How to
How to add a picture to a lesson
Attach an image and move it to the side so it sits next to the sentences rather than interrupting them. Short feature, one genuinely good use.
The steps
- Use the Add a picture button to attach the image.
- Click the image to move it to the side.
That second step is the one worth knowing. Left inline, an image breaks the column of sentences in half. Moved to the side, it sits alongside them — which is what you want, because the picture is context for the sentences rather than a thing in its own right.
The use that justifies it
Not decoration. Eliciting speech without translation.
The default failure mode of a language lesson is that the student thinks of a sentence in their own language and then tries to convert it. That produces slow, calqued output and it trains the wrong process — you cannot translate at conversational speed and nobody fluent is doing it.
A picture removes the intermediate step. There is no source sentence to convert; there is a thing, and they have to describe it with whatever they have. The output is worse and the process is right.
This matters most with adult beginners, who otherwise hit a specific wall: everything they want to say requires vocabulary they do not have, so they say nothing. An image gives them something to talk about that does not require the vocabulary of an explanation.
What to do with what comes out
The sentences a student produces under this kind of pressure are the ones worth keeping — specifically the ones they half produce, where they reach for something and stall.
That is the moment to record it. The stalled sentence, said properly, with transcript, phonetics and translation attached, is the highest-value study material that student will get that week, because the gap was already motivated forty seconds ago.
Three or four of those per lesson is a full set of homework that nobody had to invent.
Other things it is good for
Anything genuinely visual — a diagram, a menu, a form they need to fill in, a screenshot of the interface they use at work. Business-language lessons in particular improve when the actual artefact is in the document rather than being described.
Vocabulary that resists translation. Some words are much better shown than glossed, and the gloss is often actively misleading — the near-equivalent in the student’s language carries different boundaries.
A shared reference point for a conversation that would otherwise be abstract. “Describe your kitchen” is harder than it looks; a picture of a kitchen is a scaffold.
Frequently asked questions
How do I add an image to a lesson?
Use the "Add a picture" button. Once it is in, click the image to move it to the side so it sits alongside the sentences instead of breaking up the flow.
What are pictures actually useful for?
Eliciting speech without translation. A picture prompt makes the student reach for language directly rather than translating from their own, which produces the sentences worth capturing.
Should I use pictures with beginners?
Especially with beginners. An image gives an adult beginner something to talk about that does not require the vocabulary of an explanation, which is otherwise the constant bottleneck.