TEACHING TECHNIQUES

The Power of the

Picture Book
by LAURA LODER BUECHEL

There’s nothing better than a good picture a document projector, many of the techniques
book to get started on a new topic, to get can work with other seating arrangements.)
children involved in other worlds—and
to teach language in a low-pressure, THE COVER
relaxed setting. Trained teachers know
how to tell a good tale by using acting, Before you tell a story, you want to pique
their voice, and appropriate pacing. And this your learners’ interest. This can be done in
is often enough to get learners engaged in the many ways. With the following ideas, it is
tale and in the language. important that you don’t provide the title
right away—although options are to write
Yet sometimes we want more interaction the title on the board in scrambled letters for
and involvement from our learners—we learners to unscramble or to show the title
want to really get them producing language and have learners guess what the story will be
based on the pictures and the text and about. These activities generate language use
showing their comprehension visibly. Thus, and can be applied to any other pages in the
the aim of this article is to provide simple story, not just the cover. However, with the
techniques that can be used with almost any ideas below, you should not show the cover
picture book. The techniques applied here before you start the activity.
are appropriate for younger learners—
children in elementary school—but many • Take a blank piece of paper the size of the
of these techniques can be used with older book cover. Cut a “peephole” or the shape
learners; in my experience, even older of a magnifying glass into the sheet of
learners appreciate a good picture book paper. Place the paper over the book cover.
now and again, and there are many such Move the hole around so that different
books with meaningful messages aimed at parts of the cover can be seen by the
teens and adults. students. Each time you reveal a bit of the
cover, elicit language from the learners by
I have found The Sandwich Swap (2010), asking questions such as these: “What do
written by Rania Al Abdullah and Kelly you see?” … “Can you guess the title?” …
DiPucchio, and illustrated by Tricia Tusa, to “Who are the characters?”
be a story I am able to use every technique
described below with—although with any • Have the learners sit back to back—one
story I tell, I can use most of these techniques. faces you, and the other faces the back
The classroom setting can be simple—ideally, of the room. Put up a poster or use a
you will be able to sit with your learners in a blackboard in the back of the room for
circle where they can all see the pages. (With language support that helps learners ask

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 questions (e.g., “Who is on the cover?” don’t get stuck in the habit of calling only
… “Are there people on the cover?” … on specific volunteers. An alternative is
“What are they doing?” … “Do you see a to read the text without showing any of
specific place?”). The learner facing you can the pictures and, afterwards, elicit what
see the cover. The learner facing the back learners imagine in relation to what they
of the room can see only the supporting heard. You can then ask for their ideas
language. After a few minutes of asking and about what is under the post-it.
answering questions, the learners facing
the back of the room should have a picture • I don’t read the text—but I ask the
in mind about what is on the cover.You learners what they think could be under
can then ask those learners to turn around the post-it. Everyone has a chance to
and look at the picture (the cover of the speak. I tend to turn this into a pair listing
book).You might hear an “Oh!” as what activity: “With your partner, list ten things
the learners had pictured in their minds you think could be under this post-it. You
might not correspond with what they have one minute. Go!” Pairs can write
actually see. This—what they imagined and these things down or just tell them to
expected, and what they actually see—is a another pair after the minute is up. An
discussion point in and of itself. I have also option, if learners write the words, is to
used this technique with the book trailer if have one pair say one word, and if another
it is available online. One learner watches pair has that word, both pairs cross it off
but plugs their ears so they can’t hear, and their lists. After this, I reveal what’s under
the other learner faces the back of the the post-it, and we all say what it is in
room and only listens (but doesn’t see the unison: “It’s a hummus sandwich!” Then, I
trailer). Taking away one sense is a great read the corresponding part of the story to
way to get learners to compare notes and see if we were right!
ask/answer basic Wh– questions.
• I also use post-its simply to remind myself
POST-ITS what I want to do with that particular
page. Maybe there is a specific question
I prepare in advance by going through the to be asked? A word to be repeated? A
book and covering up certain pictures with listing/predicting/summarizing activity?
post-its. When I start telling the story, I say, Occasionally, I pass the post-it note to a
“Oh, my little daughter went through and learner who reads the question out loud to
stuck post-its all through my book! I wonder the class.
what’s under them!” Generally, I will have
a post-it covering something on every other EMBODIMENT
page or so, and I work with the post-its in the
following ways: Total physical response (commonly
referred to as “TPR”) activities are a way of
• I first read the text or tell a particular embodying language. In this approach, the
part of the story. Then, to see who was usual options of acting out words or lines and
listening or picked up on a specific word showing comprehension through movement
(for example, if I say, “She ate a hummus can be used. However, it can go a bit deeper.
sandwich,” then a picture of a hummus For instance, with The Sandwich Swap, but also
sandwich will be covered), I will say, other stories such as Lauren Child’s I Will Not
“My, what could be under this post-it?” Ever Never Eat a Tomato (2007), you can do the
after having read the text out loud. I say, following:
“Think about what is under the post-it.
At the count of 3, everybody shout what • If there’s food or a food fight in the story,
they think it is.” That way, every child says write a food item (e.g., “grapes”) on a
something (be it right or wrong), and I piece of paper. Show it to half the class,

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 on one side of the circle or room. Those ROLE PLAYS AND INNER VOICE
students then pretend to “throw” the food
item at the students on the other side. The Role playing can be straightforward: you
other half of the class has to guess what dictate the lines of a short dialogue from the
is being thrown. This gets really funny story for the learners to write down, or you
for some kinds of food, such as Nutella or write the lines on the blackboard. Then, in
spaghetti. I have used this technique even pairs, learners read the lines out loud and
when there is not a food fight in the book, make appropriate actions and gestures. If you
but when food is simply mentioned. have the learners do this a few times, you can
erase or cover words each time. Once the
• There are often short dialogues in the learners “own” the role play, if there is space
story. Here, a little improvisation can in the classroom, have them do mingles and
work well on the sentence or word level. change partners and lines. I also like to have
For instance, you might have such a them experiment with voices—for example,
dialogue: as a robot, as a pirate, as a pirate talking to a
robot, and so on. With learners who are more
Charlie: I don’t like fish fingers! advanced, you can have them adapt the role
play and make it more or less formal (e.g.,
Lola: Why not? What about peas? learners pretend they are talking to an elderly
person they know or to their best friend).
In pairs, one learner reads the excerpt
out loud, and the other has to act it out, Inner-voice activities can work as role plays,
word by word—like an interpreter. but the learners create more of the text
Alternatively, let the learners read the themselves. For instance, in The Sandwich
dialogue quietly and act it out in pairs; Swap, you have, “She thought of her beautiful,
you can then read it to them so they hear smiling mother as she carefully cut Salma’s
the appropriate pronunciation. After sandwich into two neat halves that morning.”
that, the learners read it out loud in pairs The learners can say what the character is
together again. thinking—for example, “I love my sandwich.
My mother made it.” This technique works
• Saying one thing and showing something else as well with the pictures: if you take two of
helps strengthen learners’ listening skills. the food items in the food fight, pairs can
For instance, The Sandwich Swap starts, “It write a dialogue about what the food items
all began with a peanut butter and jelly are thinking. The Nutella might be thinking,
sandwich.” You read those lines, but you “Oh, I am so sticky. Don’t throw me! I want
show eating spaghetti. Then wait a minute, to be spread on bread!” And the grapes might
make a funny face, and see who can say, be thinking, “Ha! I am easy to throw! And I
“Not spaghetti—peanut butter and jelly!” bounce everywhere!”
The learners can then do this in pairs
with short lines from the text or at given QUESTIONS
moments in the story.
With any story, it’s important to ask questions
This last idea can be done by acting, but that elicit a lot of language and thought. For
also by having learners listen and look at this, Bloom’s Taxonomy question stems can
the pictures. For instance, in the story, be useful and are easy to find online. I tend
you might have a character who is clearly a to avoid questions that have only Yes/No
woman. Instead of reading “she,” you can answers, although I do try to mix simple,
read “he.” Or when the picture shows a one-word-answer questions with those
girl wearing a yellow sweater, you can say, that require more language. Figure 1 gives
“This story is about a girl who is wearing a examples, in order of complexity, that can
green sweater.” provide a basis for your own questioning. The

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 Questions about The Sandwich Swap What is elicited
How many girls is the story about? A precise number that can be counted or any number
How many children do you think are in the that makes sense, and the answer is not right or
cafeteria? wrong.
How do you spell “you’re” in “you’re great”? A specific target word
Write it in the air/on your partner’s back/
with your elbow.
What’s your favorite sandwich? Short utterances, different for everyone
What do you see that begins with an A? An alphabetical list of objects (apples) or chunks
With a B? (bubbly teachers) in which there are multiple answers
What did I just say? (After you read the A structure or paraphrase, depending on the
text, learners try to say it themselves. This is complexity of the language or whether you ask
especially useful—and fun—if you read with a learners to say it in their own words
lot of emotion.)
What do you think the principal said/did If you ask what happened afterwards, you will get a
after the girls left her office? lot of variation in structure and in answers (e.g.,
“She laughed” and “She rolled her eyes”).
What do you think will happen next? What Answers will range from single words to
was their great idea? short conversations. This can be treated as a
“think-pair-share.”
The girls started a food fight. How did they This is complex in thought and can be broken down
feel? How would you feel? Would you have into simpler parts.Yet it acts as a prompt to reflect on
handled the situation differently? one’s decisions and actions in retrospect, which can
be complex and requires learners to think about the
situation. The answer starting with “I would have … ”
can be the basis for a lot of language work.
Figure 1. Story-related questions and what they elicit

main part of the question is in bold and can be engagement by choosing students at random
applied to almost any book. or by making sure their cameras are on so you
can see them and react to their reactions as
ONLINE TEACHING you go.

Many of these ideas are also possible to use Enjoy!

when you are telling the story synchronously
online. Typically, the teacher reads, pauses, REFERENCES
and asks questions, and then perhaps uses
breakout rooms with Zoom or Microsoft Al Abdullah, R., DiPucchio, K., and Tusa, T. 2010. The
Teams or other video-conferencing tools for sandwich swap. Los Angeles: Disney Hyperion.
further work by pairs or small groups. The Child, L. 2007. I will not ever never eat a tomato. London:
screen-sharing functions on any of these Orchard Books.
tools work well for telling the story if it is
found as a PDF or other document type; they Laura Loder Buechel is a teacher-trainer at Zurich
also work for showing sentence starters and University of Teacher Education in Switzerland.
providing language support. When you are Her main passions are practicing what she preaches
reading the story to a group in this setting, in the elementary-school classroom and convincing
learners’ sound should be off unless they university students to think outside the box.
are speaking, and you can insist on their

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