Causes and effects - In the eye of the beholder

It is not difficult to understand the relationship between these following two images.

Global warming heats the oceans and the warmer water intensifies hurricanes

Explaining this relationship between cause and effect could be part of a presentation on climate change: "Because of this ... that."

A more creative version juxtaposes two pictures with no obvious connection and leaves the interpretation about how the situation what is shown in picture 1 influences what is happening in picture 2.

There is, of course, no "correct" answer. It is up to the student, to interprete the relationship.

Here is an example of such a pair of images:

 

 

Another pair:

 

 

 

 

And another one:

 

 

And yet another one:

 

 

 

 

 

WHY

Describing pictures is standard fare in the foreign language classroom often accompanied with task such as putting a set of pictures into a logical order or arranging the parts of a comic strip. This activity requires some more inventiveness from the student. If several students give their presentations one after the other we can see hwo differently pictures are perceived.

Images that are large enough to be seen by the whole group of learners. Ideally a computer with presentation software and a video projector.

I originally learned the basic concept for this exercise from Mario Rinvolucri who described it in one of his books the name of which eludes me.

ON THE WEB
Lots of useful picturs can be found on the web. If you have a digital camera you can, of course, prepare your own pictures and then have more control over their content.