Cultural Communication of Choice: Helping Students Discover What They CAN Do

Have you ever given students a picture and simply asked them to tell you what they see? Sometimes, these simple activities tell us more about what students know than a worksheet full of questions ever could!

One of my favorite ways to get students communicating in the target language is to give them something meaningful to talk about and let them take the lead. Add a few optional language supports, culturally rich images, and the freedom to use the language they already know, and you have a warm-up that can work for a wide range of learners.

Today, I want to share a simple activity I used with culturally rich images from the Deaf Community. It’s an easy way to encourage communication, give students a voice, and put some Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles into practice. When reading this, imagine the various ways you can use this activity with unit themes like food, animals, or travel.

Start With Something Meaningful

For this warm-up or short class activity, students explore culturally rich images connected to the Deaf Community. You can adapt this activity to work with any themes you are working on. Just change images to match your current vocabulary.

I labeled each image with a number and gave students a paper with matching spaces. Their job was simple: look at each image and think about language they already know to describe what they noticed. Then students selected one image that they connected to and made a short video (other languages can use this as a writing activity in the target langague).

That’s it!

I wasn’t asking students to identify every person, location, or cultural reference correctly. I wanted them to look closely, make observations, and communicate their ideas using the language they had available to them in that moment. This is UDL at its finest.

A picture can give students so many things to talk about. They might notice what people are wearing, what they are doing, where they are, the objects around them, or the relationships between people in the image.

And because the images connect to the Deaf Community, students have an opportunity to explore culture while practicing their language skills.

Give Students Choice and a Voice

Here’s what I love about this activity: students get to decide what they want to say.

Instead of giving everyone the same sentence to complete, I let students choose what they noticed and how they wanted to describe it. One student might focus on a person’s clothing, while another notices the setting or an activity taking place.

Both are valid starting points for communication!

Giving students choice doesn’t mean removing structure or lowering expectations. It means providing an opportunity for students to make decisions about their learning and demonstrate what they know in a way that works for them.

When students have some ownership over what they communicate, they can focus on sharing an idea instead of worrying about finding the one correct answer the teacher expects.

And honestly, isn’t that what we want language learners to do? Use the language they have to express their own thoughts and ideas.

Use Simple Supports Without Limiting What Students Can Do

I also provided a few optional verbs to help students get going:

• To See
• To Understand
• To Feel
• To Want
• To Have
• To Need

These simple supports give students an entry point without telling them exactly what to communicate about.

A beginning learner might communicate a few words or a simple sentence. Another student might combine several ideas, add descriptive details, or express a longer response.

I don’t need every student to produce the same amount of language for the activity to be successful.

In fact, one of the benefits of an open-ended task like this is that it gives me a glimpse of what students can already do independently. I can see which vocabulary they remember, what sentence structures they are comfortable using, and where they might need additional support.

I’m not limiting their responses to a specific structure or a certain number of sentences. I’m giving them a reason to communicate and seeing where they take it.

How This Connects to UDL

If you’re familiar with Universal Design for Learning (UDL), you can probably see how this activity naturally incorporates several of its principles.

UDL encourages us to think about how we can provide flexible ways for students to engage with learning, access information, and demonstrate what they know.

Here’s how that looks in this activity:

Multiple means of engagement: Students explore images that spark curiosity and choose the details that interest them. They have some ownership over their responses rather than completing an identical task with a predetermined answer.

Multiple means of representation: Images provide visual context for meaning. Students don’t have to rely entirely on written directions or remember vocabulary without support. The picture itself helps communicate the situation.

Multiple means of action and expression: Students can demonstrate their current language abilities at different levels. Optional sentence starters provide support, but students can expand beyond them when they’re ready.

The beauty of this approach is that I don’t have to create three different worksheets or three separate activities for different levels of learners.

I can keep the same task and provide flexible opportunities for students to participate.

Let Students Show You What They CAN Do

Sometimes, we spend so much time thinking about what students haven’t learned yet that we forget to look at what they can already do.

An activity like this shifts the focus.

Instead of asking students to demonstrate whether they have mastered a particular vocabulary list, I’m inviting them to draw on what they know and use it to communicate a meaningful message.

For a novice learner, that might mean identifying an object and communicating a few familiar words. For another student, it might mean describing several people, explaining what is happening, or connecting details across the image.

Both students have an opportunity to be successful.

And as the teacher, I get useful information about their developing proficiency without turning the warm-up into a formal assessment.

I can use what I notice to plan future lessons, review vocabulary, identify useful sentence structures, and decide where students might benefit from additional practice.

Most importantly, students get to experience what it feels like to use the language they have rather than waiting until they know enough to say something perfectly.

Want to Try This in Your Classroom?

You can easily adapt this activity for your own language classroom!

Here’s all you need to do:

1. Choose a collection of images connected to the target language or cultural images of the target culture.
2. Label each image with a letter or number.
3. Give students a recording sheet with matching spaces.
4. Provide a few optional sentence starters or vocabulary supports.
5. Invite students to describe what they notice using the language they already know.

You can use this as a quick warm-up, an introductory activity for a new cultural topic, a review of familiar vocabulary, or an informal way to see what students can communicate.

You can also change the images throughout the year to connect with different cultural practices, products, perspectives, places, and people.

And remember, the goal isn’t to see who can write the most or who knows every cultural detail. The goal is to give students a meaningful opportunity to communicate.

Grab Your FREE Cultural Images!

Want to try this idea with your own students?

I’ve put together a free collection of culturally rich images that you can use to get students observing, thinking, and communicating in the target language.

Use the pictures as a quick warm-up, a partner activity, a writing prompt, or an opportunity for students to show you what they can already do.

Give students the images, offer a few optional language supports, and let them take it from there!

What Can They Say?

Offer voice and choice with this communication warm up!

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Grab your 6 culturally rich images and writing worksheet today to use in your classroom tomorrow!

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