(Pre-)Teaching Vocabulary

If someone were to look at my Google image search history, they may question my sanity. (Well, that probably happens on a regular basis, anyway!) But I am a staunch believer in "a picture is worth 1000 words" in the language classroom. I love to spend Sunday mornings with some chill music, coffee, and my computer to root around the Internet for the wackiest, craziest photos I can find.
I have been presenting a lot on Movie Talk recently. (Haven't seen my MT session? You can see the presentation from VFLA this year here!) One of the things I discuss in the presentation is how I teach vocabulary and all of a sudden I realized that my approach may be worthy of a blog post! So, here you go!
The specific example of my standard in-class vocab introduction that came to mind was when I was doing the Movie Talk of the Monty the Penguin commercial. (If you haven't seen it, grab some tissues and check it out, and download my supplemental materials.) I was teaching the word "present." Sure, I could (and did) show simple photos like this:

I ask a lot of questions about the presents here. How many? What colors? How big? What do you think are in the presents? What colors are the ribbon? Is the present on the right open or closed? 

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You can certainly get a lot of mileage out of basic pictures like this. But....wouldn't it be more fun and interesting to show crazy​ photos? Like these?!?! 

)While I can't ask nearly as many questions about these presents as I am about the ones above, they are most definitely memorable, and give the kids a chuckle.
​(NB: I teach little ones, and I realized after a couple of rough classes that I can only show kindergarteners and first graders one photo at a time! When I had a slide with four or five silly pictures, they couldn't contain themselves-it was system overload. So, if you are in an elementary school, be sure to limit what you show them at once.)

My Google image searches are extremely deliberate (and can be pretty darn specific!). Again, when working with the Monty the Penguin MT, I wanted to teach two basic word: "hides" and "plays." I chose pictures that contained vocabulary that the students already knew, or had simple cognates, so I could ask more circling questions around the images. 

My students knew the words tree, boy, hat, cat, girl, little. So, my questioning went something like this. "Who is hiding behind the tree? Who is hiding under the hat?" (If I had a class that had already worked with prepositions, I could ask questions with longer answers: Where is the boy hiding? And if you want a good MT for prepositions of location, check out the Simon's Cat "The Box" video with ALL OF MY ANCILLARY MATERIALS HERE!) 

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For the "play" photo, I would ask about the number of people in the photo, little or big kids, etc. 

Another one of my favorite examples of fun photos comes from my slideshow for the "Lily and the Snowman" MT. (Don't know it? Read all about my snowman unit, and steal my stuff that goes with it!) The word was "melted," but I also wanted  to teach "to melt." What better way to show that than with...fondue! (And when the kids made the connection between the French and the English, well, the looks on their faces was priceless.)

We started with the photo on the left, talking about what had melted, under what circumstances things melt, at what temperature, etc. Then, before showing them the photos on the right (which I did one at a time), I asked them about what they would put in melted cheese. Then we talked about the first photo. I then asked them if there was anything else they would eat that was melted, and we brainstormed more possibilities for dippers for chocolate fondue. (Of course, I threw in some gross combos just to keep them on their toes and engaged.)
Perhaps some of these ideas got the wheels turning in your brain to explore some new ways of bringing new words/structures into your classes. What are some of YOUR favorite ways to introduce vocabulary?
Bises.