TeachingEnglish
Teaching writing skills
Submitted by divakar3368 on 25 July, 2010 - 08:32
How to help the students of advanced level to improve their writing skills?
I am working as an English teacher for secondary students. I have found it difficult to teach them how to improve their writing skills. Should I concentrate more on teaching vocabulary and sentence structures first and then organising ideas? Please help me.
With love
Divakar
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Dear Divakar
I think you should focus on what to write before how to write them. First, help your students develop their argument by brainstorming on the topic. Once they have enough to write, it will be easier to organize the ideas. Students can find their own vocabulary and sentence structures from their dictionaries or from the Net. You may give them a handout of vocabulary items, sentence structures or sample paragraphs to help them.
Best regards
Attacca Wu
Dear Divakar,
You should improve your students' writing skills step by step from guided writing to free writing. as advanced students they also know basic rules. ın my opinion try to find interesting topics related to thier age groups or interests. Generally language learners find writing activities difficult. but sharing ideas and writing them on the board may be helpful. students can exchange ideas in groups. because working with a group decreaces streess, making mistake. you can divide the cllass into three groups, give the topic. first group can write beginning part. the other group writes development part and the third group can write final part and then they can bring it together.
thank you.
Dear Divakar,
Most students find writing difficult even in their native languages. That is because to write a text about a topic, you should have enough knowledge on that topic first. I suggest you start by formulating key questions and asking students to do some research to find their answers. When formulating the questions make sure the questions are comprehensive. (Questions beginning with Why? and How? may help)
If you don't have enough time to make students do research, you can bring reading passages (preferrably from differing points of view) about the topic to class and discuss the topic in the class before paper work. Then again you can use the key questions to guide them in the writing process.
Lastly, you can specify how many pages their papers will be so that they don't get away with short and shoddy papers.
Good luck!
Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. I will try to put it in practice.
Dear Divakar,
Since your students are of advanced level, they need to edit their ideas and not so much vocabulary and syntax.
They need to be aware of the characteristics of a good writing piece:
• Originality of ideas
• Correct
• Grammar
• Spelling
• Punctuation
• Suitable range of vocabulary
• A good mix of simple, compound & complex sentences
• A clear introduction & conclusion
• Sufficient details
• Clear development of ideas
• Good paragraphing
• Clear links between sentences & paragraphs
To help them, you could get them to question their composition. This could be done as peer editing. For a narrative they could ask these questions:
• Is the introduction interesting?
• Does the writer include a setting –place & time?
• Is there a main character & supporting characters?
• Are all of the sentences relevant to the story?
• Are the sentences in the correct sequence?
• Did the writer give enough details?
• Did the writer use enough adjectives?
• Did the writer use enough transitions?
• Does the essay have a good ending?
And for a descriptive essay, these questions could help –
- Is there a good topic sentence?
- Is the paragraph about one main idea?
- Are all of the supporting sentences relevant to the main idea?
- Are the supporting sentences in the correct sequence?
- Did the writer use enough transitions?
- Did the writer use enough adjectives?
- Does the essay have a good conclusion?
Good luck.Hi,
You can select an appropriate text which is related to the writing topic and you lead a discussion with your students about the text in order to enable them generate ideas and get use of their peer's ideas. You can also use some pictures related and have a brain storming about the pictures. You can also choose a listening passage and lead a discussion then help your students put down their ideas for writing.
Here you integrate their language skills and help them create good writing bearing in mind the points mentioned before about grammar, spelling, punctuation and how to organize their essay i.e. introduction and conclusion.
Regards,
Thank you, dulip, for your post. That list is going to help me and my students a lot.
I think the best way to introduce the advanced learners to writing is using the concept of process writing. They should be aware of the important stages of writing like planning, drafting,redrafting and checking. Encourage students to correct their own mistakes and build in an element of peer correction.The ABC of effective writing are accuracy, brevity and clarity.
Divakar's quests are identical to mine. All the respondents have given me many ideas and thoughts which are of many help to me.
Thank you very much and I'm happy and proud to be one of you.
Best regards,
emyo
Hi Everyone,
I recently posted a list ofresources for teaching writing - at advanced levels. The forum post can be found here: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/forum-topic/useful-resources-how-write...
Hope that helps!
CMF