3 Ways to Use Picture Dice In Your EFL Lessons | 1-on-1 Lessons and Classes

If you're looking for a useful, dynamic addition for your lesson materials, look into getting your hands on a set of these picture dice. Most toy stores will carry something like this, and they are as useful as you are creative. There are plenty of EFL speaking or writing activities you could create using these, so today, let's get you started with three basic ideas.

1. Group Story Telling

Use the picture dice to tell a creative story in groups. Your small groups will work together as they create a story based on the pictures they roll.

This activity might be difficult at first, but once they get one, it will be fun for your more advanced students. Try it in a variety of ways depending on your particular student. Some students are more creative, and some students are more ABC thinkers. Adjust the rules accordingly.

This activity works great if you need to practice different past tenses.

How It Works:

1. Break the class up into small groups of 2-4 people.
2. Roll the dice and take turns going around the group to create and write their own unique story based on the pictures.

Options for Game Play:

- Roll all the dice at once and create the story you want.
- Give one or two dice to each group and have them roll the dice every couple sentences.
- Have each student in a group choose a dice and roll it for their part.
- Your creation as the teacher

2. I Remember When...

How It Works:

1. Ask the student to choose a dice and roll it.
​2. The student and their partner think of a memory that the give dice reminds them of. (You are the student's partner for 1-on-1 Lessons) - The 'memories' can be real or made up.
3. The student says their memory beginning with the expression, "I remember when..." or "I remember one time..."
4. The partner asks Student A questions about their memory to see if it's a real memory or a made-up story.

Pro Tips:

It's always a good idea for the teacher to go first to demonstrate the activity.

It's always a good idea to set time limits for activities and show the student how much time is left in a given activity.

Pre-teach certain words or expressions like "I remember one time..." and to make up something.

​Correct any language that the students need and make note of them for later. Work with this language, vocabulary, or expressions after the game.

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Easter Egg Lessons:

Creativity - If we do this more than once, the students will get better and better at thinking of creative stories, questions, and answers.

​Community - They may learn new things about each other without even realizing it.

3. Follow-up Questions in Conversation

This lesson idea will bring incredible value to your 1-on-1 lessons with teens or adults. 

​If you don't have picture dice, I recommend you take a trip to a local trinket shop and invest around 10€ in a pack of picture dice like these. They will serve you very well for many years to come, especially if you teach 1-on-1 teen or adult lessons.

Photo via Instagram

How it works:

1. Ask the student to choose a picture dice. (If it's an online class, I do the rolling)
2. Roll the dice and each of us think of a question or conversation topic based on the picture.
3. The question should be INDIRECTLY related to the picture. (It's best if the other person has to ask how you related your question to the picture.)
4. Continue the conversation using follow-up questions based on the other person's answers
5. When the conversation naturally dies down, switch turns and begin a new conversation.

Follow the video tutorial if you have any questions. Subscribe to the channel if you like it.

Why it works

Teens and adults love this lesson because they decide where the conversation goes. 

This turns the typical English lesson dynamic on its head by guiding the student to lead a conversation. The student will get to practice leading a conversation that they get to create, and take it to wherever they want to take it. This is also REAL WORLD conversation practice because it builds more than just English language, but genuine conversation skills.

Pro Tips:

It's important to pre-teach or at least review the concept of follow-up questions and even practice with a basic example. 
     A: What's your favorite food?
     B: I like pizza.
     A: What do you like to put on your pizza?
     B: I like ham and pineapple.
     A: We have a name for that kind of pizza in the US. Do you know what it is?
     B: Hawaiian
     A: It's my dream to visit Hawaii. What's your dream vacation?
    ETC.

The teacher should go first (at least the first time you do this activity) as a demonstration of what you expect.

This can be adapted to classes if the students are advanced enough. You will need to break them up into pairs. Give them a time limit for the conversation time. At the end of the given time, ask them where their conversation started and finished. (For example: -banana picture- The conversation started with "Have you ever seen a nature documentary?" and our conversation ended up talking about cars.)

No dice?

If you haven't bought any dice yet (or aren't interested in buying dice), I'm sure you could search "random picture generator" and see what comes up. Then do the same kind of activity based on that.

Let me know how it goes!

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