in the target language!
- This is a forest. These are trees. The trees are in the forest. The trees are in a forest in Costa Rica.
- This is an animal. It is a monkey. It is a capuchin monkey. It is a smart monkey. It is adorable. It is black and white.
- This is a painting. it is called Melancolia I. There is a person. The person is an angel. There is a small child. It is a baby. etc.
- There is a woman. The woman is wearing a red dress. She is standing next to a car. The car is VERY small.
A question: Ask students what they see or what they think the picture is. Do it in the target language!
- What is this?
- What do you see?
- Who is in this photo?
- Where is this woman?
- Is this car big or small?
- Is this normal?
After you’ve started with a statement or a question, keep going! Ask questions and make more statements. Say as much or as little as your students will follow!
Keep communication going
Where the conversation goes will depend on your students’ proficiency level. As students become more proficient, the conversation can become increasingly complex. You can ask students why they think something in the photo is the way it is. You can ask them what they think happened immediately before the photo was taken, or what will happen next. You can ask how your students think that different people or creatures in the image feel or what they think! You can ask what the image tells you, as viewers, and what it makes you wonder.
The complexity of the conversation—and how much of the talking is done by the teacher versus the students—depends on your students’ proficiency.
With Novice learners, you will probably be doing most of the talking. That is okay! You are the person in the room who can speak the language in the most native-like way. Your students don't need to produce a lot of language in order to participate in communication. They can point, gesture, answer yes/no questions, choose between two options, and contribute a word or short phrase in English or in the target language while you provide the bulk of the target language needed to carry the conversation forward.
As students develop more language, they can do more of the describing, interpreting, wondering, and discussing. You, as the teacher, will continue to lead the conversation and lead them forward in their proficiency by saying things that they can understand with minimal support.
The goal of Picture Talk is never to get students to produce/say a particular vocabulary word or use a certain structure. The goal is to for them to understand language, and maybe to start learning about a topic!
Connect your students
Sure, you could talk at your students for a few minutes and then move on. But, your Picture Talk is going to be way more meaningful–and effective–if you can involve your students!
Ask them personalized questions. With the capuchin monkey story, ask: Have they ever been to a zoo? Do they like bananas? What’s better, a banana or an orange? What’s their favorite fruit? Do they use AI (Artificial Intelligence) for anything? Which LLM (Large Language Model) do they use? If a scientist were studying you, what should they use for motivation?
The whole point of Picture Talk is to create communication, and if you want to get your students to pay attention: bring them in!
Why is Picture Talk great?
Picture Talk is an excellent strategy for language classes because pictures make us curious. Compelling photographs make us want to know what’s going on, why, and where! Maybe even, “WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?”
What’s so great about this is because it gives communication an obvious purpose. There is something we want to know, notice, figure out, or react to, and we can communicate and investigate to figure it out.
Another reason I love Picture Talk is its flexibility. It can be used at any level, and it can be used with no prep. You can use the same picture in different levels to talk about the same ideas with different levels of complexity, or you could even use the same picture to go in different directions with your conversations!
Picture Talk is also flexible in its content. Comprehension-based, Communicative Language Teaching has three main content pillars: Students, Stories, and Information. We talk about these content pillars in some of our workshops! Picture Talk can be used to address any of these content pillars. Here are some ideas:
Content Pillar: Students
Display a photo connected to students’ lives. Maybe students submit photos of their pets, because students always love talking about their pets! Show one picture without revealing whose pet it is and have the class guess. Ask questions like Whose dog is this?, What is the dog’s name?, How old is it?, Is this dog calm or a maniac?, etc. Suddenly, the students themselves are the content of your lesson.
Another idea is to get pictures from different events your students participate in! Robotics Club, Concert Choir, Flag Football, Community Theater…find some images and use them to talk about what’s going on in your students’ lives (as long as you know they would be comfortable with it!).
Content Pillar: Stories
Show students an interesting image and use it to tell—or create—a story. Pictures from familiar fairy tales or other stories make for easy communication, and pictures from yet-to-be-known or yet-to-be-told stories are always a hit! You can ask students to identify or predict things like, Who is this person?, Where are they?, Why are they [holding a chicken]?, Where are they going?, What happened five minutes before this picture?, and What happens next?.
The picture might actually come from a story you plan to tell, or it might simply inspire a story that you and your students invent together.
Content Pillar: Information
Show students a photograph of a place, person, cultural product, cultural practice, historical event, scientific phenomenon, or current event. First, talk about what students can see. Then, once you have explored the image, start revealing information about where the photo was taken, who the people are, what they’re doing, and more. Pictures are windows, and they can also be doors that allow us to step into new worlds!
Use Picture Talk to make your class a place where everyone belongs!
One thing that I particularly love about Picture Talk is that because there are so very many photos available in the world and Picture Talk doesn’t have to take a lot of time, it’s an easy way to improve representation in your classes. If you are noticing a representation imbalance in your classes, Picture Talk can be a great way to start evening out the scales.
One obvious example is during the Holiday season, from October through January. You might already have some Christmas-related lessons and resources to use in class, but maybe you don’t have something for Hanukkah or Diwali. Picture Talk is a way for you to bring those celebrations into your classroom without you having to prepare texts and supporting resources.
Or maybe you’re a French teacher, and your curriculum is very France-centric. You want to highlight products, practices, people, perspectives, and places outside of France–but you don’t have anything that’s ready-made. Picture Talk is an easy way to bring them in!
Tips for nailing Picture Talk
The thing is…showing a picture does not automatically create communication. It’s all in what you do with it!
Make it understandable: You’ve got to use the target language, and you’ve got to make sure students understand. This is always the top priority!! Communication without comprehension is failed communication. You can use strategies like the ones in this blog post to ensure your students actually understand what you think they understand. Picture Talk can make supporting understanding easier because the visual gives us so many tools for making language comprehensible, but visuals are just one tool. You’ve got more! Write the meaning of keywords on the board, go slow, and ask lots of processing questions!
Know when to move on: The other thing that makes Picture Talk effective is knowing when to move on, and when not to move on! If students become fascinated by a tiny detail in the picture, TALK ABOUT THAT TINY DETAIL. Don’t worry about “getting through” all of the ideas you may have prepared or had in mind as you selected the image. Go deep in conversation when students are interested, and move on when they’re not.
Use a series of pictures: One last tip for Picture Talk is to have a few pictures ready–more than just one! If the one or two generate only a little conversation, keep moving. But when you find a picture that makes everyone want to talk, park! Stay on that photo. Student interest is so precious: don’t abandon it unless you hear the bell ringing!!
The communication is the lesson
If you’re new to Acquisition Driven Instruction, one of the most important ideas to latch onto is that meaningful, comprehensible communication is the work. When you spend time communicating in the target language and students understand, you don’t need to give students a tangible task or follow-up activity. In terms of acquisition, your students don’t need a worksheet or graphic organizer. They don’t need a follow-up task where they demonstrate that they know or can use the vocabulary that came up in the Picture Talk to write or say something.
As they are understanding communication, their internal language system is an active construction zone. Work is being done! The progress might not be immediately visible, but progress will have been made.
There might be times that you do follow a Picture Talk with a processing activity or that it makes sense to give students something to write or keep track of during the Picture Talk. If you do, make sure you’ve got a reason: not just because you feel like it’s the right thing to do!
Give yourself permission to just Picture Talk. Share the communicative experience, and allow yourself to move on!
Twists on Picture Talk
Once you’ve got Picture Talk on your radar, you will start finding ideas for it EVERYWHERE. Here are a few that we’ve blogged about and used in our lesson plans:
- Predictions Picture Talk
- What’s Behind the Door?
- Bunches of Hunches
- Find the Differences
