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This post is a response to two blog challenges. ELTPics celebrated its first anniversary, coinciding with the upload of the 5000th image in their impressive collection. ELTPics, for those who are still unaware of its existence, is a Flickr group which collects photos uploaded by teachers for others to use, primarily, in the classroom.

To know more about this group, and how to participate, look at Sandy’s excellent post, “How to join in with #eltpics“. If you have problems downloading or using the photos, read my very own simple tutorial on how to access an image from Flickr.

To celebrate its first birthday, ELTPics decide to start a promising blog, Take a photo and… with the idea of selecting one or more photos from its own collection, and suggesting ways we can use them.

For its first post, Fiona appropriately selected the first ever photo uploaded to ELTPics and the 5000th. If you haven’t done so yet, I’d highly recommend your reading it here.

So, this is a class of two adults, of A2 level. I first showed them this picture below. As Fiona suggested, I told them to divide a piece of paper into 4 sections, and write down questions, verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Then, I asked them to compare their notes, and we spoke more about the photo, extending beyond what can be seen, such as if the man is single or married, happy or sad, etc.

ELTPics 1st Photo fisherman tay ho (West Lake, Hanoi) by VictoriaB52

When the conversation trickled down, I showed them this other image, the 5000th ELTPic, and asked them to compare and contrast the two photos. Initially, their reaction was one like, “He’s crazy, this teacher of ours. What’s a photo of a fisherman got to do with one of an iron?”

When they relented and paid heed to my “Break down your walls”, some interesting perceptions emerged.
ELTPics 5000th Photo "Peace" by Chiew Pang

So, this led to the second blog challenge. David Warr challenged us to make a word cloud, using his beta Plant Maker. The concept of the plant maker is elegant and poetic, and if you haven’t seen it in action, I’d heartily recommend you to float along to David’s blog and have a look at the things he’s done. Here are my efforts.