writing skills for efl esl students

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  • 7/29/2019 Writing Skills for EFL ESL Students

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    ELT article published by at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/Prof. Jonathan Acua

    Writing Skills for EFL/ESL Students

    Revising your own writing

    Although I am not a writing teacher at the university where I work,

    students often ask me for some assistance for their compositions (term and

    research papers, essays, and paragraphs). To give them some guidance to

    self-check their work, it is customary to provide them with a copy of the

    questionnaire below. The idea behind this is to make students aware of

    theirwriting, so they can develop themselves as writers and self-editors.

    This questionnaire is the product of a joint effort of an ex-partner of mine,

    Mauricio Parra, and me. We decided to create this set of questions to

    prompt some writing skills among our students, to make them aware of the

    importance of editing, and to provide them with a simple but direct guide

    to check their writing.

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    ELT article published by at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/Prof. Jonathan Acua

    Writing Skills

    Revising your own writing

    Check your writing with these questions before you turn a paper in:

    1 Did you do some prewriting activity such as brainstorming before you

    began to write your composition?

    2 Will the first part of your writing (thesis or topic sentence) catch your

    readers attention?

    3 Did you also include a title for your composition? Are you sure that

    you centered and capitalized it correctly?

    Faulty Television draws teens into a vast wasteland

    Better Television Draws Teens into a Vast Wasteland

    4 Can you underline the topic sentence (TS)in each paragraph? If you

    cant, write a topic sentence to state the introduction to it. And be

    sure you didnt forget to indentyour paragraph.

    5 Does each sentence in the development of the paragraph(s) refer to

    the central idea stated in the topic sentence? Throw out irrelevant

    sentencesor move them to a better location.

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    ELT article published by at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/Prof. Jonathan Acua

    6 Did you avoid writing sentences with the word itthat have people

    doing things?

    Faulty It was decided that company policy be changed to allow

    employee selection of personal leave days.

    Better The personnel committee decided to change company policy and

    allow employees to select their own personal leave days.

    7 How about other pronouns?

    Are pronoun references accordingly?

    Faulty The best job a person can get is in Tourism. There he orshe can

    meet a lot of people, and they can make good money.

    Better The best job a person can get is in tourism. There he orshe can

    meet a lot of people, andhe orshe can make good money.

    8 Does each sentence follow the preceding one logically? Do you give

    your readers clues (words such as thus, therefore, first, because,

    but, etc.) to help them follow your thoughts? If not, rearrange

    sentences and add transitionswhere necessary.9 Do sentences sound complex because theyre long?Break them up

    into simple sentences.

    Faulty The cost of leaving for retired Americans living in Costa Rica is

    quite good for them due to the exchange rate, which rarely goes

    up, and their retirement plans in dollars, which are higher for

    Costa Rican living standards.

    Better The cost of living for retired Americans living in Costa Rica is

    quite good for them. This is so due to the exchange rate which

    rarely goes up. Another reason is linked to their retirement plans

    in dollars, which are higher for Costa Rican living standards.

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    ELT article published by at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/Prof. Jonathan Acua

    10 Are you sure that you are not using run-on sentences, -sentences

    which are just separated by commas? Check punctuation for your TS

    and supporting sentences (sentences in the paragraph development)

    as well.

    11 Did you include a concluding sentence (CS)? Did you use any signal

    expression like as a conclusion, to sum up, or to concludeto remind

    you of the CS.

    12 Do you repeatthe same words too often? Do you use words you

    dont need? Omit needless wordsand search the thesaurus for useful

    synonyms.

    13 Did you cut unnecessary words, words that are not really necessary

    to include them?

    Faulty After a time interval of one to two minutes, the tone usually stops.

    Better After one to two minutes, the tone usually stops.

    14 Did you substitute descriptive verbs for vague verbs? If so, try to usemore descriptive verbs in your writing.

    Faulty He went to the island.

    Better He sailed to the island.

    15 Read each sentence in the paragraph aloud to recognize errors in

    grammar, spellingof words you were not sure of, and punctuation.

    Correct these as well as typos.16 Work with a partner and provide him/her with a copy of these

    grading criteria along with your paper. Pay attention to the aspects

    your partner will check in your composition to improve it.

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    ELT article published by at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/Prof. Jonathan Acua

    Prewriting 2 pts.

    Title, TS, CS 2 pts.

    Indentation 1 pt.

    Word choice 3 pts.

    Conclusion 3 pts.

    Unity, coherence 3 pts.

    Grammar 3 pts.

    Punctuation 3 pts.

    Total 20 pts.

    Hopefully, this kind of self-check post-writing task can make students much

    more aware of what it really means to sit down and write a piece that

    contains no mistakes. In doing so, and by working cooperatively with some

    other partner(s), students can get to produce great pieces to be

    submitted to their writing instructors.

    To fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue, its advisable to

    research and expand these areas:

    1 Tips to improve ones writing

    2 The writing process

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    ELT article published by at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/Prof. Jonathan Acua

    3 How to write thesis and topic sentences

    4 Punctuation for EFL/ESL learners

    5 Indentation

    Professor Jonathan Acua-Solano

    ELT Instructor & Trainer based in Costa Rica

    Curricular Developer atCCCN

    Senior ELT Professor atUniversidad Latina

    Freelance ELT Consultant four in Central AmericaOUP

    For further comments or suggestions, reach me at:

    @jonacuso Twitter

    [email protected]

    Other blogs and sites I often write for my students at the university are:

    1.http://bin-02.blogspot.com/ 2.http://bin-04.blogspot.com/

    3.http://bin-06.blogspot.com/ 4.Computering Applications in

    Education

    http://centrocultural.cr/http://centrocultural.cr/http://ulatina.ac.cr/http://ulatina.ac.cr/mailto:[email protected]://bin-02.blogspot.com/http://bin-02.blogspot.com/http://bin-04.blogspot.com/http://bin-04.blogspot.com/http://bin-06.blogspot.com/http://bin-06.blogspot.com/https://sites.google.com/site/studio54onlineradio/https://sites.google.com/site/studio54onlineradio/https://sites.google.com/site/studio54onlineradio/https://sites.google.com/site/studio54onlineradio/https://sites.google.com/site/studio54onlineradio/http://bin-06.blogspot.com/http://bin-04.blogspot.com/http://bin-02.blogspot.com/mailto:[email protected]://ulatina.ac.cr/http://centrocultural.cr/