English

Rob Whyte ESL speaking and writing class lessons, activities and worksheets for English students who want to learn and improve their English communication skills.

Writing Class 2014: Week 3

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This week’s lesson plan and activities

  1. Check your understanding of the answers from the textbook. Remember: it is your job to make sure you understand the questions, answers, and vocabulary.
  2. Finish writing the rafting story (from last week).
  3. Write the dog and sausage story (from week 2 post).
  4. Write the short story that shows emotion (from week 2 post).
  5. Rewrite the howl story (wolf boy story based on the video).
  6. Quick review of Six Writing Traits.

This week

It’s another week to learn and improve English paragraph writing skills.

Writing skills to learn and practice this week:

  1. tighter sentences
  2. fewer words
  3. choppy sentences
  4. more descriptions
  5. more sentence variety.

Writing Activity 1: Write Less to Say More

This is a reflective writing activity. It’s importance is to help student become conscious of the act of writing. In this case, to develop an awareness of wordy

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English Advanced Conversation: Week 3

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Two weeks ago we did a short exercise about six thinking hats. These hats help ESL students find new and interesting ways to talk in English about any conversation topic.

  1. White Hat: Facts.
  2. Red Hat: Emotion and opinions.
  3. Yellow Hat: Good points. What you like about it?
  4. Black Hat: Bad points. Mistakes you can find.
  5. Green Hat: Creativity. What if was another way?
  6. Blue Hat: Conclusions. The main idea.

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English Writing Class: Week 2

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This is a short week. Just one hour of class time because of the long holiday. So let’s get busy and learn how to write English well.

Today’s lesson plan and activities

1. Review answers from text book. Your holiday homework was to read chapter 1 and answer the questions. You will be self checking your work. Download this file with suggested answers.

2. Last week, you wrote a short story after watching the video Howl.  I will give you with feedback today.

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Teacher Training Writing Class: Week 2

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That was a long Chuseok holiday. I hope you are ready to being the training program again. This week will learn about Six Writing Traits.

SIX WRITING TRAITS

It’s a framework to help teachers evaluate student writing.

  1. IDEA: a clear message, the content. Good writing shows, it does not tell. Stimulating, interesting, surprising content.
  2. ORGANISATION: The structure. Is it compare and contrast, point by point analysis, chronological? There is a beginning and an end.
  3. VOICE: We sense there is a person writing to us, not a robot. There is feeling, humor, personality.
  4. WORD CHOICE: Does the writer use a rich, descriptive vocabulary? Great words ignite images and a sensory experience in the reader’s mind. Not just a powerful vocabulary but a skill in choosing the right word for each situation.
  5. SENTENCE FLUENCY: Sentences have rhythm just like music. We sense the easy flow with our ears and mind. Playing with long and short sentences is one way to create rhythm.
  6. CONVENTIONS: The mechanics of writing, which includes  spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar and paragraphing.

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