Listening is one of the most important parts of language learning.

But in the early stages it can be difficult to find listening material that is at the right level. Many recordings are either too difficult or too artificial.

One of the best solutions is to create your own listening material with the help of a language helper.

A simple way to do this is by using a book of photographs.

When someone describes pictures that you can see, the images help you understand what is being said. This creates a kind of scaffolding for learning. At first the pictures support your understanding, but over time you can listen to the same recording without looking at the images and still understand much of what is being said.

For this activity it is helpful to collect a good set of pictures as early as possible. Photos are especially useful for learning verbs and practicing verb tenses, so try to include pictures of people doing many different activities.

It is also helpful to include a variety of people:

  • different ages
  • pictures with one person
  • pictures with several people
  • family photos that show relationships

How to Use Your Photo Book

The photos should be in a book so that they will always be in the same order. This allows you to listen to the same recordings repeatedly while following along with the same pictures.

Ask your language helper to go through the pictures and say something about each one. For example, your helper might name the clothes people are wearing in all of the pictures.

You should make a recording of this.

Later you can listen to the recording while looking at the same pictures in your photo book. The pictures help you understand what is being said.

After you become familiar with the recording, try listening again without looking at the pictures. You will be able to understand much of what is being said because the images have already helped you connect the language to meaning.

Listen to the recording several times over the course of a few days until you can understand most of what is being said.

Ideas for Recordings

Decide what kind of language you need to work on, and ask your language helper to look through all of the pictures and make sentences. Make a recording of this. You will want to ask your language helper to speak in full sentences. For example, if you are asking her to tell you 5 things she can see in each picture, you don't want her to simply say "table, chair, curtains, girl, doll", you want her to say "I see a table and a chair. I see curtains. There is a girl with her doll." You want to try to capture natural language.

Here are some things you could ask.

Look at all of the pictures and:

  • tell me what the people are doing.
  • tell me how old you think they are.
  • tell me who you see, for example girl, old man.
  • tell me what they are wearing. Include colours.
  • tell me 5 things you can see in each picture.
  • use at least one sentence to describe each person e.g. “This man has a beard. This is a short lady. The baby is cute.” etc.
  • describe the clothes in more detail. For example, is it short-sleeved, does it have buttons, is it beautiful.
  • give me two sentences about each picture that use prepositions, for example, "the boy is next to the girl" or "the hat is on the man".

But you can go far beyond simple vocabulary and basic grammar. A photo book can also help you practice many kinds of grammatical structures and more complex sentences.

For example, imagine you are currently learning the past tense, or working on sentences that use words like because or if. You can easily practice those structures by talking about the pictures.

  • These pictures are all from the past. Can you please use the past tense to tell me what these people were doing.
  • Can you please tell me sentences that say when these people were doing these things, for example, "The lady was sitting on the sofa yesterday evening".
  • Can you tell me what you think these people were doing before this, for example, "Before she sat on the sofa she made dinner."
  • Imagine that the picture shows what the people are doing now. Can you give me sentences that say what you think they will do after, for example, "The lady is sitting on the sofa, and after that she will go for a walk."
  • Can you tell me why you think these people are doing what they are doing, for example, "The lady is sitting on the sofa because she is watching television." or "The lady is sitting on the sofa because she is tired."
  • Can you tell me how you think these people are feeling, for example, "I think this lady is lonely."
  • Can you make up some sentences to tell me what these people should be doing, for example, "The lady is sitting on the sofa, but she should be getting ready for work."

Additional Ways to Use Your Photo Book

  1. Listening to a description about a single picture

Use just one picture. Ask your language helper to describe the picture in as much detail as possible. Record this so you can listen to it later.

  1. Speaking practice with the whole photo book

In the same way that your language helper made recordings of the themes and grammar structures mentioned above, you can also use those ideas for speaking practice.

Record yourself going through the pictures and saying something about each one. Then listen to the recording with your teacher and ask her to stop whenever she hears a mistake.

This is also a good activity for discovering gaps in your language ability.

  1. Speaking about a single picture

Choose one picture. Decide what kind of language you want to practice, then speak for a minute or two while recording yourself.

Afterward, listen to the recording with your teacher and ask her to correct your mistakes.

Some ideas for what you could talk about include:

  • what you like about the picture
  • describing the people
  • describing where things are positioned
  • what you would do if you were there with the people in the picture
  • naming as many objects in the picture as you can, and using a different adjective with each object