13  Using Pictures in Teaching

    Vocabulary in Grades 5 and 6

    Classrooms

Ibraheem Saeed Al-Ja’afari

Sharqiya South Region

            The teaching of foreign language vocabulary has been the subject of much discussion in recent years and a number of research and methodology books have on this topic (e.g. Nation, 2001; Schmitt, 2000; see also the recent review in Schmitt, 2008). 

            Using pictures is one of the teaching aids that teachers depend on in their teaching. In my experience, English teachers tend to feel that using pictures in teaching new words makes the process enjoyable and memorable. They also feel that pictures attract pupils’ attention and deepen their understanding of vocabulary. Pictures can also help learners with abstract words, as associating the words with a concrete object makes these words easier to remember. Pictures must be chosen carefully and it is hoped that this study will shed some light on how teachers make these choices. According to Harmer (2001), pictures should be appropriate not only for the language to be learned but also for the classes they are being used for; if pictures are too childish students may not like them and if they are culturally inappropriate they can offend people. Pictures also need to be visible – especially if they are being shown to the whole class they need to be big enough for everyone to see. And it also helps if pictures are durable – that is, strong enough to be used several times.

            In the lessons the writter observed, the teachers used different techniques to teach vocabulary. They used different kinds of pictures such as posters, flash cards, drawings on cards (made by pupils), drawings on the board (made by the teacher), pictures in the class books and realia. They sometimes used pupils themselves as a resource in teaching new words.

            (The Observation) The first Grade 6 lesson was based on a reading text about a wadi rescue. There were some new words that the teacher wanted to teach his pupils such as a fort, mountains, a car and a bulldozer. So he planned to use flash cards (provided by the Ministry) and to bring objects to class (a car and a bulldozer). The teacher began his lesson by putting the flash cards on the board. Then he asked his pupils to mention the things that they see in the pictures. They mentioned some words in English such as a man, a boy and a wadi, but they described other objects in the pictures in Arabic (e.g. fort, mountains, bulldozer and a car). The teacher pointed to the fort and said it loudly. He repeated the word three times and then asked the pupils to repeat it aloud. After that he asked some individual pupils to say the new word aloud. He followed the same procedure for the word mountains. For car and bulldozer , the teacher held up the objects he had brought to class and said the word.

            Both the teachers and the pupils who took part in this study had positive attitudes towards using the pictures for teaching and learning new vocabulary. Both teachers used different kinds of pictures in their lessons (though both widely used the visual stimulus cards provided by the Ministry) and in all cases the pupils responded with enthusiasm to the pictures that were used. The teachers felt that pictures attract the pupils and deepen their understanding of words; teachers also felt that when pupils associate new words with a picture they find it easier to remember the meaning of the word. These positive views about the role of pictures in teaching vocabulary reflect those mentioned in the literature review earlier (e.g. Harmer, 2001).

            Further research of this kind can look into these issues in more detail, particularly through examining the classroom practices of a larger number of teachers, discussing these practices in detail through interviews, and investigating in more detail and with a larger sample what benefits learners see in the use of pictures in learning vocabulary.