The Big Picture has been a wonderful resource for me this year. Most of what shows up is related to current news footage, and as such is mostly useful for my 3 / 4 combined class who enjoy talking about the real world, but even then, I only pick and choose (Useful: Oil Slick in Gulf, Flooding in Nashville, Volcano in Iceland—they can see themselves in these shots and relate; Less Useful: Earthquake in China, Riots in Kyrgystan—heavy violence and turmoil [including potential corpse photos] are just too harsh a world for them right now). I will narrate the slides (establishing vocabulary), and then ask very simple questions as to reactions, what it would be like to be in a particular picture, etc. This has the potential to go really wide vocabulary speaking, but a picture anchors the understanding very well while I can just point at the item. I can throw in a dictation afterwards that sums up the major points of what we just saw, recycles the vocab, and allows them to process the language safely.
Often there will be a great general-interest series that all of my classes want to know about: the World Expo in Shanghai, Signs of Spring, various international holidays, etc.) and then I’ll do a similar flyby on the pictures: establishing vocabulary, determining interest and milking the conversation as long as the mood in the room lets me. On these pictures we’ll just riff and play around with whatever comes up.
Occasionally, though, I’ll hit the jackpot and find a picture world so compelling that we need to just take a class trip there for a few days. In March, for example, after seeing the pictures related to the Olympics, I allowed my German 1s to each choose a clothing item from the stack we were learning about, decide what super-power it bestowed upon them, and then we went to go compete in the Olympics ourselves. We laughed our way through the different events we competed in (Bob was supposed to ice-dance but suddenly became shy, so Julie used her weather-control powers to create a thunderstorm distraction while Lara teleported down to the ice to give Bob a pep talk; Bob, of course, won the Gold).
Just this week my normally reserved and “what else you got” German 3 /4 class just let it all hang out after I showed them pictures of an English “Tough Guy” competition. After seeing the pictures I had them group-think their own “Tough Guy” competition locally (jumping from train to train, getting eaten by a shark/mutant carp and fighting their way out, changing a baby’s diaper who had explosive diarrhea, crawling under barbed wire wearing a thong [don’t ask], etc.). I gave each student a blank 4-picture sheet and had them illustrate their own variations of events during the discussion. The next day (after I had scanned the pictures and organized them into related “events”) they had decide which member of a pre-selected team (Kirby, Bowser, Turkish ninja cats, and a Grillwalker Bratwurst vendor) would compete in each event and discuss how they would overcome the obstacles. We worked the vocab “would be” , “would have”, and “could” and it came off like a charm. I was worried that the discussion would get too wide vocab-speaking , but the pictures anchored everything, the target vocab was second nature really quick, and we had a riot. We spent two days working their team through the obstacle course they set up, and they were left wanting more.
In summary, I see the Big Picture series not as a daily resource, but more like a special event or holiday that crops up every now and then. Sometimes we’re just glad for the chance to see what a great big world we live in, and other times (when I’ve got the energy to throw into it) it turns into a massive team-building exercise. Either way, we’ve enjoyed it.
[ed. note: I would love to hear others’ ideas on this point that Nathan made twice, quoted here:
“…this has the potential to go really wide vocabulary speaking, but a picture anchors the understanding very well while I can just point at the item…”.
“…I was worried that the discussion would get too wide vocab-speaking , but the pictures anchored everything,..”.
This has enormous potential]