"I have used the Places section with success in my intermediate class. My students learn a lot and really get into this activity. First I get them, working in pairs or triads, and they name all the things in the pictures they can. I don't suggest they use the word list, but they can ask me or each other, if they want to. They usually don't. This is a very lively activity.
Next, I get one of the students to write on sheets of brown paper tacked over the board. As a class, the students volunteer all the language they have come up with. Sometimes there is a hot discussion/disagreement about what the pictures are supposed to be of and, therefore, a variety of "answers." That's ok. We put it all up on the paper. The students correct the writer so that what goes up is spelled right. Another student is put in charge of the word list. After we have all the students ideas, we ask what the word list says. We put that up if it is different, which it is sometimes.
I then divide my class (usually 12 to 18 students) into two or three groups. Each group comes up with a story explaining the mystery shown in the picture. After inventing their story, they write it down. They can make reference to the lists on the paper if they want to.
The last and most popular step is that, by the next class, each group turns their story into a mini-play and performs it for the other students. It is amazing how imaginative some of these plays are and how much the students enjoy them. Last term, I had a student with a mini-cam, and she videotaped the plays. While we watched the plays a week later, she checked off all the vocabulary from our list that they had used in their plays. They did pretty well".
Arturo Burgos ESL, Windham County Community College
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