[EDLING:2366] EducationGuardian.co.uk: Get in the picture

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Get in the picture
Images can unlock more language than words, argues Jamie Keddie

Jamie Keddie
Friday February 16 2007
The Guardian


The largest aircraft ever built sinks to the ground tail first as a gigantic ball of fire mushrooms above it. The disaster took place on May 6, 1937, as the Hindenburg Zeppelin was coming in to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey, after its transatlantic flight.

Sabotage has long been a theory, but regardless of who or what was responsible for the Hindenburg's destruction, photographers on the ground below were certainly responsible for its immortalisation. While the words that were used to report the incident 70 years ago fade, the images persist. Image one, words nil.

But then this is not a competition. Or is it? In language teaching, images usually come in a poor second to the words. Although there is no shortage of glossy and engaging pictures in course books, activities tend to focus on the text that accompanies them.

If you go for an interview at a language school, the chances are that you will be given a text and 20 minutes to prepare a lesson around it. To be asked to plan an activity around a single image would be a surprise. This may stem from the understandable notion that when learning a foreign language, a student must be continually presented with samples of it.

In linguistics a text is seen as any chunk of language, whether it is written or spoken. In language learning texts can be placed into one of two categories - those that are imported from outside the classroom (articles and podcasts for example) and those that emerge within the classroom from the students and teacher (discussions, written compositions etc). According to communicative language teaching approaches, it is these student-derived texts that play the biggest role in the effective learning of a target language.

When I started out as a teacher I made a false assumption about the relationship between imported texts and learner-derived texts. If I wanted my students to produce language, so I thought, I would have to start with an imported text. But the articles about graffiti culture, blue whales and September 11th that I hoped would get my students talking and writing didn't. It was images that did the trick.

In his book, All Consuming Images, Stuart Ewen writes: "If you really want to move people, don't use words, use images." Could it be that pictures are more suitable than text for unlocking the language in our learners' minds?

In my experience, pictures are more effective than words at promoting conversation, communication and motivation. A good image will place memories in our minds and result in little outbursts of thought and curiosity. Whereas a text that the language teacher brings into the classroom supplies the language explicitly, an image implies it and thus creates a void for learners to fill.

For example, the Hindenburg photograph could be used for the basis of discussion, storytelling, role plays (an interview with an eyewitness for example), student-produced newsflashes, student-written newspaper articles, vocabulary learning, grammar study and so on.

This is not a case of one thing or the other. Words and pictures are inseparable. We see words and think of images and vice versa. If the teacher merely focuses on words, he will inevitably miss out on the countless teaching opportunities that images have to offer.

Unlike text, images are instant. A learner can scan from one picture to another until she finds one that she connects with. By taking a number of different images into the classroom, there is the potential to offer learners choice in the content of the class.

The next time the subject of the difference between the words "purse" and "wallet" arises in your class, make no attempt to explain with language. Pictures can provide the answer. Go to Google's image search and type in the two words. The multiple images of the two objects will surely convey the meaning of the words better than language ever could. Image is meaning. An image search engine can be used as an image corpus on hand for reference at all times.

There are many other resources besides. Many ELT publishers are starting to produce good CD-roms of interactive whiteboard-compatible images for teaching. There are more and more free online services for organising and sharing your photographs such as Flickr and Picasa. Digital cameras are becoming cheaper. Mobile phones that take pictures are almost ubiquitous.

Most bookshops have shelves well-stocked with titles such as All American Ads, Graffiti World, The Art Book, Skylines of the World - publications crammed with glossy, colourful and engaging images. And then there are old calendars, postcards, maps, magazines, newspapers, the classroom wall and my personal favourite piece of technology, the pencil.

Humans are linguistic creatures. We are also creatures of image. We think in language. We think in images. In the race between words and pictures, pictures may well be making a comeback.

· Jamie Keddie teaches English in Barcelona, Spain

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