First appeared: Language Learning for Language Learners #32

In the past language learners have had to build picture  books by going out and taking lots of pictures, and then  having them developed (perhaps getting multiple sets), and  then throwing out the duds, and then sequencing the pictures  and pasting them into a somewhat-large-and-bulky photo album.

About six months ago I discovered and fell in love with  Firehand Lightening II ( http://www.firehand.com ), a program  which allows you to arrange digital pictures into photo albums  and slide shows, adding sound to each picture as well as a  background soundtrack if you like. Not only that, but the  files you create are easily shareable; your recipients just  need two small and free viewers (one for photo albums and one  for slideshows) available from the Firehand website. Or you  can put the viewers on a disk along with your digital picture  books and slideshows.

At that time six months ago I was in the process of making a  (physical) photo book for myself along with several copies for  language-learning friends. This was quickly becoming a major  project, much more than I had intended (the story of my  life!), and I found myself having a hard time getting the  amounts of the kinds of photos I wanted.

I stumbled upon Firehand Lightening II and immediately knew it  was exactly what I needed. I scanned in whatever good photos I  had, "borrowed" photos from friends here who had a digital  camera and had taken hundreds of pictures, and I was also able  to get many pictures from a couple royalty-free CD sets and  picture/clipart websites. (I didn't know about it then but  would start with http://www.arttoday.com if I had it to do  over again.)

And these weren't just generic pictures, I was able to  find many from the area of the world that I live in--better  pictures than I was taking myself!

I organized pictures into four sets: individuals doing  something, two people doing something, groups of people, and  scenes. I then made both photo albums and slideshows from  those four sets because some language learning activities are  better done with photo albums while some are better done with  slideshows. (I'd recommend you and a tutor starting with one-picture-at-time slideshows and then using photo albums for  several-picture-at-a-time review.

The software is powerful, and if you find yourself thinking,  "I wish it would do _____," it probably does.

To use Greg Thomson's methods, the individuals set is the best  place to start. I'll let you read his article from the archives to get you going from there. Be creative as you apply basic language learning principles and you'll come up with  many other helpful things you can do as well.

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