teach English writing

This week the ESL students will focus on precision writing. That means, using the fewest number of words to communicate an exact idea.

Rewriting Process

Rewriting is an important part of learning how to write well. But, sometimes students just correct the small errors and don’t think about the entire text. You have to learn how to fix the problems yourself.

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These English exercises help ESL students learn how to improve writing sentences and paragraphs.

THESIS SENTENCES

A thesis sentence is your main idea. It is the first sentence of a paragraph. It is important to learn how to write this sentence. When you learn how to write this sentence, your writing, speaking and thinking skills will also be better.

Here is an example.

Many Americans buy Japanese cars. (not a thesis sentence)

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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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