Mosaic Maker

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics

 

This mosaic, created via Mosaic Maker, includes pictures from the Eltpics Idiom set. I deliberately chose pictures other than Visual Idioms because you might want to use something new to practise or revise the old. Once students have learned a bunch of idioms with your own photos, you can chose different images representing the same idioms. You can play guessing activities, memory games, get Ss compare and describe the pictures, etc.

Visual Idioms & interactive whiteboards

www.visual-idioms.com

One of the best and easiest ways to work with photos and images in the classroom is using interactive whiteboards. You don't have to print anything out, you can prepare your materials in advance, and the students can see the presented material well. As will be shown below, an interactive whiteboard can perform many useful functions.
Apart from presenting idioms, you can do a lot of revision activities, such as guessing and vocabulary games. Using interactive whiteboards appeals to kinaesthetic type learners, who like to move and touch things, as well as auditory and visual ones.

Prepare a file with photos representing English idioms.

1. When presenting an idiom, you can display the picture first and then you can handwrite hints on the board so that the students get the information bit by bit. You can move the hints all over the board and label the parts of the picture with words you need. Later, you can change your handwritten notes into digital text and store it.
2. You can also use the highlighting tool and highlight all the parts in the picture you need. So, for example, you can highlight clouds and lining in an image representing the idiom 'Every cloud has a silver lining'. This is something you can't do with photos (you don't want to draw over your coloured copies because they are expensive), and you can't handwrite on a normal screen.
3. While being presented new idioms, the students can go on the Internet via the interactive whiteboard to look up words or information they need, and then quickly come back to the original image.   
4. Display an image at a time full screen and shade it (cover it all). Then reveal the picture bit by bit by pulling the imaginary screen down (or from the side). The first students to guess the idiom score a point. This tool is helpful when you want to show your students only one part of the screen.
5. You can write an idiom (or just single words) on the board, turn it around, or flip it so that it's backwards and upside down, and your students play a guessing vocabulary game. You can also make it very small, so that it's almost invisible at first, and then enlarge it gradually. The first student to see it wins.
6. Alternatively, you can use the spotlight tool, which makes a part of your picture visible. You can make the spotlight shape as big or small as you wish and you can move it around the screen. Thus your students only focus on one part of the board. This can be turned into a guessing game as well.
7. For the opposite effect, use shapes to can create a little gap-fill activity; show the image and/or the text and cover certain words with the chosen shape.

If you are the visual or auditory learning type, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIHg3F3C56I  for a nice tutorial on using interactive whiteboards. And you can learn best by using the interactive whiteboard yourself.

Snowball fight

www.visual-idioms.com

Give your students a blank piece of paper of an A4 size. Ask them to write down five idioms on the paper. Get them to stand up and crumple the paper into a 'snowball'. The students start a snowball fight - they throw the balls at each other. After a minute, stop them and ask them to pick up one ball from the floor and unwrap it. They sit down and work in pairs: they discuss the meaning of each idiom in English. They can also make example sentences and translate the idioms, if possible.