Resources

Check out our collection of resource books and lesson plans here >>

Apps

Find out about the Teachers' Classroom App
  here >>

Videos

See our range of Teacher Development Videos
here>>

image of visualize

Categories:

This is a simple but powerful technique we can use to encourage students to see things in their ‘mind’s eye’. This involves persuading students to close their eyes, concentrate and visualize. Then guide them through some form of short imaginary experience. This can be in the form of a memory or can be something more creative, like a dream or story.

To make this technique effective you need to ensure that the classroom is quiet and the students are calm. When you first try this, you may find that a few students are reluctant to close their eyes. Don’t worry too much about this, we are able to visualize with our eyes open, though closing them can make the images more vivid and help avoid distraction. Some students may become disruptive during these kinds of activities as they tend to be quite unfamiliar and people often feel threatened by that which involves change, but if you take your time you will find that they should soon settle. It can take some time for students to get used to this technique, but the more often you try it the quicker they will settle and the more useful you will find the technique.

Tips for managing visualizations

When you do these visualization activities with your students try to:

  • Guide the students through the visualization. 
  • Set the scene for them and place them in the visualization, e.g. You are sitting at your desk. The sun is shining. OR You are in the cinema. The lights go out and the film begins.
  • Ask the students questions, but be sure they understand that you don’t expect answers to the questions and leave plenty of time for them to visualize the answer before you ask another question.
  • Make sure students stay silent. If they start to laugh just wait calmly for them to relax again.
  • Stay relaxed and calm yourself.
  • Make their visualizations multi-sensory by asking about tastes, smells and sounds. You can also ask about their physical or emotional feelings.
  • Keep your voice calm and don’t try to influence their visualization by adding drama or emotion to your words.
  • Once the students have finished and you ask them to open their eyes, give them a few moments to come back to the classroom.
  • Give the students the opportunity to talk in small groups or pairs and share and compare what they saw.

Visualization exercises for the classroom

Lesson review – Ask students to try to visualize what they did in the last lesson.
Example: You could ask the students what topics they studied.
– Who did they speak with?
– What did they see written on the board?
– What new words did they learn?

Example: You could try to guide them chronologically from when they entered the classroom.
– Who did you sit next to?
– What exercise did we do fist? Etc.

A meal – Ask students to visualize their dinner or another meal from the previous day.

Example: Ask the students to try to visualize
sitting down and eating it.
– Who was with them?
– What was the first dish?
– What did they eat first from their plate?
– What did they leave until last? Ask them to try to imagine the flavours in their mouth. 

A film – Ask students to visualize the last film they saw.

Example: Ask them to think about who they went with.
– Where did they sit? What did they eat?
– Ask them to try to remember the sound of the music in the cinema the moment the lights went out.
– Ask them to visualize the opening scene and try to hear the music.

A text – Read a short text and ask students to visualize what they see while you read it. This could be something as short and simple as a sentence or could be a longer text from your coursebook.

Example: Say “There are three people waiting for a bus.” Then ask the students to try to imagine:
– What are they wearing.?
– Are they carrying anything?
– What are they doing as they wait?
– What is the weather like?
– How do they feel?
– What can they hear?
– What can they smell?

A role-play – You can ask students to visualize a role-play before they do it.

Example: If you want students to role-play buying a bus ticket, ask them to close their eyes and imagine themselves at the bus station.
– Ask them to try to imagine walking up to the counter.
– Ask them to imagine what the ticket seller looks like and what he or she says.
– Ask them to try to imagine their dialogue with the ticket seller. Then ask them to imagine walking away from the ticket office with their ticket.
– Ask them to imagine how they feel at having successfully bought their ticket using English.

A character from a text – You can review any listening or reading text you have done with students by asking them to imagine they are one of the people involved in the text.

Example: If your students have been reading Cinderella, you can ask them to imagine they are one of the ugly sisters.
– Ask them to visualize the ball.
– What are they wearing?
– What does the prince look like?
– How do they feel when they speak to the prince?
– What does the music sound like?
– What do they eat and drink?
– How do they feel when they see the prince?
– How do they feel when they see the beautiful mysterious princess arrive?
– How do they feel when they see the prince dance with her?

I hope these activities and this technique helps you to enhance your students’ creativity and the way they experience language learning.

Find many more creative techniques and activities

Book Cover - Hacking Creativity

Tags: