An effective way of getting students speaking is to have them describe a picture or photo, but this can a get a little old after a few times. There are many paired and group activities that students can do with an image beyond a simple description.
I compiled 50 speaking activities using images and photos in the foreign language classroom. Two of them are are:
- One student orally describes a picture to a second student who then draws a copy of it.
- One student orally describes a picture to another student who then is given a choice of pictures and must choose the one described.
You can download the entire document with all 50 ideas by clicking the box below.
These are fairly low-prep activities. All the teacher really needs to do is find pictures (easily done on the Internet) that represent the vocabulary or topics. Why not involve students in process as well?