eslwriter

Rob Whyte is a university teacher, teacher trainer and writer.

Week 2 ESL Writing Class

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This week, the ESL writing class has several specific composition objectives.

  1. Learn the six parts of good writing. They are called Six Writing Traits.
  2. Practice rewriting a short passage with a better description and better voice.
  3. Write a short story with a great description and a strong voice.
  4. Write a story that shows us an emotion but does not tell us the emotion. 

SIX WRITING TRAITS

IDEA: a clear message. Good writing shows, it does not tell. Include bits of information often forgotten. Stimulating, interesting, surprising content.

ORGANISATION: The structure of the writing. Is it compare and contrast, point by point analysis, chronological? There is a beginning and an end.

VOICE: We can see there is a person writing to us, not a template. There is feeling, humor, personality.

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Week 5 – A New Reading Week

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It’s a new week and time to get back to reading. Well I hope that’s not the case. One objective of Extensive Reading is to develop a reading culture which continues after the training session.

Developing a Reading Culture

This is a worksheet I scooped from a colleague’s website, ERRockstar. The purpose of the worksheet is to build awareness of reading as a part of culture.

Book Report

This week, the trainees will start to make short book reports.  The purpose of the report is less about making a concise summary and more about reporting how the

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ESL Intermediate Conversation – Week 2

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This is week two of the conversation class. Here are some worksheets and activities for this week.

ESL CONVERSATION ACTIVITIES

  1. Let’s do this in class. No need to download this worksheet.
  2. Next, we will do a quick pair work exercise to describe differences. It’s a little easy but the key point is to speak with a high degree of precision.
  3. Here is a short vocabulary exercise based on the New General Service list we looked at last week.
  4. This short pair work activity helps students help final sounds.