How to teach ESL speaking and writing with pictures

Speaking and writing activities for ESL beginners and intermediate level students

Speaking and writing are the productive aspects of a language. They are also much more difficult to master because one needs to retrieve the information they already have and present it to the listener or reader.

I see this all the time: a student says they studied English in their country for a number of years (sometimes it is five, six or more years) but when it comes to speaking English, they fall silent.

They can crack grammar easily (sometimes, better than a native speaker), but they cannot find the words to express themselves in a simple conversation.

I know English! But why don’t I speak it?

As someone who learned English as a foreign language myself, I totally understand how it is. After all, learning and teaching grammar is something that can be easily measured by rules and completing worksheets.

Conversation, on the other hand, is usually artificial at best. While it has to be done and one of the ways to do it is to have a weekly topic that the class discusses – from vocabulary building to reading about it and other activities – if you are learning English as a foreign language, you likely forget it the minute you close the doors and go back to your world where you understand everything and there is no need for English.

This kind of language learning requires a lot more motivation and dedication; it requires a very strong why and for a lot of younger learners, English is just another class that they have to pass.

Until life brings them to an English speaking country. I have a couple of students this year that made me ask the question how DO we learn a language again. They are sisters (both in high school) and studied English in their home country for roughly the same number of years (seven or even eight, to be more exact). However, one of them is very competent in English and the other one, although she is familiar with basic grammar, is not able to communicate at all.

They also proved a point, once again, that motivation in learning English as a foreign language is extremely important. And that the need to understand what is going on around you in an English speaking country, fuels that motivation when you are learning it as a second language.

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Motivation and confidence in speaking and writing

But how can we help the students become more motivated and self-confident in communicating in English?

As you already know, my favorite way of teaching speaking and writing is one that makes the students invested in their own learning. That is, finding a topic that they feel strongly about, or are curious about.

It goes without saying that incorporating all four language domains – listening, speaking, reading and writing – is super important.

In order for a beginning level student to be able to express themselves on any given topic, they need a few things:

vocabulary about that topic
knowledge of English sentence structure
basic grammar points (which have to be taught explicitly before asking them to produce)

In order for an intermediate level student to be able to express themselves on any given topic, they need to continue expanding their vocabulary through reading and listening, and then actually applying that knowledge in their own production.

Therefore, to encourage my own students to be braver in communicating in English, I created a few resources that I have been using quite successfully.

Beginner self-assessment sheet

This is a sheet that I use with my very beginning levels to see what they think about their own learning and to track progress. It is also a wonderful motivational tool because at first, the progress I see and the progress they see is so different. However, as time goes by, the students begin to realize that progress is, in fact, being made.

Speaking and writing picture prompts for beginners
Speaking and writing picture prompts for intermediate level students

As I already mentioned in my blog post about teaching strategies for beginners, visuals are extremely important.

Incorporating pictures in speaking and writing!

All of the above resources are wonderful to get you started.

I have created fantastic resources to practice speaking and writing with your EL students. My students LOVE them, and I hope yours will too!

The first one is 25 Authentic Speaking Activities for Your ESL Classroom.

In it, I have included 25 photo lessons with idioms, word banks, discussion questions, and writing/speaking extensions. In addition, you will find 25 lesson plans that will help you save time!

This resource is so valuable and I am not just saying it – those who have tried it (including the students!) are very impressed and happy with it as well!