Implementing and using a picture archive. Visual support for technology deprived language learning contexts.

Our technologically advanced teaching/learning world offers valid teaching aids (computers, multifunctional laboratories, satellite television connections and the Internet) to many up-to-date and well-trained language teachers. For many others, however, in Italy and elsewhere, the teaching/learning scenario is less rich and marginally sustained by teaching tools. Several causes (lack of money, shortage of specialized technicians and inadequate inservice teacher-training courses as well as rapid technological changes) have forced institutions to limit the acquisition of sophisticated teaching tools and teachers to use more traditional (blackboard, OHP) and less expensive teaching aids (tape/video-recorder, satellite television). In these contexts, the creation of an active and functional picture archive would be highly valuable for teaching purposes. The present paper provides guidelines on how to create a picture archive, offering detailed suggestions for the various phases of the project (selection, preparation, storing and utilization of still pictures in language learning classes), and highlighting the advantages deriving from its use. Indeed, every single step in the creation of the visual archive will function as a pedagogically effective teaching tool geared towards integrating teachers and students’ efforts and guiding them towards the joint construction of teaching/learning events where all the actors feel equally important and active: both teachers and students become the backbone of the project, share the same goal, and bring current events into the classroom. Pictures first appeared in the teaching scenario around the mid XX century and their value has remained unchanged over time. They are used here, however, in a creative and interactive manner, capable of sustaining students’ interest and motivation, lowering their affective barriers, leading them towards awareness in second language learning and feeding their self-esteem.