Using Practice Posters to Address EFL Challenges

A practice poster is a sheet of ten or twelve pictures, each with a short cue underneath - a name and a country, a job, a means of transport. The author, working in Mexico, used posters at the start of lessons to switch classes into English and to give every pupil a great deal of controlled speaking practice quickly.

The article sets out a ten-minute sequence, the benefits the author saw when using it, and the drawbacks to watch for.

1. Make the poster: pictures with cue words, on stiff card so it lasts.
2. Drill the cues with the whole class, then with groups and individuals.
3. Model one statement on the board from a cue and have pupils repeat it; pairs then make statements about the other pictures.
4. Add the question form, then the negative, each modelled and then practised in pairs.
5. Hand the poster over in later lessons: pupils lead their half of the class, or groups practise with different posters and swap.

Posters answer two Sri Lankan problems at once: pupils who hear almost no English outside the lesson, and too few books to go round. One poster serves forty pupils, and pictures cut from newspapers or drawn by the class do the job.

It fits the grammar in the Grade 6 to 9 books well - be, have, present continuous, can - and makes a strong opening five or ten minutes to a PPP lesson.