Picture Sets for Writing Picture for Whole-class Discussion of Writing

c What jobs do the two people have? d Will the people have children? When? How many? e Have you ever been to a wedding? Was it like Debbie’s? The groups share the result and the teacher write necessary words and idioms, again on the board. 3. The class reads a paragraph describing Debbie Johnson’s traditional wedding: Debbie Johnson and Frank Willett had a traditional wedding last Saturday. The bride wore her grandmother’s veil and her mother’s wedding dress, which was made of white satin. She wore her sister’s necklace and carried a bouquet of blue flowers – so she had the bride’s traditional “something old, something new, something borrowed something blue”. She had six bridesmaids. They wore long dresses of flowered blue lace. The bridegroom and the bride’s father were wearing traditional morning suits – a black jacket and grey pants. The couple was married in church and the bride’s parents held a reception for 100 guests at their home. The students examine the paragraph and determine which sentence makes the main point. 4. Then, students imagine that they are Debbie Johnson writing a letter a friend abroad, six month before, telling her what the wedding will be like. Students can take sentences from the paragraph before and change the subjects. For example, the couple becomes we, the bride’s parents becomes my parents, etc. 5. Small groups discuss and write a description about the wedding for a local newspaper, and then the other groups make comments and suggestions. 6. After discussion, students are asked to describe a typical traditional wedding in their country, or in Indonesia, in provinces.

5. Teaching Writing by Using Picture Procedures

The writing task can be approached in two ways – students select a previous piece that they can rewrite or enhance and students create a new piece. Students are led to follow basic steps 57 : 1. Talk the picture. Teachers give each student one to three sheets of paper. Students talk with each other and the teacher, discussing what they can draw to tell their story. Teachers coach and support students in providing rich description and they ask questions that will lead to detailed illustrations and a coherent story line. 2. The picture. Students illustrate the story they have described and are reminded to include the key elements. The richer details, the richer the conversation and the writing will be. 3. Talk the writing. Students discuss, describe and “read” the picture story. Teachers model and support students in formulating sentence to make a story. Students practice saying the story aloud. 4. The writing. Students then write the picture story. They are reminded to utilize the rich and descriptive language they practiced. 5. The share. Students read their story to the group. Students ask questions and compare the completed story to the previous discussion. Some ways of using picture in teaching writing also stated by Harner through “drills”, which is in form of grammar items for cueing different sentences or practicing vocabulary, “communication games” for creative writing, where teachers give some pictures to be written by the students then practice it in speaking, and “understanding” which is an easy way of explaining the meaning of words by having a picture. 58 57 Teresa Walter, Teaching English Language Learners, New York: Pearson Education, 2004, p.77. 58 Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching: 3 rd edition, Essex: Pearson Education, 2001, p.134.