With the new sentences above, students can discuss to organize those sentences to make a paragraph.
Role-play demands practical action in a classroom. In writing by using picture, teacher asks students to work in pairs groups to make attractive writing
about the picture then discuss the details about the picture given. After that, students are asked to write it in a paragraph. Final step, they read their own aloud
to each other and discuss which one works the best and why.
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In questions-answers session, a class is divided into four groups. The teacher gives one picture with a word for each group. For example, the teacher has
pictures of Debbie Johnson’s “bedroom, garden, kitchen and house” which given to four groups. Then, ask the students to compile some questions about it, pretend
that they will stay there and do not know the house. After that, the teacher collects them from each group and redistribute to other groups. Each group of students
writes a letter from Debbie that answers those questions.
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4. One Picture – A Sequence of Tasks for Writing
Using a picture can give teachers opportunity to develop not only wide variety of tasks but also a sequence of tasks, so that students can move from one
level of difficulty to another, gathering more vocabulary, knowledge of idiom and sentence structure and organizational skill. The picture can be discussed by the
students for cultural phenomenon and their own experience related to it.
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The example of one picture for a sequence of tasks
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: 1. Divide class into some groups and ask students to answer: “What is happening
in this picture?” The picture is about Debbie’s wedding. They should write down related words or phrases then the teacher compares the result and writes
necessary vocabularies on the board. 2. Still in groups, students are asked to answers such questions:
a How old are the two people getting married? b Do their parents want them to get married?
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Ibid., p. 33.
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Ibid., p. 33.
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Ibid, p.34.
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Ibid, p.35.
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.
