Pages of the Oasis

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Some Great Photos Suitable for Teaching Activities in Saudi Arabia

Want some teaching materials that are easy to adapt to any level class, and works well for teaching men or women?

Try this photo pack I created while I was in Saudi Arabia for classes taught while teaching in Riyadh.

I made these photos because it is very tricky to find suitable visual images that would pass the cultural sensitivity guidelines I had to work within. And that I could get printed off (so get prints made  efore you go). Since they were given the green light where I worked, and were really well received by my students, they are likely to work well for you too.

 You can get the photo pack here: www.eslincontext.com ( click on ' photo packs' on the left hand side and scroll down to ' Scenes from Saudi Arabia'.)




The photos are of a variety of situations in Saudi Arabia: weather scenes, shopping in a bazaar in downtown Riyadh, people meeting and talking in a hotel lobby (series of photos) and a woman teaching a class ( series of photos).

The photo series work well to teach a variety or verb tenses: present simple ( What`s the weather like? Describe what you see in this picture? stating the facts of the situation depicted, dialogues for role plays) the continuous/ progressive tenses (describe what is happening/happened/will be happening 10 minutes later) and perfect tenses (by the time this picture was taken, what has/had/will have had happened?) and perfect continuous/ perfect progressive ( by the time X happened [imagine an event depicted at some point in the photo series], what has/had been happening/ will have had been happening?)

You can teach all parts of speech with these photos, and adapt your dialogues and activities to suit the needs of whatever level of language learner you are dealing with.

Since photo are so versatile and are easily portable, working just as well in print an in digital formats (on your smart phone during a private lesson or when projected onto an interactive whiteboard) they are the perfect teaching aid.

Best of all, the students always responded to the photos when I used them in class. The glazed look of boredom passed from their faces, replaced by active interest. Once they perked up, they usually participated well in the next activity based on the photo(s).

If you want more ideas about how to do engaging interactive activities using photos, be sure to download the free ebook ''Using Photos to Teach English' on my site:
www.eslincontext.com ( click on ' instructional materials').

Enjoy!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for commenting!