TALK
forum 
teaching academic writing
martoma's picture
If you were to teach an academic writing class for language learners who are planning to study in American or British universities, what would be your top 5 classroom teaching priorities?

Comments

Submitted on 20 December, 2008 - 05:11

 Writing involves going through some stages. If you want your students to be good at writing, you can teach them the writing process

  1. Brainstorming (thinking of everything about the topic)
  2. making notes
  3. planning (organizing ideas)
  4. Writing the first draft
  5. Editing (correcting)
  6. Writing the second draft (the final version)
  7. Proof-reading(editing again) 

Amir Abbass Ravayee

 

Submitted on 21 December, 2008 - 15:55

Five things that I would do in the class are:

1. Students should be suggested how to select appropriate dictionaries to consult, e.g. American or British dictionaries, academic or concise ones etc.

2. Students should be also suggested to use the MS word spell checking if typing.

3. First draft can be organized as a bullet format and anything that comes up in mind should be jotted down. Then, more detailed can be added later.

4. Writing in pair or a small group might help some students who don't like writing learn more and better.

5. Students should be suggested how to research and evaluate information from the Internet before putting in the writing piece.

Submitted on 2 January, 2009 - 19:12
The replies you've received thus far are good but are based on the belief that the learners will soley be writing essays. What if they don't? Many courses require students to write reports or short answer questions (maybe something100 word answers to prompts under assessed conditions) which require significantly different skills. Consequently, you need to find out what kind of writing they will actually be asked to do. It's no use teaching them how to write ancompare contrast essay if they'll be writing lab reports.
Submitted on 3 April, 2009 - 08:51
Based on the above question, I would do following in my class, as few things I have already experimented

Adapt classroom discourses and assignments types which enable them to respond the questions holistically instead of referring to textual limits only, through this they themselves will find a change in their writing projects.

It is essential to exposed them with pronunciation and presentation skills, familiarity with the potential country's cultural and societal norms boost their confidence and enthuse them to be participatory in the classes.

I had found that students who go overseas for studies, lack critical and analytical skills, ability to question text and people's ideas is generally weak in them, thus harness this ability as an attitude is very essential to do with them.

regards

Rozina Jumani

Copyright | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact us