Using Your Students' Lives and ...Phone Cameras

     Most students liven up when they become the centre of attention; almost everyone likes showing their mobile photos and commenting them. I believe it's a great opportunity to make students feel more important and significant.   
      Depending on the topic we are covering at the moment, my students are asked to take photos of their room or pets, for instance, and then they've got a chance to speak about their photos, using the grammar and vocabulary of "current interest".                    It's kind of a Show and Tell activity, enjoyed by many kids. Instead of taking photos, students can make a video. 

 You can use a lot of different activities here:

1. just describing the picture
2. comparing things (finding differences)
3. a memory game (the owner of the picture shows the others his room (pet, house etc.) for a minute, then asks questions to find out how well they remember it)
4. a betting game (for example, before having been shown a picture of a bedroom, students share their thoughts about how it might look like and make a bet - the winner has the most right guesses)
5. finding a mistake (the owner of the picture is asked several questions, the answers should not be all true, then he shows his photo and the others try to find what was false)
Here's a list of possible topics with some suggestions:

house (furniture, there is/are, a/any/some, have got) - describing, comparing (finding differences), memory game, guessing/betting game

food and utensils (in the fridge/in the kitchen/cupboards)

pets (have got, to be, like doing)

favourite things (have got, places of preposition, to be)

family and friends (appearance, character, hobbies, personal info)

housework (face expressions to show like/dislike)

daily routine (Present Simple)

school life  (teachers, school things, subjects, classmates)

There are a lot of fantastic digital storytelling tools that could be used for talking about students' photos:

Make a Witch with Voki

I'm using the SideVibe application in this case, as it's very convenient to have the task right before your eyes while carrying it out. For those who aren't familiar with SideVibe it looks like this:

Go to the SideVibe website, sign up/log in and write describing people in the search box.
If you don't want to bother yourself with any applications, just give your students the instructions below and send them to the Voki website:

Talking about people - 8 activity cards

I'm going to use these cards with my 4-th graders, so that we could review the material from the previous year. I'm planning to use them in several ways.

  First, each student takes a card and tells the class about the child/children on his card.

  Next, each student chooses a card and the others ask him/her special questions to find out as much information as possible. Then they say what they've found out about that person.

  Finally, students work in pairs and try to guess which picture their partner has chosen. They ask general questions about age, clothes, food, favourite season, hobbies, country and nationality and name.

The activity cards are editable.

My Family - a speaking activity

 Student A and student B are two siblings who " have lost their memory" as a result of a serious fight. They ask each other general/special questions to find out the facts they don't remember and circle the right words / fill in the missing information. If they don't know how to write a word, they can ask the partner to spell it.

e.g.: A   - Is our grandma's name Liz?                          A   - What's my name?       

         B   - No, it isn't. Her name is Mary.                      B   - Your name's Lucy.

        A   - Is our grandad on holiday?                               B   - How old am I?

        B - Yes, he is.                                                                 A   - You're 11.

The worksheet is editable, so you can change anything you need.