The internet offers a wealth of opportunities for creative lesson planning. Any lesson topic you want to present to your class can be supported by materials you find online. This lesson focuses on building class work around visual materials found at Flickr. Flickr is an online photo repository popular with literally millions of users. One of the great advantages to using Flickr is that you can find images licensed for use under the creative commons licensing framework. Creative Commons provides a number of licensing schemes that allow some materials to be used for all purposes (even commercial), others to be used only for non-commercial purposes, etc. As an educator, it's important to set a good example for our students. Flickr provides the perfect forum in which to set this example, as well as having access to first class materials.
This lesson focuses on using Flickr to help prepare for oral examinations such as those found on the Cambridge First Certificate, CAE and Proficiency exams. If you are familiar with this series of tests, students are asked to describe similar photographs, as well as point out the differences between the two through an interlocutor (examiner doing the oral examination) led discussion. Here are some example questions:
- I'd like you to take a look at this photo. Could you tell me what is happening?
- What do you think has caused this situation?
- How do you imagine the people in the photo feel?
- Take a look at your partner's photo. Please compare how the two situations are similar.
- Take a look at your partner's photo. Please discuss how the photo differs from your own.
- What advice would you give the people in the photo?
- If you were going to participate in this activity, what would you wish to do?
- Have you ever done this activity? If so, please speak about your experience.
Aim: Use Flickr as a resource to practice for oral examinations
Activity: Comparing and contrasting two similar photos
Level: Upper intermediate to advanced
Outline:
- Go to Creative Commons and click on the Search CC Licensed Work button. Choose to search on content that you can change by choosing "Search for works I can modify, adapt, or build upon". Click on the Flickr tab and enter a situational search phrase such as "People having dinner", "Hiking with Friends", etc.
- Choose two photos from the group and click through.
- It's a great idea to set up a Flickr account if you do not already have one. It's free and you'll be able to save these photos as 'favorites'.
- Save the photos to 'favorites' if you have an account. Clicking on the thumbnails will take you to a page with the photo and comments. Make sure to click on 'all sizes' in order to download the best quality photo.
- Copy the URL (web address) of the photo on Flickr. Download the photos to your hard drive.
- Open up a new Word document (or other text editing software). Copy the URLs into the document for use at the bottom. If you are doing this exercise with a larger class it's a good idea to add questions to the document.
- Add relevant questions about the photos to your document and then insert both photos into the document. Make sure to label each photo A or B so that students are clear which photo they need to take into consideration. Make sure to add a quote such as "Images used by Creative Commons License Share-Alike License 2.0" including the appropriate URL of the photo and name of the photographer or image creator. This page provides information on various Creative Common licensing schemes.
- Print out the document and make photocopies.
- Distribute the photocopies.
- Take on the role of the interlocutor, either with individual groups if working with small classes, or by leading the class as a whole. Lead students through the practice session.
- Information on the exact structure of a Cambridge exam can be found by reading this document on the FCE Oral Examination by Cambridge.
