Developed by:
Comparative Reseatch Network
Creating a collective drawing of a monster and giving it an identity by creating a persona around it.
- Group size limits: from 4 to 14 participants
- Time required: c. 90 minutes
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Learn & Gain:
- Transform written language into visual storytelling
- Improve creativity, imagination, and narrative skills through the combination of words and images.
- Practice active listening, interpretation, and observation by engaging with others’ stories.
- Develop flexibility in communication, recognizing that meaning can shift across writing, speaking, and visual representation.
- Build confidence in presenting ideas and stories to a group.
- Strengthen collaborative skills, patience, and empathy by engaging in partner and group activities.
Language skills developed
- Speaking skills: telling and presenting ones story aloud, narrating from images, describing drawings.
- Listening comprehension: carefully listening to a partner’s story or description in order to visualize and recreate it.
- Reading skills: reading their own written scenes and the texts/images in magazines, catalogues, or newspapers.
- Writing skills: creating short written scenes and rewriting descriptions based on drawings.
- Vocabulary expansion: using descriptive language for people, objects, actions, and abstract ideas.
- Interaction/communicative skills: asking and answering questions (in presentations or discussions), clarifying meaning through storytelling.
other extra-linguistic and communication skills developed
- Creativity
- Artistic/Craft skills
- Cultural awareness
Materials and tools needed
- Catalogues, magazines, newspapers, flyers (any printed material with images)
- Scissors
- Glue or tape
- Wooden sticks (popsicle sticks, skewers, or any thin wooden rods)
- Styrofoam block (to hold the sticks upright)
Step-by-step
Step 1 – Welcome & Introduction
- The educator welcomes the learners and introduces themselves.
- The educator briefly introduces the activity.
- Form groups of 2–4 learners. Briefly introduce the activity and explain that the learners will be creating and presenting a “story collage” by combining images and storytelling.
Step 2 – Collection of Images
- Learners browse through different types of printed materials – art catalogues, lifestyle magazines, shopping catalogues, newspapers, flyers, etc.- and cut out images that catch their attention. These can be figures, objects, or abstract elements. The key is to follow intuition rather than overthinking why a particular image is chosen. To keep things visually diverse, learners should aim for at least 10 cut-outs with varying styles, colors, and subjects.
Step 3 – Creating a Story
- Once enough cut-outs are gathered, learners arrange them on a flat surface and experiment with different ways of connecting them. The goal is to find relationships between the images and form a simple story. They can shift pieces around, noticing how different combinations change the meaning. If something feels missing, learners can return to the printed materials to find additional images.
- When assembling the story, encourage learners to think about: 1. Who or what is in the story? 2. What is happening? 3. What is the ending?
Step 4 – Assembling the Story into its Final Form
- When the story feels complete, learners attach each cut-out to a wooden stick. These sticks are then placed upright in a piece of styrofoam, allowing the images to stand like characters or scenes in a mini-theater. This makes the story visually clear and interactive.
Step 5 – Presentation
- Each group (or individual, if working alone) shares their story by moving through the cut-outs in sequence, explaining the connections and meaning behind their choices. Storytelling should feel natural and personal, bringing the images to life.
Step 6 – Final Recap and Feedback
- Reflect on the process together. Discuss what learners found surprising or challenging and what they learned about storytelling through images.
- Give space for peer feedback and appreciation.
Alternatives
Alternative 1 – Focus on Oral Comprehension
Instead of letting learners invent their own story, the educator reads a short story aloud, adapted to the learners’ language level. Each learner creates a collage that represents the story they heard.
Alternative 2 – Digital/Photographic Story Collage
Instead of using magazines or newspapers, the educator can take photos in the city and create a storyboard based on their pictures.
Alternative 3 – Focus on Writing Skills
Instead of (or in addition to) presenting the collage orally, learners write down the stories they invented or rewrite the stories they heard from others. This variation strengthens writing practice by encouraging learners to structure their ideas in sentences. The written texts can later be shared within the group, read aloud, or even displayed alongside the collages.
Alternative 4 – More Challenging
The educator prepares simple sentences in the target language, cuts each sentence out and hands it to each learner. The learner then has to make sense of the sentence without using a translator and start creating the story collage based on what they have understood from the sentence. This allows a more intuitive and game-like approach.
Potential risks and challenges
- The activity might take too much time; therefore, educators need to set clear time limits and encourage learners who get too absorbed in the collage-making process to move forward.
- Alternative 4: The final collage may not represent the original sentence at all (though this is unlikely). In such cases, learners can work together to decide what new sentence the collage could represent and collaboratively formulate in the target language a sentence that represents the content of the collage.
recommendations for educators
- Be familiar with the concept of storyboarding and visual storytelling techniques.
- Have experience guiding creative and language-focused activities.
- Be comfortable managing group dynamics, especially in small groups of mixed abilities.
- Prepare materials in advance (magazines, catalogues, scissors, glue, sticks, styrofoam blocks) and ensure a safe, organized workspace.
- Know how to encourage participants without giving direct instructions or influencing their creative choices.
- Be able to adapt the activity to different environments (indoor or outdoor) and varying group sizes.
- Monitor time and gently guide learners to keep the activity moving while allowing sufficient reflection.
- Be skilled in providing constructive feedback that fosters confidence and curiosity rather than criticism.
- Prepare for alternative methods, such as using photographs or digital tools if printed materials are limited.
