A panoply of teaching resources.
This ESL lesson teaches English hedging techniques. Hedging is an important writing skill because it shows ESL students how to express sophisticated ideas and avoid broad claims that, sometimes, can appear clunky. Learning English hedging techniques and vocabulary improves the student’s ability to express reasonable arguments, sound more persuasive and communicate with greater precision.
Learning English rules governing the use of commas is tough. My writer’s grammar guide has 20 pages about commas, half of which includes exceptions to the rules. This lesson helps ESL students become better writers by showing three common uses for commas and some exceptions. It’s not comprehensive. Instead, it builds knowledge, slowly and progressively. Too much grammar at one time is like drinking water from a fire hydrant: it can be overwhelming.
Writing fluency is an important skill that students can develop with frequent practice. ESL students, especially new writers, sometimes hesitate to write for a variety of reasons including lack of practice and fear of errors, among others. Like any skill, the teaching of writing needs to be approached from a variety of angles. This activity – sometimes called Power Writing – takes on one specific objective: developing the ability to produce more output through structured practice involving repeated, timed writing tasks that focus on quantity rather than quality.
Run on sentences, a common problem in first drafts, are easy to fix with two possible solutions. Once English students learn the meaning of run on sentence they will be able to find and repair those errors by themselves. Therefore, studying run on sentences helps ESL students develop the skills they need to become independent English writers.
A run on sentence happens when two independent clauses have not been joined in the right way. What’s an independent clause?