English Punctuation - Learn English Free English Punctuation If you think punctuation doesn't matter, think again:- When you are speaking you use inflection, tone, nuance, pauses and word stress to communicate meaning. When you are writing you replace all this with punctuation. Using a full stop at the right time, can save a lot of embarassment:- Lynne Truss made a fortune out of pointing out that punctuation does indeed matter. The title, Eats shoots and leaves, comes from a joke about pandas:- A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down and orders a sandwich. Of course the entry would have been less deadly for the waiter if it had read - Panda: A bear, in the Uridae family, of Asian origin, characterised by distinct black and white colouring. There's another common joke:- An English professor wrote the words, “Woman without her man is nothing,” on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.The men wrote: “Woman, without her man, is nothing.”The women wrote: “Woman: Without her, man is nothing.”
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Writing Help for Non-Fiction Writing Everyone (or almost everyone) needs some writing help. This section offers help with English language usage when writing non-fiction text. The advice should be useful to native English speakers who just need to check they are doing it right and to ESL learners who need greater help. Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing One of the biggest problems faced by academic writers is correctly incorporating someone else’s writing into their own. As well as citing the source in the text and including the reference in the reference section the material in the original source needs to be incorporated into your writing. QuotingParaphrasingSummarising Quoting is the direct use of the works of the original author, paraphrasing is keeping most of the information from the original but rewriting it in your own words, while summarizing is restating only the main points in your own words. Word Choices in Non-fiction Writing Good fiction writing uses the choice of language to enhance the story telling. Google
Approaches to process writing What is process writing? Why should teachers be interested in a process approach to writing? The changing roles of teacher and students What stages are there in a process approach to writing? Classroom activities The importance of feedback Writing as communication Potential problems Further reading What is process writing? Why should teachers be interested in a process approach to writing? Research also shows that feedback is more useful between drafts, not when it is done at the end of the task after the students hand in their composition to be marked. The changing roles of teacher and students The teacher needs to move away from being a marker to a reader, responding to the content of student writing more than the form. What stages are there in a process approach to writing? Pre-writing The teacher needs to stimulate students' creativity, to get them thinking how to approach a writing topic. Evaluating, structuring and editing Now the writing is adapted to a readership. Focusing ideas
Learn Paraphrase Writiing Introduction Do you want to improve your essay writing skills? If yes, learn paraphrasing. It is a skill that will upgrade your writing abilities. Here is a free six lesson e-course. Who should take this e-course? need better writing skills plan to take a TOEFL or IELTS test want to increase English writing abilities quickly dream of studying in a western university Learn Writing Skills This e-course teaches six kinds of paraphrase writing skills. Here are the six skills and links to the lessons. Lesson 1: Synonyms. What is Paraphrase Writing? Paraphrasing is a reading and writing skill. Paraphrasing is not copying. Paraphrasing Helps Essay Writing Paraphrasing helps build writing skills in many areas. improve vocabulary powerlearn different sentence patternsexpand knowledge of expressionsdevelop your own writing style Paraphrase writing is an important reading and writing skill for students in almost every English-speaking country. Research and Results I believe paraphrasing is a great writing skill.
Writer's Workshop Resources and Ideas The majority of time of Writing Workshop is devoted to independent writing. During this time, students are prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing their pieces. Depending on the age and abilities of your students, independent writing can be as short as 15 minutes or as long as 45-60 minutes. It helps to build stamina with your class, beginning with a short amount of time and building that time until they can work for up 30 minutes or more. According to Katie Wood Ray (The Writing Workshop, 2001), students can also do other activities during their writing time, such as writing in their schema notebooks journal writing writing exercises to experiment with language and style conducting peer-conferences reading to support writing During independent writing time, the teacher confers with students about their writing. Teachers should keep conferences short. Websites on Conferring:
Resources This section contains a variety of resources aimed at both students and teachers, consisting of: Notes covering a range of Specification areas. These are available in a variety of formats, from simple notes, through complete previously-published textbook chapters to structured notes based around a relatively simple teaching and learning format. PowerPoints: Most of these are aimed at classroom use - particularly the simple slides and revision flashcards. There are, however, more-complex PowerPoint packages that can be used either individually, for revision purposes, or collectively as classroom-based revision exercises. NotAFactsheet: Like a Factsheet (but Not). Lesson Plans are aimed at teachers and consist of complete lessons, lesson fragments (relatively simple ideas that can be incorporated into a wider lesson and lesson outlines - a range of ideas and information that can adapted and shaped into different lessons. Revision: Maps, Cards and Spider Diagrams.
Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing "The meaning of even a single word is rather more complex than one might imagine." - Editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, 1980, p. viii "Teacher, do we need our pencils today?" So, what was the correlation? I have been teaching ESL for many years and there is no perfect solution to this problem; however, I do believe I have added quite a few writing activities to my bag of tricks and improved my ability to differentiate writing tasks based on student ability. There is a very important correlation between writing and language development. First the student must have an idea, then think of the appropriate way to say it, then start to write it and spell it correctly, and then create another sentence to continue to communicate the idea. With that said, teachers have a big task in improving ESL student writing skills, but the payoff for instructional dedication can be great. Additional positive academic results have been seen in the "90 90 90 Schools." Language Experience Approach
An Introduction to Letter Writing Because the activities below were developed for students in the U.K., it uses some language specific to their school system. For example, KS1 refers to Key State 1, corresponding to children ages 5 to 7; KS2 corresponds to children ages 7 to 9. QCA stands for Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which is the regulatory body for public school examinations. Introduction Letter writing is an essential skill. Within the KS2 National Literacy Strategy, letter writing is a required element. Handwriting too is an essential element. To be legibleHave a consistent size and spacing of lettersShow flow and movementShow a confident personal styleThus letter writing exercises can fulfil two elements of the curriculum Back to Top What's so special about receiving a handwritten letter? Quite apart from curriculum requirements, being asked to write letters is a task that will appeal to children. Handwritten letters have a charm of their own. Activity 1: Warming up to letter writting Structure:
prompts, lessons, and resources for writing classrooms WI Freewriting Freewriting is fast writing, composed generally for the writer and not for other readers. Freewriting is a quick and efficient way for a writer to get onto paper what he or she already knows, and often to discover a connection or two which hadn't earlier been part of consciousness. A freewriting session typically lasts from three to twelve minutes. Very often freewriting begins with a focus — sometimes simply a topic, such as "senior citizens," or sometimes an assertion ("Senior citizens affect the economy in several positive ways"). Since one goal of freewriting is to retrieve as much prior knowledge as possible, writers are encouraged to force words on to a page by not stopping. Finally, since freewriting is writing for the writer, writers are encouraged not to edit, not to worry about spelling, not to worry about "mistakes" — in other words, not to go back and "fix" their writing — because it is not intended for others to read. Ideally, freewriting is for the writer's eyes only.
Dialogue Journals Writing Strategy: Dialogue Journals by Elena Andrei Adolescence is a great period in which students explore who they are, what they like, and how they will fit in the world; it is a period of romance, questioning, and reflection. Dialogue JournalsA dialogue journal is a private, written conversation between teacher and student or between students (Peyton, 1993; Schwartzer, 2004; Staton, 1987). Based on the context, the content you are teaching, current events, time of the year (before or after high-stake tests, for example), the students you have in your classroom, and their interests and characteristics, you can decide if you want to let the students free write or answer a prompt, or both (Peyton, 1993). A dialogue journal is especially useful for English language learning: students get a chance to put their thoughts into words in a nonthreatening way. In my classroom I used dialogue journals as the first activity on Fridays. Student Objectives Teacher Objectives References Kim, D. (2011).
Writing task two Task description You will be given a discussion topic. Your task is to write a 250 word essay on that topic. You should spend around 40 minutes on the task. What is being tested is your ability to: Present a point of view with convincing evidence Challenge an alternate point of view Focus on the topic and avoid irrelevancies Communicate in a style that is easy to follow and cohesive Use English accurately and appropriately Sample task You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. Your task Complete the task 2 exercise above. Sample answer It has been around forty years since television was first introduced into Australian households and people today still have mixed views on whether it has a positive or a negative influence on the society. “The essay has a clear introduction which poses the problem. Strategies for improving your IELTS score The style of essay required for Task 2 of the IELTS writing test is standard to academic courses. Connecting sentences A. B.
30 Ideas for Teaching Writing Summary: Few sources available today offer writing teachers such succinct, practice-based help—which is one reason why 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing was the winner of the Association of Education Publishers 2005 Distinguished Achievement Award for Instructional Materials. The National Writing Project's 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing offers successful strategies contributed by experienced Writing Project teachers. Since NWP does not promote a single approach to teaching writing, readers will benefit from a variety of eclectic, classroom-tested techniques. These ideas originated as full-length articles in NWP publications (a link to the full article accompanies each idea below). Table of Contents: 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing 1. Debbie Rotkow, a co-director of the Coastal Georgia Writing Project, makes use of the real-life circumstances of her first grade students to help them compose writing that, in Frank Smith's words, is "natural and purposeful." ROTKOW, DEBBIE. 2003. Back to top 2. 3. 4.