Greetings, language learners and educators!
John from Cool English here, with your weekly dose of fun and engaging activities. This week, we're delving into the art of description with a delightful activity I call 'Picture Layering.' Picture this - a fascinating image and your imagination coming together to form layers of vibrant descriptions.
Picture Layering is an exceptional scaffolding exercise that effectively builds your students' vocabulary, making it suitable for all learning levels, from beginners to the most advanced English learners.
Here's how to create your masterpiece:
Layer 1: Kick off the exercise by prompting students to draft the simplest description possible for a given picture. Aim for pure simplicity with no adjectives or adverbs. Depending on the size of your class, have students write their phrases in larger groups or speak out loud in private classes.
Layer 2: Now, it's time to embellish. Guide your students to introduce a handful of descriptive words (adjectives and adverbs) into their initial description. Encourage them to be detailed yet restrained in their choice of words.
Layer 3: Finally, unleash the creativity! Invite your students to let loose and incorporate as many descriptive words as they can. This layer aims to illustrate the vast spectrum of descriptive language, ranging from the simplest phrases to the most intricate and colorful descriptions.
Each layer comes with a sample description to assist and inspire students as they navigate the activity.
As always, I recommend starting the activity in class and continuing it as homework. Encourage students to email you their three-layer descriptions for the remaining pictures.
I trust you'll enjoy 'Picture Layering' as much as my students have. It's always a joy to see learners harness the power of descriptive language! Be sure to visit us next week for more enriching activities at coolenglish.net.
Keep exploring,
John
