ESL writing activities

Writing Class Week 5

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Back to school and another week of building writing skills.

This week it’s a mix of different ideas, lessons and activities to improve word choice. Among the six writing traits we have so far looked at organisation, voice and sentence fluency (choppy sentences). This week let’s focus on choosing great words.

Writing Activity 1: Fill in the Details

We did not have enough time for this activity last week. So let’s try again.

Some students have a hard time writing a paragraph with enough details to give the reader a clear picture of what they are talking about. Adding a few details can really improve your writing.

Here is an example. Read the paragraph. It is a simple description of a man and his actions. You can see the main parts of the story are there. But there are few details.

A man walked into the room and saw that there was a party going on. He glanced across the crowd, and as soon as he saw that she was there, he turned around and walked out. He didn’t even stop to put on his coat on the way to the front door, but walked out into the snow. The next day, he never answered his phone.

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Writing Class Week 4

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It’s another week to learn and improve English paragraph writing skills. Thank god, if there is one, that is. Some of the writing skills you will learn and practice to help you write with better style include: tighter sentences, fewer words, no running, more descriptions, more sentence variety.

Let’s begin.

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 writing. Some sentences have too many words. Your task is to edit sentences so the main idea stays but useless words go out. Example:

  • Wordy:  John was employed and now works for the company Samsung.
  • Better:  John now works for Samsung.
  1. Helen is a smart and intelligent woman.

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