Famous Photos in History: Speaking Activity

(TESOL Activities--Speaking)

This is a production activity that I used at the end of a lesson from the Life Elementary Textbook.  (8d The Photos of Reinier Gerritsen p.100).  It came at the end of a textbook lesson in which students had been taught process language to talk about what they saw in photos.  (e.g. This photo shows...I can see... On the left/right, in the middle, at the front/back, She looks sad.  He is reading.  I think... et cetera).
However, assuming the teacher gives some support and provides process language beforehand, I think it can also stand as it's own activity independent of the textbook.  So I'm posting it here.

The PowerPoint is set up so that the picture is shown first without the context given.  In pairs, the students describe to their partner what they see in the picture.  (Even if the students have no idea about the historical context, they can still describe what they see in the picture, and what they think is happening).  Then after class feedback, I give bonus points to anyone who knows what the historical context of the picture is.  The pairs are mixed up, and the activity repeats.

After this is finished, the students are then put in groups of three.  In turns, the groups are given access to the computer and the projector.  They can then chose any photo that they like (historical or not) and describe to the class why they like this photo.

By the way, as with everything I post on this blog, this was done under the pressures of a deadline.   This PowerPoint was thrown together 30 minutes before the class, and I had a feeling that I was missing out on some iconic historical photographs, but I just couldn't think of them at the moment.  Let me know in the comments section which iconic historical photos I missed, and I'll add them to the Google Slides Version.

The PowerPoint in below, and on Google (drive, slides, pub)