In my post on Leveling Heritage with Non-Heritage Learners, I argued that continuously talking about new people, places, things, and events allowed for repeated language without asking Circling questions, and why. Here I illustrate how I finish making a set of PictureTalk slides quickly. What I've learned from making Bottomless PictureTalk files (mine are now often 30 to 40 slides) is to design with speed in mind; I don't want to spend 3 hours making just one file.
HOW TO: Here's how I do it: 1) if you have a unit theme, search Google Images for things, people, and places within that theme. Add them to your slides in Powerpoint, Keynote, or Google Slides (links to examples below). 2) Always download or copy 3 to 4 variations of each images of a person, thing, or place you find. That saves time from searching again. Place these images in randomly in your slide set (or place then in the order you found them and randomize later). 3) Consider your age group, and search the internet for "top celebrities now" (for high school and college) or "best cartoons for children now" (for K-6 through middle school). This is the "own culture" portion needed for your students to talk about what they know and like in the target language. If you do invisibles (cartoon creatures drawn by the students in your class, then step 5 is useful). If you trust that the cartoon/celebrity list is really appropriate for your age group, choose images that you've never heard of, so the students can really teach you new information, 4) Again, download 3 to 4 images of each person or cartoon or thing or place you find. This fills your slides and saves time. 5) In your populated slide set, duplicate some of the slides, and obscure the version of the image that occurs first. This introduces variation in the discussion, where some of the slides allow for discussion of what might appear next (for example, two ear tips might be Bugs Bunny's ears, and the next slide reveals that it is indeed him). 6) On the final slide, include many pictures that have appeared on previous slides. You can use this as an assessment, or if you just like giving students opportunities to talk, this slide is for that. 7) Finally, if you want to include the written versions of the words you are targeting (and if you are targeting), make a small text box with a white background in the first slide. Copy this, and quickly paste it into all of the slides. Again, the goal here is speed, as PictureTalks can normally take 2 to 3 hours to create if speed is not your goal. I use these steps to cut that time down to about 20 minutes. To end, here is a link to a sample I made for Day 2 with elementary schoolers so they could hear how to ask people's names, and who they like. Here is one for Mother's Day, where I asked elementary schoolers if they would buy each set of flowers for their mother, and who would like them (the children themselves and/or their mothers). In each of these class discussions, non-targeted words and structures come up naturally as well, as the students show interest in what they want to talk about.
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Reed Riggs (Author)
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