Slideshows in everyday language teaching practice.

Nowadays, Interactive Whiteboards are gradually replacing traditional blackboards. Some teachers embrace new technologies enthusiastically, while some others are really reluctant to give up tried-and-tested methods and technologies. Slideshows, created with PowerPoint, Open Office, Prezi or any other tool are somewhere in between the old ways and state-of-the-art technology. English language teachers can create useful slideshows that will foster communication at different stages in their lessons and will save a lot of time and resources in their daily teaching practice.

Slideshows can be used in any classroom with a computer and a beamer. Nowadays, many classrooms are fitted with this equipment, while some others depend on the teacher carrying the laptop and the projector for each class. Schools using IWBs in their classrooms can also make the most of slideshows. And slideshows can be easily shared with students or other teachers on virtual learning environments like Moodle or using "cloud computing" services and / or websites. Some of these websites are Slideshare and Slideboom. You may also want to use Dropbox to store presentations and other files, share them, and access them from anywhere.

We can use slideshows for many purposes in our daily English language teaching practice: a picture description can be a good lead-in to a lesson. Error correction activities or grammar charts can be really time-saving if we have them on a digital file, because we don't have to write them on the blackboard. We can organize "enemy corners" in the class and students have to guess what's below a covered part of a "mystery picture". And we can highlight the parts of a text or a transcript which show the correct answer to a reading or listening activity.

It is also possible to embed a media player (Windows Media Player or a Flash player for Youtube and similar videos) and prepare slides with songs, audio or video files. Sound files can be used to show how words are pronounced or to ask students to guess which picture represents the end of a story, among other purposes.

Of course, each software allows for a particular set of options and we'll probably get used to using a specific type of slides or techniques. But a good command of this easy-to-use software and a wide collection of ideas can help us work more efficiently and make our classes more dynamic, varied and productive.

On this website you'll find different ideas about the use of slideshows in class. Apart from the description of the pedagogical use of these slideshows, you'll see pdf & interactive tutorials on how to create each type of slides. Some example slides are also available. The restricted area, which contains the full set of slide types, tutorials and examples is currently available to teachers who attend my talks at teacher-training events and to my students at Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

The web is full of downloadable PowerPoint lesson plans and activities, along with papers about the pros and cons of using slideshows in class. Here is a small collection of links:

Papers:

Adam Simpson: Using PowerPoint for ELT

Sample PowerPoint presentations for teaching grammar

Using PowerPoint presentations for ESL Teaching

Free, downloadable PowerPoint lessons

Example slides and tutorials

Example slideshows have been created using PowerPoint 2010. If you have PowerPoint 2003 or an older version, you may need to download this converter to view the file. You can also open the file with Open Office 3 or higher.

Warm-up activities

Guided description

Listed below are what I consider to be the main strengths of this slideshow type.

Checking previous knowledge: A slideshow allows us to stage the use of images and vocabulary. This way, we can show the picture and see what students know and check their previous knowledge. We can just listen to selected students, analyze pair or group work or write down the key words they use on a notebook, so that we can make the necessary changes to the textbox we show to students later on.

Activating schemata: Showing students one or several pictures helps us introduce the topic and activate students' previous experiences and knowledge on the topic. Students come to class with a thousand recent experiences that are not necessarily connected to the topic we're dealing with. A picture quickly gets them to the universe on the topic and connects the contents in the topic with their life experience.

Pre-teaching: Using pictures and text boxes will allow us to present in context key vocabulary for the lesson.

Different grouping options: Although we usually project the picture to get the students' attention and to work with the whole class, we can set up pair or group work activities in which students have to prepare a description of the picture, add key words or carry out a competitive activity.

Challenge or help: The use of animation effects allows us to present the activity as a challenge, with no help, or as a help, by showing the vocabulary.

Mystery picture

©2011 Fernando Romeu