Drawing Dictation

There are many activities designed to give students a chance to practice conversation. One of them – and the topic of today’s post – is drawing dictation. There’s tons of information and worksheets on how to do drawing dictation, as it’s a fairly popular activity.

Put briefly, drawing dictation consists of the following:

• A student is given picture which only s/he can see
• S/he must describe the picture, without using gestures
• The other student(s) must draw what was described
• The other student(s) may ask clarifying questions

Once done, the students compare what they drew to the picture described.

This activity can be done in pairs, groups or as a class activity. Either way, everyone is doing something. Furthermore, since following the activity is a (mostly) private activity, no one is forced out of their comfort zone, but additional conversation opportunities are available for more outgoing students.

That’s the gist of it, but the details matter. There are tons of ways to tweak this activity, and this can affect the difficulty, the type of language solicited, even the grammatical structures used. Today, I’m going to share a particular approach to this time-honored activity — one that was inspired by a class I recently led. This approach is oriented towards intermediate level students – ones who can communicate in English, but who still have difficulty expressing themselves in some situations.

There are many ways of structuring this process, so I’ll share one option, inspired by a recent class in which I used a drawing dictation activity. First, find some pictures. These pictures should be simple – of the stick figure variety, and you can find a ton of them online through a Google image search. Plan on each picture taking 15-30 minutes, and pick enough pictures (including one for you to model the activity) to cover the time.

Now you need to prepare before class. Pick a picture that you will use to model the activity. Let’s use the following:

Now, plan the description you’ll give and write it down. This is important, because you are not just providing an example of how to do the activity, but a bank of phrases students can use to describe their own pictures. Here’s an example:

• There is an aquarium on top of a table in the middle of a room with a large fish in the center. The fish is facing left.
• To the left of the aquarium is a man sitting in a chair. The man has glasses with circular frames, curly hair and a goatee. He is facing you and he is sad.
• Opposite the man, there is a woman with frizzy hair. She is also seated and facing you, but she is smiling.
• Underneath the table, there’s a cat standing on its head.
• There’s a clock above the aquarium, with hands that show 3 o’clock.
• On the table, in front of the man, there is a box with a button on the face, facing him. There is a smaller box with a button in front of the woman as well.

Now this isn’t 100% precise, but the goal is for students to reproduce the picture in its generalities. Before proceeding, I want you to notice how much depth there is in this description. For instance, take the first description:

• There is an aquarium on top of a table in the middle of a room with a large fish in the center. The fish is facing left.

Look at all the language elements that come into play:

• We use “There is ____” to introduce the object we’re discussing.
• The phrase “on top of” tells us the aquarium is sitting in contact with the table.
• We use “with” as a sort of conjunction – “WITH a large fish in the center” is used instead of adding a new sentence saying “There is a large fish in the center of the aquarium”
• “facing” tells us how to orient objects.

Ok, back to the activity. In class, describe the activity and model it, using the description you recorded. Encourage questions and stop to discuss anything students don’t understand. Encourage students to ask clarifying questions about the picture, and correct them for grammar, semantics and politeness. For instance, if a student didn’t hear you, encourage them to say “Could you repeat that please?”. Or if the student wants clarification on the clock, they can ask “What shape is the clock?”.

At key points, you can ask students to show what they drew and you can provide some verbal corrections. For instance, if a student had the clock to the left of the page, say “The clock should be in the center”. Or if the fish was too small, say “The fish should be larger”. Draw attention to the use of modals and comparatives as a way of correcting.

Once done, have the students show their pictures to you and to the rest of the class. At this point, much hilarity ensues. Great – keep it fun! Join in the joking with some gentle teasing. Now show them the picture you just described and let them compare the pictures. Again, encourage questions – some students may wonder how you would describe a certain part of the picture you might have missed. Great! They’re finding gaps in their language on their own, and you can fill those gaps.

Now have a student approach the board and draw the actual picture. You could do it yourself, but it’s often more fun if the student does it, and let the class correct the student. It’s also a great chance to speak and to have a bit more fun. Now write down the description next to the picture, and map the elements of the description onto the elements of the picture. At this point, you may want to use some slot fillers to show how students can use those phrases in their own pictures. For instance…

• The _____ is facing ______

Include diagrams and examples to show them how the patterns work. While at it, highlight important prepositional phrases and their grammar, like:

• There is a _____ above _____
• There is a ______ below _____
• There is a _______ to the left of _____
• There is a _______ to the right of _____
  • Notice how “of” is required in “to the left” and “to the right”

Also, review the right language to use to ask for clarification. For instance, what are the right question stems to use?

• Where is the _____? (location)
• How large is the _____? (size)
• Is the _____? (verification)

Review the patterns for correcting erroneous pictures…

• The _________ should be ____________

The last gap would be a position or a comparative term.

Leave these phrases and picture on the board as a reminder that students can consult when doing the activity. Now have a student sit in front of the class with a picture only s/he can see and do the activity. The student and the class are welcome to consult the board, but they cannot point at anything in the picture. Encourage (but don’t require) them to use the languge pre-taught, and allow them to try to describe what they see, only stepping in if they get stuck. Students can ask clarifying questions, show what they have at key points, suggest changes, etc…

The nature of the pictures chosen can have an impact on the activity. For instance, representational pictures like the above encourage the use of concrete object language (fish, cat, aquarium), but more abstract pictures would elicit more shape language, heavier use of prepositions and more complex sentences. For instance, imagine a student got this picture:

For this, the student will need to use more prepositions to place things, plus there would be more comparative and superlative use. For instance, in describing the circles, the student would need to describe the sizes compared to the other circles (smaller, larger) and would get some involved sentences like:

• The circle on the right is larger than the first circle or the circle on the right is the largest circle
• There is a diagonal line from the lower left corner of the box about halfway up to the uppr right corner

This also means that careful curation of the pictures is important, and you should model the activity using the types of pictures that students will practice on. So don’t use an abstract picture to model the activity, then give students concrete pictures – otherwise, students may try to describe the picture in ters of its component shapes rather than objects!

You can customize this activity in a vraiety of ways. Here are some ideas:

• Have 2 students work together to dictate, so they can fill in gaps in their knowledge and engage in more dialog
• Have the class draw pictures as pairs or even show their pictures to each other, so they can correct each other, discuss and realize when clarification is needed
• Use much more complex pictures for advanced students
• Use very simple pictures (even basic shape arrangements) for beginner students

From my experience, a good conversation activity has the following features:

• It uses authentic language
• It creates a situation that requires students to communicate to complete a task
• It gives each student something to do
• It allows everyone a chance to speak

Ultimately, conversation activities consist of constructing situations that require students to use language to resolve, rather than an attempt to force students to use that language by fiat. So a general rule of thumb when trying to get students to practice isn’t to ask “how can I get my students to practice this?”, but rather, “what situations would require students to naturally use that languge?” and then create those situations.

What do you think?

• Do you think drawing dictations are a good conversation activity?
• How would you make them better?
• What are the earmarks of a good conversation activity?