19 Creating Stories from Pictures

Get a set of picture cards. They can be pictures of objects or action or places. Anything you want the class to practice.

Place students in pairs or trios and ask each group to take 3 to 5 cards (at random). Give them 5 to 10 minutes to create a short story using all the pictures they have. For example, imagine students got the following pictures: a sea shell, an old car, and a university campus. They could come up with the following story: “We found an old car on sale. It was a 1964 Beatle, just like the one our father used to have. There was a sea shell hanging from the rearview mirror. We bought the car. We went to the university campus and it was a huge success”.

Students then present their short stories to the class.

My personal experience: I usually focus on appropriate vocabulary and fluency, rather than on accuracy, so I do not interrupt students while they make their presentations, unless they need help. If I feel that some structures need revisiting, I take notes of them to work on later with the whole class. Sometimes, I ask the students to write their stories. In that case, the students collaboratively write their stories after they present them orally and get feedback from me. I then collect and correct the stories.