Stephen van Vlack
Sookmyung Women`s University
Graduate School of TESOL
Teaching Writing
Spring 2007
Raimes (1983), Chapter 3 - Techniques in Using Pictures - Answers
1. Why are pictures such a useful tool when endeavouring to teach writing?
The historical connection between drawing pictures and writing is quite clear. The first writing systems developed from pictographic systems of communication which simply failed to work any more due to the rapidly increasing complexity of society and linguistic needs related to writing at that time. The first writing, as we know it, was used to record the inventories of storehouses and subsequent transactions in Mesopotamia. Interesting, you may or may not be thinking , but what does this have to do with writing/composition and pictures. Well, think about it this way.
Visuals/pictures are a concrete impetus for writing. They are there and the same for everyone and they hold their meaning independent of language. When we as teachers use visuals as a tool for helping our students write we are mimicking exactly what the ancients did when they first developed writing as a system. They sought to make a permanent, meaningful record of what their eyes perceived so that everyone who could read or interpret the sign would later be able to see what was once there but has since disappeared. That is the essence of what writing still is despite it s modern complexity and is one of the reasons why pictures and writing go together so well. It seems simple, but remember, it is often claimed, and rightfully so, that literacy changes the way that people think. It is certainly the most powerful tool that humans have developed, but it must start from something. As we said in the beginning of this class, literacy is something that must be learned overtly and deliberately. To do this, we start with images.
Sight is unquestionably the most useful of the five senses. We even store images (imagens) in our brain as one of the main means of defining certain types of lexical items. Images are everywhere. It is through the medium of sight that we perceive the world around us. It is something we do constantly. The fact that we can recognize, and more than that, categorize, images is one of the main means of our survival. In this respect using visuals in the classroom is the simplest means of bringing the everyday world into what is otherwise an extremely `other-worldly` situation. Pictures provide a primordial link between the world at large and the idiosyncratic representation of the world we each have encapsulated in our brains. Once more images (imagens) are stored in association with language and for language to be effectively used it too needs to be stored with images. As teachers (no matter what the subject we teach) our fundamental goal is to expand and increase, in any way possible, the size the mental representation of the world our students maintain.
This might seem a bit obtuse and hard to follow, but what I am trying to do is give a cognitive explanation supporting why using pictures is so important. Visuals are the ultimate representation of the concrete. All visuals are exactly the same to everyone on a certain level, no matter what their background. It is only from this common/concrete entity that we can start to abstract. We all know that in language development concrete functions necessarily precede abstract functions. In fact, abstract functions cannot develop naturally unless they have a secure bed of concrete functions to develop from.
No where is this clearer than in the use of visuals. In order to discuss what a picture, for example, means we have to first see the simple/concrete components that make it up. This is basic semiotics and if this is interesting to you, then go and look for texts by Roland Barthe or Umberto Eco. What all this means is that using pictures, not only for writing but also for speaking, is necessary in getting our students to develop concrete functions in the Target Language.
Pictures/visuals are effective in the classroom for many practical reasons as well. As we saw in the chapter and discussed in class, a creative teacher can develop a whole series or chain of activities from a single picture or set of pictures. In this way, pictures are incredibly flexible tools to use in the classroom. A good visual can be a ready made lesson if you know what to do with it.
2. What are some of the specific types of writing activities that can be created for use with pictures?
The concrete nature of pictures/visuals renders them particularly suitable for pair or group work, at least in the initial stages of a writing/composition project. It is here that speaking can be integrated with writing in a natural and effective way. The speaking can be used as a kind of brainstorming activity which will help the students come up with not only ideas, but also the basic vocabulary and language forms they need for the task. An added plus here is that since the pictures are all the same, or very similar (you might want to do a kind of spot the differences activity here), you can help your students in ways you could not do in writings without the aid of pictures because you can easily predict the types of vocabulary and forms the will need to get through the task.
3. Raimes offers 10 different examples of activities that can be done from one simple sketch on pages 30-33. Rank them in their most obvious order of difficulty: That is, level them.
Below you will find me own tentative ordering of the tasks.
1. Description
2. Description, comparison, and contrast
3. Paragraph assembly
4. Sentence combining
5. Paragraph completion
6. Controlled composition
7. Guided composition
8. Role-play
9. Questions and answers
10. Beyond the picture
All this, as we discovered in class to our amusement, is relative. Any one of these types of activities can be done in ways that are incredibly challenging (for example a description that involves a strange picture) or extremely simple and mechanical. Exactly how difficult an activity will be and what types are to be done is up to the teacher, obviously based on the level, interests and inclination of the students. Remember, the simplest way of sizing up the basic difficulty level of any activity is to access the amount of creativity that is required on the part of the students. A role play, for example, in which the student needs to write an invitation letter is less challenging than a general description because invitation letters generally follow a certain framework and the language is generally formulaic. Once you know the formula, the writing of such a letter is just a matter of following a preset program and is not creative at all.
4. Apart from pictures, what other kinds of visuals can be used to support a writing plan in your class?
Realia - This is good because it adds an air of authenticity to both you and the classroom, but you are somewhat limited in what you can bring in.
Maps - I love maps and try to use them often, but always with the understanding that they can be the most boring and tedious thing in the world if not handled well. Hand drawn maps are often more interesting than computer drawn ones, especially when of cityscapes.
Graphs and Charts - Graphs and charts are much more abstract than the other types of visuals. Basically, they are a kind of visual text in that they need to be read and supply a specific type of information which needs to be gleaned from the visuals. They are often dry and uninteresting for younger learners. I suggest you make your own graphs and charts or have your students do so with topics that are fun and interesting for them. Here`s a web site that will help you do just that and very simply: http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/
5. Although Raimes does not mention this it seems obvious that there are effective and less effective pictures depending on the purpose of the writing and other factors. Try to come up with a list of general criteria for what might be a useful picture here in the Korean/Asian setting.
Obviously, we want to make the best use of the pictures that we find or have for our students. Efficiency is everything in the EFL setting. Primarily, we want our students to be able to use the pictures well for the purposes of the writing task at hand. Rather than saying one picture type is the best, the usefulness of different types of visuals will vary according to the task. In deciding this we can consider a few different variables. The first of these is the level of complexity in the visual. In a general way more complex and realistic visuals are probably useful for many learners for they give them more things to possibly do with the picture, but also provide a (partially) realistic view of what the world outside the classroom is like. Color is good. This means that actual phonographs work better than simple sketches or drawings because there is much more you can do with them. Also, mixing visuals that are true to the world and somehow out of the realm of the ordinary or mundane world work better at capturing the students interest and providing a contrast they can build knowledge on. Visuals do not have to be perfectly truthful or true to life all the time, but bear in mind, the more they violate the rules of nature the more abstract types of writing you may have your students do. Personal pictures work better at drawing the students` attention than the somewhat generic ones usually found in magazines. Another variable is topics of the visuals and this correlates to what we mentioned earlier in this course about familiarity. Familiar topics are easier to write about but providing visuals for less familiar topics increases familiarity. It is all a balancing act that needs to be carefully planned.
Another thing that must be considered when using visuals are the cultural aspects. In general, we want to include visuals that are culturally loaded as opposed to being culturally vacuous. Pictures are a quick, easy, and effective way of building common knowledge with native speakers of the TL. This will also make your visuals more interesting for your students.