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Using visuals to motivate students to write
Target Language:
English-Second-Language
Grade Level:
Elementary, Postsecondary, Secondary
Duration:
Long (30 minutes +), Medium (15-30 minutes)
Date Submitted:
March 24, 2025
Name:
Using visuals to motivate students to write
Location:
Quebec
Objective(s):

To motivate students to write

Reference:
Roberts, Rachael. (2016). How to get your students writing in class…and loving it. Retrieved November 6, 2020 from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/how-get-students-writing-class-loving-it

Preparation and materials required:

Preparation:
a) Teacher discusses the writing process with the students (scaffolding, collaboration).
– provide a mind map (brainstorm)
– provide a language model for students to do parallel tasks
– provide a text (not a model) that contains language students can use
b) Students need to have a particular audience, purpose, time and place for writing.

Materials:
Pictures free to download/print: www.eltpics.com
Paper and pen/pencil

Process:

Pair work:
Teacher can assign or students can choose their partner.
a) Each student chooses a picture (random people on the pic).
b) Each has to describe the person on the picture – who/what they are, where they live, etc. (Teacher tells the students that the person they described met.)
c) Students write conversations between the 2 characters.
d) The pictures of each student pair are posted separately from the conversations created between the characters.
e) Students read and guess which dialogues belong to which pair of pictures.

Practice suggestions:

Each pair role plays the dialogues they have written for speaking practice.

Source of inspiration:

There are other writing activities Roberts has discussed in the video.

Roberts, Rachael. (2016). How to get your students writing in class…and loving it. Retrieved November 6, 2020 from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/how-get-students-writing-class-loving-it