ESL Picture Dictation Activity
Communicative Exercise to Practice English Language Listening Skills
In a typical picture dictation activity, a picture is described to the listeners, who, unable to see it, draw what they hear. In this variation, however, there is a mole, who acts as a double agent by trying to sabotage the exercise. The mole is responsible for interfering with the successful outcome of the activity while trying to remain anonymous.
Materials
- Magazine pictures, preferably with some detail
- Pencil and paper
Objectives
This picture dictation activity helps students improve and practice their listening and critical thinking skills. It appeals to kinesthetic learners, as drawing is involved. Students also work on their skills of negotiation and persuasion as they discuss who they believe the mole is and why.
Level
High intermediate to advanced. This activity could be adapted for lower levels if the pictures are simpler and the instructions are presented very clearly.
Procedure
- Put the class into groups of four or five. Secretly assign one of the students in each group to be the mole. (This can be done by handing out small slips of paper, with the word “mole” on one of them.) The mole should not reveal his identity to the rest of the group.
- Next, randomly assign one of the students in each group to be the person who will “dictate”, or describe, the picture to the others. This person may or may not be the mole.
- Without showing the picture to the rest of the group, the student describes it. The other students listen and draw what they hear.
- The mole’s job is to sabotage the activity in some way. For instance, if the mole is the student describing the picture, he/she may skew the description slightly. If the mole is drawing, then he/she may draw some parts of the drawing incorrectly, feigning a misunderstanding. The key to being a good mole is to do so without being too obvious, since he/she doesn’t want the others to guess his/her true identity.
- Once the students have had enough time to draw their pictures, the picture is revealed. Now the group members must compare their drawings to the original, and from the discrepancies infer who the mole may be. At this point a successful mole will try to confuse the group further by accusing someone else of being the mole.
Giving Instructions
The key to the activity is to make sure that students understand what a mole is and what his job will be. Comparing the mole to a double or secret agent usually suffices. It is also important that students understand that they should not expose the mole until the teacher indicates it is time.
Extension Activity
This activity generally stimulates a lot of discussion. To make it even more communicative, students can be asked to discuss how they recognized the mole, or what he/she did correctly to keep his/her identity a secret.
As an introduction to the topic, students can be shown an episode from ABC’s reality show The Mole, or clips from any movie or TV show featuring a double agent.
