Learn English Writing, 13

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Learn English Writing

This is the plan to help ESL students learn English writing:

  1. fluency writing
  2. review quiz #2
  3. Review a New York Times editorial
  4. complete Before and After writing

Quiz #2 Review

Part 2. You will look at a picture prompt and write three kinds of sentences: a sentence with a prepositional phrase; an appositive; and a complex sentence.

study

Prepositional Phrases – Good Sentences

  • The woman is looking out the window.
  • There are many books on the table.
  • A man is thinking in the room.

Appositives – Good

  • A man, the father of the lady, is thinking on his desk.
  • The guy, a writer, is thinking of something.

Appositives – Poor

  • The man, black colored hair, is thinking something.
  • She, a looking out the window, is standing in front of the window.

Possible Fixes

  • The man, a thin gentleman with black hair, is thinking something.
  • She, a young princess from the next village, is standing in front of the window and looking out.

Complex Sentences – Good

  • Because the woman is waiting someone, she is looking outside the window.
  • Because she knows ‘he doesn’t love me’, she wants divorce with the husband.
  • While he was thinking about something seriously, she was looking at a bird.

Part 3 – Articles

On October 12, Greg Brown, A high school student, had A motorcycle accident near THE public library. At 3:00 p.m., he was driving down Queen Street by himself in THE heavy rain. At THE intersection, his motorcycle suddenly started to slide on THE wet asphalt. Then, he hit A car that was parked in front of THE police station. Then, he crashed into XX two pedestrians who were walking on THE sidewalk. At 3:04, two officers from THE police department arrived. Greg reported that he was not injured, but one of THE pedestrians had A broken arm. THE police took THE injured person to THE hospital for AN examination. Greg’s motorcycle was dented, but he was able to drive XX home.

Part 2b. Read the sentences. Add a, an, the or nothing.

  1. THE chair you are sitting on is not very comfortable.
  2. There is A pencil on the desk.
  3. XX fish is very high in protein.
  4. XX dogs and XX cats are popular pets.
  5. THE medicine that you gave me really helped my cough.
  6. AN igloo is A house made of XX ice.
  7. He wants to buy A warm winter coat.
  8. THE children next door got dressed up last night.
  9. XX coffee isn’t very good for you.
  10. She had AN accident.

Before and After

At the beginning of the semester, you wrote a short story about a robot.

  • First watched a short video about a small USB robot.
  • Then you wrote a 1) summary fo the story and 2) described your opinion abotu the message of the video.
  • Now, let’s do the same activity. Next week, we will compare your first and last stories to see how much you improved.

New York Times editorial

I have cut and paste the editorial here for educational purposes, specifically to help my writing students understand good paragraph style. The cut and paste was necessary because access to some internet sites at this institution is inconsistent.

“South Koreans can be as proud of their country’s emergence from dictatorship into a vibrant democracy as they are of the rags-to-riches development that made their country a global industrial powerhouse. So it is alarming that President Park Geun-hye appears intent on backtracking on the democratic freedoms that have made South Korea as different from North Korea’s puppet regime as day is from night.

Last weekend, tens of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets to protest two repressive government initiatives. One would replace the independently selected history textbooks now available to South Korea’s educators with government-issued textbooks. The other would change labor laws to make it easier for South Korea’s family-controlled business conglomerates to fire workers.

Ms. Park is also attempting to control criticism and dissent on social media and the Internet. On Saturday, Lee Sir-goo, the co-chief executive of South Korea’s most popular messaging app, stepped down. He is facing criminal charges for failing to prevent teenagers from posting lewd photos, but critics contend the real goal is to punish him for resisting government surveillance efforts and refusing to curb users’ opinions critical of the government.

Ms. Park is the daughter of Gen. Park Chung-hee, who was an Imperial Japanese officer in the colonial era and South Korea’s military dictator from 1961 to 1979. Rehabilitating her father’s image appears to be one motivation for making sure South Korea’s students learn a whitewashed version of their country’s history — especially the period when democratic freedoms were seen as an impediment to industrialization.

South Korea’s economy has been hit hard this year by an outbreak of MERS respiratory disease and a slowdown in demand from China and other Asian countries. The biggest risk to South Korea’s reputation abroad, however, is not economic but political, chiefly Ms. Park’s heavy-handed attempts to rewrite history and quash dissent.”

PHOTO CREDIT

The image in this post comes from Erik Söderström and its use complies with the owner’s creative commons licensing terms.