Working with selfies in the ELT classroom

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a talk called ‘Selfies: a fast track to boost students’ motivation’ delivered by Mathilde Verillaud. The talk was, as the title says, using ‘selfies’ in the ELT classroom, which is something I couldn’t imagine until I went to listen to Mathilde.

Personally, I am very into photography. However, I’d never thought of using these kind of self-portraits in the classroom… mainly because I didn’t consider them to be real photography. I changed my mind a bit after the talk, though.

Mathilde talked about her work with Chinese students and her project with selfies. First, she taught them some basic rules of photography such as the rule of thirds, perspectives, taking into account the background, among others. Then, the students took their own selfies, and finally they used those pictures to carry out many different activities like writing poetry and stories, creating a gallery, eliciting ideas and many more.

Selfies are a way of showing your life and presenting yourself to the world. A project with selfies is not only fun, but also opens up the opportunity for an infinite number of subsequent activities.

The selfies, so fashionable nowadays, are a way of engaging our students. By using them, we can show them that they can mix English with things they do every day – taking pictures of themselves and their lives. We can also help them realise all the things a picture tells about someone and, of course, make the English lesson a lot more enjoyable and updated with practically no more materials than a smartphone. 

A famous selfie to close! This selfie was taken by Ellen Degeneres at the 2014 Academy Awards Ceremony and it was one of the most retweeted photos ever.

And also, the most perfectly-timed selfie I've ever seen. This one was taken during a Chelsea match.

There is an example of Mathilde's project in this link.