TEACHING GRAMMAR THROUGH PICTURES

IN THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM

Arpentii Tatiana, lect. univ.
Catedra Limbi și Literaturi Străine, UST
Mastering English grammar is still one of the important components in
mastering English. For beginners and low level students, vocabulary and grammar are
probably their focusing learning English. Some difficulties are faced by students who
learn English grammar as second or foreign language. Teaching grammar is the
cornerstone of any language teaching in the world because of the importance of
grammar itself. Grammar can be defined as the way a language manipulates and
combines words or bits of words in order to form longer units of meaning. There is
no doubt then that teaching grammatical rules constitutes an essential aspect in the
mastering of a given language.
Grammar teaching in the language classroom has constituted an important and
debated issue for the last fifty years. The way grammar is or has been considered has
a direct and decisive influence on pedagogical grammars, learning processes and
many other areas involved in the second or foreign language teaching. Grammar, as a
subsystem in a network of other linguistic subsystems and sub-skills, has been
attached different roles in the language classroom, reaching little consensus, not only
about the particular items to be taught, but about when, or how, or even where to
teach or learn.
Teaching grammar through visual aids, especially through pictures, seems to be
important in the sense that it arouses interest, motivation in the pupils in beginner
classes. As the saying goes “Interest begets effort”, this is true in the sense that for
undertaking any work, we must be first and foremost motivated and interested in that
work. So, if a pupil is motivated, the process of learning grammar will become easier
and he will understand quicker without time consuming. But if the teaching is verbal,
it may appear as something boring for the pupils. Then the teacher should bear all
these factors in mind not to use abstract things which may result in not conveyed
messages.
Rivers (1988) defines grammar as the rules of a language set out in a
terminology which is hard to remember, with many exceptions appended to each rule.
The writing of grammar is basically an attempt at systematization and codification of
a mass of data which may at first sight appear amorphous but within which recurrent
regularities can be discerned. The way in which this systematization is approached
depends on the convictions of the grammarians about the nature of the language [6].

276
 William (1991) defines grammar as an inescapable fact of a language system
because it is the set of principles which permit orderly speaking and writing. The fact
is that grammar would exist even if there were no books about grammar because it is
essentially the unwritten agreement among speakers of the language about the ways
they will express the idea most efficiently [7]. The grammar of a language covers
such points of usage as tenses, spellings, punctuation, agreement, parts of speech,
lexis and structures.
Crystal says, “Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express
ourselves. The more we are aware of how it works, the more we can monitor the
meaning and effectiveness of the way we and others use language. It can help foster
precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit the richness of expression available in
English.”
Grammar has to do with the notion of correctness and incorrectness, the theory
of language, the arrangement and the rules governing a language, thus, Grammar is
an integral part of the language [4].
In order to make pupils/students understand and learn a great number of
grammar rules, teachers can use a variety of methods and techniques. One of them is
using visual aids, especially pictures, in the EFL classroom.
Visual aids
A visual aid is, as Stevick defined it, “anything visible which helps your student
master the language more quickly or more accurately…” Then a visual aid is nothing
but an eternal support which is visible and that helps the teacher to convey his
messages to the students by appealing to their visual sense. A visual aid, according to
Dictionary of Applied linguistics, is ”a visual device used by a teacher to help
learning. For example pictures, charts, flashcards” (1986, p. 26). Corder (1966, p. 34)
states that “in language teaching anything visible can be used by the teacher to teach
meaning”.
Komorowska (2001) mentions other examples of visual stimuli, such as pictures
cut out from illustrated magazines, postcards, photographs, posters, maps,
transparencies, etc. Wright and Haleem include in their book all the visual media
which could be found for the classroom or are easily available for the teacher, namely
chalkboard and whiteboard, flannel board, magnet board and adhesive plastic, wall
pictures and wall posters, picture flash cards, word flash cards, work cards and
worksheets as well as authentic printed materials [1].

277
Classification of visual aids
Generally, we can define visual aids as “non-verbal” materials appealing to the
sense of sight. They are used in the teaching process to provide a visual stimulus
which reinforce what students are learning.
F.L. Billows suggests that visuals can be divided into three main groups:
1) 2-dimensional aids - include a wide variety of pictures and drawings, such as
all kind of pictures, postcards, posters and magazines, maps and plans, tables, charts,
diagrams, graphs, mind maps and time lines, picture stories, cartoons and comic
strips, film, video, television, cinema and slides.
2) 3-dimensional aids which mean teacher’s and students’ body language
(mimes, gestures, facial expression, acting a situation, puppets)
3) Other visual aids - almost everything that presents information visually and is
used in teaching process. This might be a calendar, a clock, a mirror, toys and art:
(paintings, albums, and sculptures).
As it has been already stated, visual aids have many different forms, but they
have something in common - they mean all events of human communication which
transcend spoken or written language. They are used as a medium of conveying a
message in iconic code and play important role in a communication system [2].
Using Pictures in Grammar Teaching
Grammar can be incredibly dry and tedious if you allow it to be, but with a little
inventiveness, you can be sure that each and every time you approach a grammar
lesson, you have an arsenal of engaging activities. Using pictures can make exercises
and activities more interesting and more interactive. One of the best ways to get
inspired is to let pictures do the work for you. There are some ways to practice
grammar using pictures that will serve you indefinitely because you can adapt and
recycle them and constantly improve the activities by looking at what went well or
wrong:
People Pictures
People pictures should be number one on your list as you will use them the
most. There are numerous ways the teacher can utilize pictures of people in the ESL
classroom. Here are some ideas to get you started: Questions with famous people (Is
it a man? Is he a singer?); Describe people using pictures; Create a story from the
picture; Write the sequence of a story for the picture and share it.
Creating Captions
You can also do a lot with cartoons, news pictures, or oddly-themed pictures.
Have the students write their own captions. You can utilize news stories or current

278
events and have them write short captions that tell what is happening in the picture
using a reporter tone. You can give them perimeters or you can leave it wide open.
Think beyond what is happening in this picture. Challenge their critical thinking
skills and creativity for powerful results.
Cut-Up Stories
Cut-up stories can be a lot of fun with pictures. You can practice things like
sequence, directions, story-telling, and various tenses with cut-up stories. Essentially
it is a puzzle made of photographs. Have a stack of 8-10 photographs that are related
so that they can be put in some kind of order. Put the students in small groups and
have them examine the pictures. Tell them what the goal is. For example, tell a story
by putting these 7 pictures into an order. Give the people names and use your
imagination and create a fictional story. This exercise can be particularly interesting
and productive if you encourage students to use specific tenses (such as past simple
vs past continuous). What you choose will be based on what topic(s) you would like
them to practice.
Picture Dictation
This activity is often a favorite of students. It is much more challenging. The
best grammar activities to use this are: there is/there are, prepositions of place or
direction combined with house vocabulary, or what is happening in the picture. Put
the students into pairs and give each student a picture, face down. Tell them to take a
turn describing their picture to their partner with several sentences and descriptions.
The students have to draw what their partner tells them. You’ll want to monitor how
much concrete information they are giving and let the partner know that they can ask
clarifying questions. At the end of the activity, you may ask the class to look at the
original picture and compare it with the one that was drawn. This activity combines
lots of listening and speaking skills along with comprehension of vocabulary and
grammar.
The purpose of teaching grammar through pictures is to develop listening,
reading, speaking and writing at the same time. They are used to arouse interest in
pupils and they help them to “translate” the meaning of the text or of individual items
of language. The pictures also give the pupils a context for the language and for their
activity. Pictures can contribute to the search for specific information in the text and
to help the students demonstrate verbally that he or she has found that information
and understood it and has a personal response to offer about it. Moreover, the purpose
of visual aids is to motivate, to stimulate and guide the student.
There are some other advantages of using pictures during the lessons.

279
  Finding pictures is very simple and does not take a lot of time.
 Pictures are not expensive and they may come from many sources: magazines,
newspapers, posters, etc. and be kept for a long time.
 They can stimulate and motivate students to become more expressive.
 They can be used in warm-up activities to express the main idea of the lesson,
to guess the content of it.
 Wall pictures can be used promptly and at repeated times individually or in
groups to summarize a unit or clarify misunderstanding.
 They make the learning of a language meaningful.
Andrew Wright writes that “at some stages in teaching and learning sequence
the teacher will probably want the learner to become aware of the grammatical
principle behind the new language being learnt.” Pictures help there in many ways.
Wright provides an example of visual material used for a statement of principle.
There are two pictures of a cat. In the first one the cat is eating a fish, in the second
one there is evidence that the cat has eaten the fish. These pictures are presented in
such a way that they direct the students’ attention and show the differences between
the tenses [1].
In tense teaching very common is application of a time line. Timelines are used
to explain language in the more universal form of pictures, diagrams and symbols.
They enable the communication of sophisticated concepts to the lowest level of
learners. When teaching tenses, the teachers can use for example the top of the
blackboard which may represent the past, the middle may represent the present
simple and the bottom the future. He can draw a diagram on the board to represent
time.
For another grammar lesson, the teacher can also use pictures. For example
when teaching comparative forms, pictures can be helpful for students to master
quickly some forms of comparison. The pictures are going to illustrate that.

A great attention should be paid to the use of pictures in the process of

teaching/learning English grammar. But, of course, pictures must be chosen carefully.

280
According to some researchers, pictures should suit the language that is being learnt
and the class in which they are being applied. Pictures for lower primary may be
simple and childish. Pictures in upper primary should stimulate abstract thinking. All
of them should be culturally appropriate to the learners. A good picture should be
long lasting, strong and visible. If it is to be shown to the whole class the size should
be big enough for all learners to see.
It should be taken into account that pictures are very important and their
advantages are broad particularly in beginners’ classes. They help the teacher get his
class lively and beget interest from the students. When a teacher uses visual
aids/pictures, he does not have to explain at length a grammar point, the very act of
making visual illustration brings out quickly the meaning and valuable class time is
then saved. Pictures allow participation in a classroom. They can bring cultural
enrichment to students. In beginners’ classes, they are important because it is in the
first cycle in which the students learn for the first time the language. So, the fact of
using pictures is something that is advisable. They will help teachers to teach
grammar communicatively. Lastly, teachers should use judiciously the visual aids
that are reachable in their teaching and they should know when, why and where they
use them and how they use them also. When all these principles and techniques are
applied by every teacher, the teaching of grammar will get its improvement and
development too.

Bibliography
1. Wright A. 1000+ Pictures for teachers to copy. Longman.
2. Billows F.L. (translated by B. Jasinska, B. Pawlowska). Technika naucznania
jezykow obcych. Warszawa: Panstwowe Zaklady Wydawnectw Szkolnych,
1968. p. 138-163.
3. Brown H.D. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy. 2nd Edition. England: Parson Longman, 2000.
4. Crystal D. Word and Deed. 2004. Available online at http://www.
davidcrystal.com/DC articles/ Education 2.pdf.
5. Richards J., Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.
Cambridge University Press, 1986.
6. Rivers W.M. The Psychologist and the Foreign Language Teacher. Chicago:
Michigan University Press, 1988.
7. William D.I. The Holt Guide to English. USA: Holt Rinehart and Wiston,
1981.

281