Category Archives: •Advanced & High- Intermediate Writing

• Fluency Writing: Reading, Speaking In Triads, And Listening Culminating In A Writing Task (REVISITED)

Leave a reply

Cover fluency shot

                                          Integrating the four skills

(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)*

This is the perfect activity for integrating four skills into one activity.  And it culminates in a writing task in which students focus on controlling their grammar and on their sentence style.  It’s also one in which students can practice those two aspects of writing without having to spend time thinking about what to write.

These fluency activities can be used throughout a term when instructors would like to have students work on their grammar in a writing context and/or when they would like to add some group work in their writing classes.  Also, it’s a good lead-in to teaching paraphrasing skills.

Continue reading →

• LINCS Topic 5: What are your recommendations for teaching writing to higher-level learners who have academic goals?

Leave a reply

Cover 5 higher levels REV

 (This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.) 

This posting is a more detailed response to my interview question on Day 5 .LINCS Discussion: Student-Centered Approach to Teaching Writing Skills. .

Below in blue, you’ll find the details that I’ve added to the Day 5 LINCS’ posting.

My top recommendation is to develop a clear understanding of the type of writing students will do in English Comp and academic class after they leave our classes.

With this as our starting point, we can apply our knowledge of language learning to help them develop the skills they will need.

In a survey of 360 college faculty members (of mainstream courses), it was found that, when asked to prioritize the most important components of an effective piece of writing produced by their ESOL students, the respondents chose, as their top three priorities (1) organizing content to express major and supporting ideas, (2) using relevant examples, and (3) demonstrating command of standard written English (Hinkel, 2004). 

I have found similar results from my face-to-face interviews of more than 40 mainstream college instructors in 8 different subject areas who assign papers in their first-year courses. Ten of these were English Comp instructors.

Here are some recommendations based on research.

Continue reading →

• LINCS Topic 2 What instructional strategies have you found to be motivating for English learners? 

Leave a reply

Cover Motive Blog June 2023 REV

(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.) 

This posting is a more detailed response to my interview question on Day 2 .LINCS Discussion: Student-Centered Approach to Teaching Writing Skills. .

Below in blue, you’ll find the details that I’ve added to the Day 2 LINCS’ posting.

I have found six ways to motivate students.

1) Give Students Autonomy

According to psychologist Edward Deci, the most important ingredient for motivating students is autonomy. 1

Having autonomy doesn’t mean that students decide what is taught in a lesson.  Instead, students can experience autonomy if the lesson is set up so that they can individually choose which exercise to do first, second etc., how fast to work, when to ask the teacher a question or for help and even when to take a break.

A writing-workshop approach is an excellent way to give students autonomy. Here is how it can be done:

Step 1) The teacher briefly explains the assignments that student will be working on during the class.

Step 2) S/he returns any homework assignment that students had turned in and which the teacher had marked. They will correct these and show the teacher, but they DO NOT start writing yet.

Step 3) If there is a group-activity, the students do that.  As each group finishes, they don’t have to wait for the others to finish.  Instead, they start the assignments from Steps 1 and 2 individually.

Step 4) AUTONOMY!  Students start the assignments by individually choosing which one they want to do first, second, third.   At any time, they can ask the teacher any questions they might have and show him/her corrections from the returned assignment.

Some of the benefits of the Workshop

Continue reading →

• Why We Teach the Modes in ESL Writing Courses and a Mix-Mode Essay

Leave a reply

Cover Modes shot

(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)

I was left speechless after reading Sayo’s essay. I didn’t know where to start because I couldn’t figure out exactly what she was trying to say.

When I asked her how a specific detail was connected to her topic, she said that she purposely didn’t explain that because she was showing respect to the readers who would figure it out without her explicitly saying it.

I also asked her about why she included an unrelated personal experience. She responded that she thought it would make her paper more interesting to read.

She concluded with a vague question that she hoped would give the reader something to ponder. It only left me pondering how the question was related to her essay.

I realized that Sayo’s essay demonstrated a cultural difference with regard to reader- versus writer-responsibility.  Apparently, English is a “writer-responsible” language; as such, it is the writer’s job to communicate ideas clearly to the reader.  On the other hand, in “reader-responsible” languages, (like Sayo’s) the burden is on the reader to understand what the writer is trying to say.  In reader-responsible cultures, it is presumed that the writer already shares with the reader certain knowledge that can, thus, be left unsaid. However, since readers in English are not accustomed to that role, frustration and communication breakdown can result.

What researchers have found about other cultural differences in writing papers.

Continue reading →