ESL English Writing Lessons: Week 14

It’s the last week of the semester. Let’s wrap up a few lessons and details.

Writing Review

Last week, the students complete a rewriting exercise. The task was to take a first draft, which did not have enough details, and add extra information. That writing task is here. Here is a summary f my comments:

  1. Many students forgot to write paragraphs – please indent and add spacing.
  2. Most students simple copied words from the help box but did not try to add new information, or correct the grammar mistakes – please remember, writing is thinking.
  3. Almost everybody forget to add articles.
  4. Most people did a good job.
  5. Usually, if you have a list of three things in a sentence, use AND just before the last item. Here is an example: babysitting, hauling trash, yard work and washing cars.
  6. Quite a few people did not try to use synonyms in their paragraphs. As a result, some words (e.g. teenagers) were repeated many times in a sentence or paragraph. Just to make your writing more interesting with a rich vocabulary (e.g. teenager, young people, high school students, adolescents).

Here is a sample answer.

Many teenagers would like to make money. These days, every teen needs money for dates, entertainment and clothes. But, they don’t know where to look for work. Most of the jobs which teens are qualified for – like babysitting, hauling trash, yard work and washing cars – are not advertised in newspapers or posters. Many adults would be glad to hire teenagers but don’t know how to find high school students looking for a part time job.

We could solve both problems by starting a job center at our school. All we need is a teacher to sponsor us, volunteers, a phone and some card files. Students who wanted work could come in and fill out a card. The card would have a person’s profile including name, address, phone number, skills, experience and available hours. They would also have to pay a small fee to be listed. The center would use this money to pay for various operating costs including newspaper advertisements, printing leaflets for community bulletin boards and phone rental. There would be no salaries because the phones would be manned by volunteers.

Students would take turns answering the phone and operating the center. They would match up people who had jobs with teenagers who wanted a job. If an adult calls the center, a coordinator would collect important data such as job description, hours, pay and contact information. The coordinator would then search the card file looking for a profile that matches that job and give the employer a name and contact information. The employer would then call the teenager. Everybody, it seems to me, would win.

ROBOT STORY EDIT

Most people did a good job rewriting the robot story. A few things were missed by a few people, though. Here is a sample answer.

     The factory worker of the future may never need a lunch break. That’s because a robot, a machine controlled by computers, will replace factor workers. Its job may well be to build other workers like itself. Bio-engineering, computerized medicine, and robot factory workers-all may be part of our not-so-distant future.

Robots have a long history in books, movies and the human imagination. But today they have moved out of the realm of fiction and into the real world of work. In America, robotics is a 2 billion industry. Robots build cars and handle radioactive materials. Robots also operated the Voyageur spacecraft that sent back pictures back of Jupiter. In Japan, robotics is even more advanced and robots are widely used in the auto industry. According to one estimate, 11 million Japanese robots will be at work by the year 2000. Says James Albus, a robot specialist at the National Bureau of Standards, “We’re heading into a post-industrial society, in which there will be no need for human beings to engage in the manufacture of basic goods.”

ROOM 8

This was difficult writing assignment. Your job was to describe in some detail the setting, character and plot of a strange story. And the message of the story, if any.

Many people did a good job describing the basic parts of the story. Here are a few examples.

  1. The whole atmosphere was strange and dark.
  2. The atmosphere of this video is grotesque and gloomy.
  3. It looks like Pandora’s Box.
  4. The movie was terrifying because a human was caught in a matchbox.
  5. It was a stark room with its gray walls and bed and chairs. It looks like a very cold and soulless concrete block.

Here are a few ideas about the meaning/message:

  1. One bad choice can change life forever.
  2. People should do their responsibility otherwise they will fall into a harder situation.
  3. I think the strange story says you should submit to punishment if you did a guilty deed and you should not want so much.
  4. The story talks about responsibility of your choice and a longing for freedom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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