A reason to speak

Make sure that the children have a reason for speaking, for example, they need to talk to their partner to
complete a picture or to find information in order to make a graph. Think about the questions you ask in
class. If you ask Is this a pencil? children can only respond either yes or no. And of course you already
know its a pencil so the question isnt real. If you hide the pencil in a bag and ask Whats in the bag? this
is now a fun game and students are motivated to answer using a wider range of language.

Whole class speaking activities

You can use chants or songs to give the whole class the opportunity to listen and repeat the sounds, rhythm
and intonation they hear. You can ask students to join in with just part of the song or chant at first and then
gradually build up to the whole thing. Heres an example of how to do this with a tongue twister:

Play or say the tongue twister then tell your students that they are going to repeat the sentence bit by bit after
you. Start by asking your students to repeat the last part of the sentence and building up to the full tongue
twister like this:

Teacher: sea shore

Students: sea shore
Teacher: by the sea shore
Students: by the sea shore
Teacher: sea shells by the sea shore
Students: sea shells by the sea shore
Teacher: She sells sea shells by the sea shore
Students: She sells sea shells by the sea shore

Have your class repeat the whole tongue twister slowly and then more quickly after the version on
LearnEnglish Kids. Find the above tongue twister here:
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/tongue-twisters/she-sells-sea-shells

You can find many more tongue twisters on LearnEnglish Kids here:
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/tongue-twisters

Youll find lots of ideas for more whole class speaking activities in this article:
www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/circle-games

Speaking in small groups or pairs

Children, including very young learners, can work in pairs or small groups to maximize their speaking time
in class. When students work in pairs or small groups the teacher is able to monitor, move around the class
and really listen to the language being produced.

After doing a whole class activity with the tongue twister above you could have students work in
pairs to take turns repeating the tongue twister as fast as possible without mistakes. This isnt easy of
course and you could demonstrate this to the class by trying to say it quickly and correctly yourself.
Get the students to count how many consecutive error free versions you can say.
You can give students a spot the difference information gap activity to do in pairs. Give each student
a picture. The pictures should be almost the same with two or three elements missing from each
picture. Without showing each other the pictures they should describe their pictures to each other and
try to find which objects are missing. They will practise colours, prepositions of place, and adjectives
such as big, small. They can compare their pictures when they have finished.
Ask children to sit back to back and imagine they are having a telephone conversation. They can
practise telephone language or just simple exchanges based on your current class topic that arent
connected to the telephone itself. Sitting back to back make this more fun, interesting and helps
children really concentrate on listening to their partner.
 Children can play a board game in small groups. Before they start you can practise game language
such as Its my turn and Throw the dice as a whole class. You can print the LearnEnglish Kids
snakes and ladders board game here: http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/craft-
downloads/snakes-and-ladders If you want to practice specific language points you can write
questions on the snakes and ladders board. When a player lands on a square with a question they
have to answer the question.
Students can act out a simple play in small groups. Use masks or puppets to make this more fun.
Youll find finger puppets and masks in the craft downloads section on LearnEnglish
Kids: http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/craft-downloads

Setting up speaking activities

Make sure that children know what they have to do. Demonstrate the activity either yourself or with a
volunteer. Ask the students what they have to do and maybe let them answer in their mother tongue to check
understanding. Appoint an English monitor in each group to remind the others to speak English. If you put
students into pairs of student A and student B make sure everyone knows whether they are A or B by asking
for a show of hands. Set a time limit and have a signal for finishing such as raising your hand and saying
stop. You could also have an activity ready for early finishers such as a worksheet to complete or a
selection of picture books to look at.

Classroom language
Try to use English as much as possible for communication in the classroom from day one to give students
the chance to speak English with you and with their classmates. Demonstrate your instructions as you say
them in English and your learners will soon understand Sit down, Put your pencil on the table, Hands
up etc. Teach students to use expressions like Can I have, Ive finished, Can I go to the toilet? at the
start of the course so that they have the language to speak to you in English in the classroom.

Praise your students when they try to use English and keep reminding them to use English whenever
possible in class.

When you have used some of these ideas, why not come back to this page and leave a comment below to tell
us how your class went. Let us know if you have any additional ideas!

Author:
Sally Trowbridge

28 Student-Centered Instructional Strategies

by TeachThought Staff

For in-person professional development from TeachThought on effective instructional strategies or any
other topic your school or district might need, contact us today.

Student-centered teaching is teaching designed for the student. This means that planning often begins with
the student in mind as opposed to a school policy or curriculum artifact, for example. Done well, it can
disarm some of the more intimidating parts of academia, while also shortening the distance between the
student and understanding.

Put another way, student-centered teaching is teaching that is aware of students and their needs above and
beyond anything else. It places students at the center of the learning process.

This isnt as simple as it sounds, especially without shifting ones mindset towards that approach. We
recently shared 32 Research-Based InstructionalStrategies. The following infographic Mia
MacMeekin provides additional tools (in the form of strategies) that can help create a learning environment
that can, depending on the context, more approachable, friendly, or familiar to students in your classroom.
Let us know in the comments which are your favorites, or any good ones you think Mia might have missed.

28 Student-Centered Instructional Strategies

7 Ways to Error Correct
by aoife mcloughlin | posted in: Uncategorized | 3
When Does Real Learning Happen?
Learning, the real learning, happens

When you are intentional about learning

When you are driven by an intrinsic need to advance and not only by external triggers and rewards.
When you ask more questions to get to the WHY of things (and then to what and how)
When you carry an open frame of mind that is receptive
When you look for process and patterns even in discrete situations
And when you use your understanding to connect the dots and look at a larger picture
When you enjoy the process of learning without getting too anxious about the results and goals.
When you are self-aware (of your own beliefs, thoughts, values and perceptions)
When you experience, execute, iterate and test your hypothesis
When you reflect deeply on your experiences
And when you share your lessons (and process) with others generously so that they can learn (and
also contribute)
When you surround yourself with passionate learners, mentors and coaches (and be a part of a
learning community)
And engage others (community) meaningfully in collaborative problem solving
When you are able to collect, synthesize and process information from varied sources
When you solve interesting problems
And be able to create a map on the go (rather than relying on tried and tested methods)
When you overcome the fear of making mistakes
When you think critically
When you execute in short bursts, fail small and realign your approaches
When you Unlearn (let go of the old ways of thinking and doing)
When you apply lessons in line with unique needs of the context
When you synthesize your lessons and apply meta-lessons in across disciplines
When you are generous enough to share what you know, teach, coach and mentor others
When you are comfortable with inherently ambiguous nature of learning (and ability to hold two
contrasting thoughts without being judgmental)
When you are comfortable also with the emergent nature of learning
When you dont allow your learning to crystallize but keep it fluid and evolving.
When you truly start believing that self-directed and self-initiated learning is the best way to learn
(for a lifetime).
Effective and efficient techniques for giving
feedback on writing

Marking written work can be incredibly time-consuming, and its disheartening when you see the students
glance quickly at your detailed comments and put the piece of writing away in their bags never to be looked
at again.

So, what can be done to a) reduce your workload as a teacher and b) encourage students to actually learn
something from your feedback*?

We all know that its important to get students to take responsibility for their own work and many teachers
use a correction code to encourage students to self-correct. This can be useful, but you still need to be
selective. Too many corrections/comments can lead to the student feeling overwhelmed and demotivated,
and/or the student not knowing which of these areas are high priorities.

Be selective

Choose one or two areas with the whole class that you will focus on for this set of written work only. For
example, if it is an opinion essay, you might choose to focus on text organisation. Or you could choose a
grammatical area, such as articles, that the whole class finds difficult. Instead of the teacher choosing these
areas, you could negotiate them with the class before they start or after they have written the work but
before they have handed it in.

Ask students to individually select two areas they want you to focus on as you mark their work. They could
either write these at the bottom of their work, or highlight sections that they dont feel as confident about.

Focus on just one or two (anonymous) pieces of work that you look at with the whole class. Take it in turns
so that everyone has this opportunity. Especially with a monolingual group, it is likely that many of the issues
will be the same for most students.

Just correct one paragraph of each students work. Then ask them to self-correct anything similar in the rest
of the piece.
Of course, with all these approaches it is important that the students understand that not highlighting
something doesnt automatically mean that it is correct, but that you are being selective.

Set aside time for students to respond to and act on your feedback

In the UK this has the lovely acronym DIRT (directed improvement and reflection time). If we dont want
our carefully thought through feedback to be ignored, DIRT is vital. However, it is unlikely in most contexts
that you will have sufficient class time for students to sit and re-draft the whole pieces of work in class.
Again, be selective.

So, if you have just marked one paragraph, students could work on that one paragraph in class, and then look
at the rest at home. Or, if you have just marked errors with articles, you could write a selection of errors on
the board for the class to correct, and then ask students to correct just one paragraph of their own work in
class. Or if they have asked you about a particular section, give them time to work on rewriting that section
in class, in response to your feedback.

Once students are familiar with the DIRT technique, you can write DIRT activities on the bottom of their
written work. For example, Find at least three sentences where you have used and and but and change
them to use more complex linkers or rewrite paragraph 3 and make sure that the tenses are used correctly.

Extensive feedback that students do nothing with is, quite frankly, a complete waste of everyones time, so
why not experiment with some of these ideas?

*Of course, feedback is not only about pointing out what could be better, and it is also important to point out
what went well.

You can find another post on written feedback here:

Bookmark

English-Language Learners

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Do's & Don'ts For Teaching English-Language

Learners
Originally Published: March 12, 2012 | Updated: November 3, 2016

5.6KSHARES




iStock.com/Sashatigar

The number of English-Language Learners in the United States is growing rapidly, including many states
that have not previously had large immigrant populations. As teachers try to respond to the needs of these
students, here are a few basic best practices that might help. We have found that consistently using these
practices makes our lessons more efficient and effective. We also feel it is important to include a few
"worst" practices in the hope that they will not be repeated!

Modeling

Do model for students what they are expected to do or produce, especially for new skills or activities, by
explaining and demonstrating the learning actions, sharing your thinking processes aloud, and showing good
teacher and student work samples. Modeling promotes learning and motivation, as well as increasing student
self-confidence -- they will have a stronger belief that they can accomplish the learning task if they follow
steps that were demonstrated.

Don't just tell students what to do and expect them to do it.

Rate of Speech and Wait Time

Do speak slowly and clearly, and provide students with enough time to formulate their responses, whether in
speaking or in writing. Remember, they are thinking and producing in two or more languages! After asking
a question, wait for a few seconds before calling on someone to respond. This "wait time" provides all
students with an opportunity to think and process, and especially gives ELLs a needed period to formulate a
response.

Don't speak too fast, and if a student tells you they didn't understand what you said, never, ever repeat the
same thing in a louder voice!

Use of Non-Linguistic Cues

Do use visuals, sketches, gestures, intonation, and other non-verbal cues to make both language and content
more accessible to students. Teaching with visual representations of concepts can be hugely helpful to ELLs.

Don't stand in front of the class and lecture, or rely on a textbook as your only "visual aid."

Giving Instructions

Do give verbal and written instructions -- this practice can help all learners, especially ELLs. In addition, it
is far easier for a teacher to point to the board in response to the inevitable repeated question, "What are we
supposed to do?"

Don't act surprised if students are lost when you haven't clearly written and explained step-by-step
directions.

Check for Understanding

Do regularly check that students are understanding the lesson. After an explanation or lesson, a teacher
could say, "Please put thumbs up, thumbs down, or sideways to let me know if this is clear, and it's perfectly
fine if you don't understand or are unsure -- I just need to know." This last phrase is essential if you want
students to respond honestly. Teachers can also have students quickly answer on a Post-It note that they
place on their desks. The teacher can then quickly circulate to check responses.

When teachers regularly check for understanding in the classroom, students become increasingly aware of
monitoring their own understanding, which serves as a model of good study skills. It also helps ensure that
students are learning, thinking, understanding, comprehending, and processing at high levels.

Don't simply ask, "Are there any questions?" This is not an effective way to gauge what all your students
are thinking. Waiting until the end of class to see what people write in their learning log is not going to
provide timely feedback. Also, don't assume that students are understanding because they are smiling and
nodding their heads -- sometimes they are just being polite!

Encourage Development of Home Language

Do encourage students to continue building their literacy skills in their home language, also known as "L1."
Research has found that learning to read in the home language promotes reading achievement in the second
language as "transfer" occurs. These "transfers" may include phonological awareness, comprehension skills,
and background knowledge.

While the research on transfer of L1 skills to L2 cannot be denied, it doesn't mean that we should not
encourage the use of English in class and outside of the classroom.
Don't "ban" students from using their native language in the classroom. Forbidding students from using
their primary languages does not promote a positive learning environment where students feel safe to take
risks and make mistakes. This practice can be harmful to the relationships between teachers and students,
especially if teachers act more like language "police" than language "coaches."

This is certainly not a complete guide -- they are just a few of the most basic practices to keep in mind when
teaching English-Language Learners (or, for that matter, probably any second language learner). What are
more "do's and don'ts" that you would add to the list?

How We Teach English Learners: 3 Basic

Approaches
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October 23, 20166:00 AM ET

Claudio Sanchez

Jenn Liv for NPR

In a small room in Philadelphia's school administration building, Rosario Maribel Mendoza Lemus, 16, sits
in a corner, rubbing sweaty palms on her jeans.

In front of her is a binder with a test she has to take before she's assigned to a new school. A counselor
hovers over her shoulder, pointing to a drawing of a book.

She asks, in English: "Do you know what that is?"

"No," says Rosario, who arrived this summer from Honduras, where she made it no further than the sixth
grade. She keeps shaking her head, and it's clear that Rosario does not understand anything the counselor is
saying.

There are 5 million students like Rosario English Language Learners or ELLs living in the U.S., and
we're going to spend much of the next year reporting on them. They raise one of the biggest questions facing
educators: What's the best way to teach English without losing time on the content students need to learn?

Decades of research point to three basic instructional models:

English as a Second Language is beginners-level English. Developed in the 1930s as an alternative to the
"sink or swim" approach, ESL stresses simplified speech and uses visual or physical cues, memorization and
drills. ESL instruction is all about getting kids to function in English as quickly as possible. It's considered
the least expensive because it's very basic and the classroom can include several language groups.

A second model is known as sheltered instruction. It has two goals: get kids to English proficiency and
keep them from falling behind in other subjects. A sheltered instruction classroom may have students with
different native languages, and a teacher who covers math, science and social studies. Unlike ESL, sheltered
instruction does not focus on the mechanics of English but on proficiency: writing and reading in those
content areas. This works especially well with older ELL students.

And finally, there's the dual-language model. Research shows that if you build on a child's native language
rather than discourage it, the transition to English fluency is easier. In this model, instruction should be split
into two sections, with one part of the school day in English, the other in a different language. Say, Spanish.
For it to work properly, the teacher(s) must be fluent in both languages.

In a version of this model, often called dual immersion, half the kids are Spanish-dominant, the other half
English-dominant. This allows children not just to learn from each other but to socialize outside the
classroom.

Rosario is headed to the district's Newcomer Learning Academy, which is really the only option for
teenagers who know little or no English. There, she'll receive accelerated instruction basically an ESL
approach designed to teach her enough English to enroll in a regular school. Students generally spend six
months to a year here.

Most schools across the country offer one of these three approaches for ELLs.

But at the Southwark School, in South Philly, I saw all three. Nearly half of the 700 students this year are
from Asia and Latin America. Most grew up speaking a language other than English.

The dual-language program is the most popular, especially in kindergarten. Principal Andrew Lukov says
parents love the idea of starting their children on the path to being bilingual as early as possible.

Although the program is limited to English and Spanish, Lukov says he has parents calling him every day to
see if anybody has dropped out. "We're getting to the point of being overcrowded," he says.
He says parent interest and community buy-in to the two-language approach has built a lot of support for
ELLs at Southwark they're no longer seen as "deficient" but as students who can and do succeed.

Learning Environments

3 Unused Teaching Tools: The Furniture, Floors,

and Walls
Change your classroom environment and you can change your students' behavior.

By Ben Johnson

November 3, 2016

569 shares
read later Bookmark

I was nervous about how the ninth-grade students would react. All the tables were either against the walls or
used to create the sides of a tour bus. The chairs that normally surrounded the tables were set in rows facing
the projector screen as if they were looking out the window while seated on a bus. My concern was that with
the chairs so close togetherand no separating tablesthe students would lose focus and want to talk, not
listening to the tour guides as they presented on Spanish speaking cities, markets, museums, and zoos.

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The students had helped to decorate the room, and they knew exactly what was going to happen. I wanted to
give the students an opportunity to use authentic language in a realistic situation, and I used the tables, walls,
and chairs to create that learning environment.

One of my mentors often said, You cant change people, but you can change their environment, and that
will make the change happen." This saying can also apply in the classroom. You can change the
environment to promote a desired behavior.

Some of the least used tools a teacher has to create optimal learning environments are the furniture, floors,
and walls in the classroom. Taking these three underused teaching resources into account will help teachers
to better engage the bodies and minds of their students.

Mash-Ups With Desks

The first underutilized spaces are the desks, chairs, and other furniture in the classroom. The set-up of my
tour bus classroom was not the traditional straight rows facing forward, nor was it the collaborative grouping
of four to a table I normally use. I had changed the arrangement of the desks because I had a particular
purpose that changing the seats would facilitate: Straight rows lend themselves to giving the teacher more
control over student behavior (reducing talking). They also help students to focus on the side of the room
they are facing. When the teacher (or students) are presenting, this is ideal.
Back-to-back, side-by-side, circles, triangles, squares, and multiple other desk combinations can promote
different behaviors. If trained correctlywithin a lessonstudents can quickly move their seats as
necessary to accommodate the learning needs without causing disruptions. Here are five ways you can
organize desks to promote specific outcomes:

1. Debates: Split the class and put the desks on opposite sides facing each other.
2. Jigsaw (where your students move around, teaching each other): Set up stations in the corners of the room.
3. Paired work: Desks can be face-to-face or you can do double pairsfour to a group.
4. Socratic Seminars: Create an inner and outer circle with your desks.
5. Performances: Position all the desks on the perimeter of the class facing inward.

How About the Floor?

In early elementary, teachers place sitting carpets to gather students for storytelling. When my students
perform the 10-second practice vocabulary quizzes, I have them stand in two lines, face-to-face with a
partner. They quickly review the vocabulary, and when I call out, cambien! (switch in Spanish), one partner
moves down to the next student and they have 10 seconds to teach their new partner their vocabulary words.

Activities like Simon Says, Do as Im Doing, Verb Basketball, Conjugation Relay Races, Head Shoulders,
Knees, and Toes, and dancing the Macarena all require floor space in order for the students to engage their
bodies and brains.

I observed a math teacher place tape on her floor to represent graph paper, and the students had to physically
graph the equation in groups. I have seen students use the floor for storyboarding, experimentation, and data
gathering. So, go for itmove that furniture out of the way and help your students become totally engaged.

Walls That Talk

The wall spaces are just as changeable as the furniture and should match the learning activity. Word
Walls are one way to make this happen. Typically, Word Walls are located on one section of the classroom
wall. Depending on what is being studied, the words are changed periodically. Because I am a firm believer
in total physical response learning, I spread my word wall all across the room. Additionally, I used non-
verbal clues, such as pictures and drawings to represent words and phrases for the unit we're studying. I ask
my students to point to, stand under, or touch the picture represented by the words I speak.

I can imagine a geometry teacher placing various geometric structures around the room and asking student
to point to the rhombus, parallelogram, or stand under the isosceles triangle. An algebra or chemistry teacher
could use formulas. In English, types of writingexpository, persuasive, descriptive, and narrativecould
be displayed on the walls. In social studies, you could have illustrations of events. It only takes a few
minutes to have all of the students participate in recall-learned information, and you can do it every day.

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In my tour bus classroom makeover, the students walked in with oohs and aahs and, surprisingly enough,
sat down with little fanfare and began the warm-up writing assignment. Students were prepared when I
called the first tour guide to give her presentation.

Effective use of the furniture, floors, and walls will further motivate students to learn through active
participation and high engagement. Please share your creative use of classroom spaces in the comments
section below.

Oxford University Press

English Language Teaching Global Blog

Managing Classroom Dynamics

2 November 2016 by Oxford University Press ELT 5 Comments

Martyn Clarke has worked in ELT

classrooms as a teacher and trainer for over twenty years and in more than fifteen countries. He joins us on
the blog today to preview his upcoming webinar, Managing Classroom Dynamics.

What are classroom dynamics?

I suspect that for the great majority of teachers around the world the most important characteristic of a
good class is not how hard the students work, but how well they work together. If a teacher is handing
over a class to another, in my experience one of the first things they say is something like they are a really
nice group, or theres a really friendly atmosphere in there. Of course, its not always good news, and
comments such as its like teaching a wall or theyre just really difficult are also common. The truth is
the atmosphere in each class is hugely important to our job satisfaction.
This is classroom dynamics. Its about the ways the people within a class interact with each other. Its how
they talk and how they act; its how they show their feelings and opinions; and its how they behave as a
group.

Why are classroom dynamics important?

Managing classroom dynamics is also something that takes up significant lesson time. We all do things in
class that are not directly related to learning English, but rather are focused on the social aspects of the
group, such as managing behaviours, reacting to tensions, and generating interest, for example. But so much
of what we do is instinctive and happens in the moment. It might be useful however to take a moment and
look at the issues in a more structured way.

In other words, in addition to our competences of content knowledge (grammar, lexis, etc.), and teaching
skills, what skills, attitudes and strategies exist that can help us to generate a psychological climate
conducive to high quality learning (Underhill 1999: 130)?

There are good reasons for focusing on this:

1. The cooperative skills and attitudes that we encourage in our students are among those most frequently
demanded by todays employers.
2. A supportive, warm atmosphere helps people take the risks they need to in order to learn.
3. Working with and in a more comfortable setting is simply more enjoyable for everyone. Life is a little better.

What can we do about classroom dynamics?

There is no one size that fits all. To a large extent, a classroom dynamic is a product of its own context as
defined both internally with the uniqueness of its members, and externally in the cultural settings of the
institution, and the society in which it is located.

Nevertheless we can identify certain features and characterise useful classroom dynamics across most, if not
all contexts even if these are represented by different behaviours according to the setting. For example, the
visible behaviours of cooperation in a Brazilian high-school classroom might be different to those in a Dutch
university or private evening class in Thailand, but cooperation remains key. Here are some aspects of
classroom dynamics that a teacher may work to influence the chemistry of the group, and make it more
bonded (Senior 1997).

1. a) The cohesiveness of the class.

Groups of people are very much brought together when they are aware of what they have in common.
Shared experiences, values, and objectives lie at the heart of successful communities. As teachers we can
foster this awareness with activities that identify such commonalities, and then use them to enhance
learning. In the webinar we will look at practical language learning activities and teaching techniques that
can develop a sense of community within a class.

1. b) The variety of interaction within a class.

A class that has a flexible approach to how its members talk to each other is likely to have a more inclusive,
and therefore participative climate. In the seminar we will identify different modes of classroom talk, what
each brings to learning, and how we can create variety.

1. c) The amount of empathy class members have for each other.

Successful group activities involve members compromising in order to support each other. In the webinar
we will look at activities and practices that encourage peer support and greater sharing of learning within the
group.
How can I find out about the dynamics in my classroom?

As we have already said, classroom dynamics are local. What works in one class might not work in another.
So we also need to know how to find out what is happening in our classes, so we can take the most
appropriate actions. In the webinar we will also look at ways we can examine the realities of our classrooms
by using:

Peer observations
Recordings
Student research activities

Finally. when we teach all spend time on the social aspects of our classes. This webinar will provide a
framework of analysis that can help us make more principled decisions when considering how we manage
classroom dynamics. Hope to see you there!

Useful reading

Gil, G. (2002) Two complementary modes of foreign language classroom interaction. ELT Journal, 56/3

Hadfield, J (1992) Classroom Dynamics.. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Senior, R. (1997) Transforming language classes into bonded groups. ELT Journal, 51/1.

Senior, R. (2002) A class-centered approach to language teaching. ELT Journal, 56/4 Underhill, A. (1999)
Facilitation in Language Teaching. In J. Arnold (ed.) Affect in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press

Wright, T. (2005) Classroom Management in Language Education, Palgrave Macmillan

The Writing Process and 13 Tips to Raise your

Essay Score
14 November 2016General, Writing, Writing skillA2, B1, B2, C1, exam, writing

Writing is a process. For some students it might seem like a daunting task, but if you look at it as a
succession of small steps to follow instead of looking at it as the big final product, writing can be fun and
easy.

Useful Links:

Six amazing websites that make your writing stronger.

Checklist
PDF
Presentation
Part 1. The Writing Process

Brainstorm for ideas

Write down all the ideas you can think of. You can try mind mapping your ideas. It is a good technique to
generate ideas and expand on them. You can begin by writing a big bubble in the middle of the page with
the topic and then use arrows to draw new bubbles with ideas and again arrows with more specific points or
observations about this idea.
At this stage, dont worry about spelling or grammar mistakes.
Organise your ideas

Decide which ideas to keep.

Group similar ideas together.
Organise your ideas according to the writing task.

Focus on language

Think of words and expressions you will need in your work.

Write a draft

Write quickly. Dont worry about things such as accuracy or neatness.

Use a pencil so that it is easier to make corrections and erase things.
If you are writing your draft by hand, leave a wide margin for notes and space between the lines for
additions and corrections.
If you cant think of a word in English, write it in your own language. You can look it up in a dictionary later.
If you dont know the spelling of a word, write it anyway you can. You can look it up in a dictionary later.

Improve your draft

Do it slowly and conscientiously.

Check spellings in the dictionary and look up any word you felt unsure of. Heres a very useful post Six
Amazing Websites that Make your Writing Stronger.
Use a checklist to improve your work. See the one my students use here.
Read your draft aloud. Circle the things that need to be improved, reworded or clarified.
Take a break from writing and reread your draft after 30 minutes. Does everything sound right?
Write a final draft

Copy your corrected work neatly on a clean sheet of paper.

Make sure your paragraphs are clearly indicated.

Adapted from Burlington Books

Part 2. Writing an Essay

An essay consists of several paragraphs about a topic. Although there are many different kinds of essays,
they all have the same basic structure.

Opening

It is the general presentation of the topic. Try to get the reader interested in your essay. How can you do
that? For example, by beginning

With a surprising fact.

Humans usually imitate the speech of someone with a strong accent due to empathy and to create a bond
and assimilate with them.

With a short anecdote.

If you could interview anybody in the world, who would you choose? asked the teacher. Nelson
Mandela, I replied.

With a question.

Did you know that there is an island in Japan that has more than 450 people living above the age of 100?

The Body.

The body can have one or more paragraphs which develop the topic. The first paragraph should contain the
strongest argument or example. The second paragraph the second strongest argument and the third the
weakest.

A paragraph consists of several sentences about a certain topic. It has the following parts:

A topic sentence, i.e. an idea.

One or several supporting sentences to expand on the idea.
A concluding sentence.

The parts should flow logically and the ideas should be easy to understand.

Go from general to specific. Give a general idea and then expand it.
Avoid unnecessary repetition by using pronouns to refer back to nouns already mentioned.
Use connector to join sentences and show the connection between ideas.
The Closing

It is the paragraph that summarizes the main idea or presents a conclusion, depending on the kind of essay
you need to write. Some things to bear in mind:

It should not bring new ideas.

It shouldnt be very long.
It can be similar to the opening, but presented in different words.

13 Tips to Raise your Essay Score

1. Read the assignment thoroughly, several times if necessary and underline anything relevant. Sometimes
there is a question or several. Make sure you cover all of them. Focus on the purpose of the composition, on
the tone and the style required and also on the length requirements.

2. Plan your writing. You need to dedicate several minutes to planning what you are going to say and how you
are going to say. It makes a big difference.

3. Write a first draft. Use pencil, if possible, to erase or correct errors.

4. Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence and then write some supporting sentences about this topic
sentence. 1 idea= 1 paragraph.

5. Use a variety of vocabulary and grammar structures. Avoid repeating the same words over and over again.
Use synonyms or paraphrase. A thesaurus or a lexicon is useful as a source of alternative words. Use a range
of grammar, sentence structure should be varied and clear.

6. Use connectors to join ideas. They also play an important part in stringing together sentences and
paragraphs.

7. Time management. Organize the time you are given to write the essay. If you have one hour to complete
the task, dedicate 10 minutes to planning and organizing your ideas and allow about 10 minutes at the end
to proofread your essay before giving it to the teacher. You will still have 40 minutes left to write and
develop your ideas.

8. Keep to the topic. Dont write about things that have nothing to do with the assignment.

9. Sound natural. Just because you know lots of connectors, it doesnt mean you have to use all of them.

10. Punctuation. Pay attention to punctuation, especially to the correct use of commas and periods. Your text
can be confusing if you dont use them adequately.

11. Style. Think about the purpose of the assignment and the audience it addresses and use the correct style
and tone. If its informal, you can use colloquial language, simple and shorter sentences, contractions,
abbreviations and emotional language. On the contrary if its a formal assignment, you will need to use more
complex sentences, avoid contractions and abbreviations and you should definitely avoid emotional
language or colloquial expressions.

12. Proofread your essay. Have a coffee or go for a walk. Come back, take your essay and reread it aloud. Does it
sound right? Then, its ready!
 13. Read a lot and try to write about anything for 30 minutes every day. Youll soon get better.

Thanks for reading!

Six Amazing Websites that Make Your Writing

Stronger
17 January 2016Dictionaries, Resources, Writing, Writing skillcollocations, dictionaries, free, onlinetools,
writing

Long writing activities are not very frequently done in class. I tend to think that my students are like me; I
need the right kind of atmosphere. Writing requires time, silence and lots of inspiration. Ideally, at this time
of the year, I would probably wish to be sitting next to a fireplace with the most perfect
instagrammable snow falling outside my window while drinking a nice cup of coffee waiting for
inspiration to strike. Unfortunately, there isnt any snow where I live so Ill have to make do with a

bit of rain and some reddish trees. Note: you wont find instagrammable in the dictionary

Inspiration, the most important word when writing and something my students claim to lack.
Inspiration wont come from your computer screen, but Internet can certainly help you a lot when
struggling to find the right word.

These are some great sites that can help you make your writing stronger.
Photo by Tekke

1. Skell (Sketch Engine for Language Learning) explores the English language in more than one billion
words from news, scientific papers, Wikipedia articles, fiction books, web pages, and blogs.

Skell is easy to use.

Search for a word or a phrase.

Click on Examples to get the most presentable sentences containing this word.
Click on Word sketch to get a list of words which occur frequently together with the searched word.
Click on Similar words (not only synonyms) where youll find words used in similar contexts
visualized with a word cloud.

2.Netspeak is a really helpful site to help you write better. It helps you find the word or phrase youre
looking for by suggesting common combinations organised by frequency.

You can find the word(s) youre looking for by typing signs as seen in the picture below.

Type ? in your query before, after or in the middle to find a missing word. Type ?? or ??? if you want
to find two or three words.
Use dots () to find one, two, or more words at the same time.
Use square brackets to check which of two or more words is most common, or if none applies. For
example: think [ of in ]
Use curly brackets to check in which order two or more words are commonly written { only for
members }
To find the best synonym, use the hash sign in front of a word to check which of its synonyms are
commonly written.

If you want to read some sample sentences, you only need to click the + sign
3. Just the word is a simple quick collocation finder you are going to love.

Enter the word or phrase you want to search

Click on combinations to see the most common words it collocates with and after each
combination, youll find its frequency in their corpus (about 80,000,000 words of the BNC).
In the right-hand frame, youll find the part (s) of speech and the types of relation that the word is
found in. For example, if youre looking for the right adjective to modify a noun youve chosen,
click on the ADJ mod <word> link.

4. Words to Use is a nice neat site, which unlike a thesaurus groups theme-related words by parts of speech.
Each theme, from animals to vehicles is divided by parts of the speech- adjectives, nouns, verbs, types
of, phrases, etc.

Are you looking for adjectives that collocate with movies? The site lists over 200 adjectives listed in
alphabetical order.

Do you want to use a negative word that collocates with friends? Or maybe a verb frequently used to refer
to friendship? Then, you might want to give this site a try!
5. Collins English Thesaurus

There are some very good thesauruses /sr/ online, but this one is my favourite.

But, what is a thesaurus and what is the difference between a dictionary and a thesaurus?

A thesaurus /srs/ is a reference work that lists words grouped together according to similarity of
meaning (containing synonyms and sometimes antonyms ), in contrast to a dictionary, which
provides definitions for words, and generally lists them in alphabetical order. The main purpose of such
reference works is to help the user to find the word, or words, by which an idea may be most fitly and aptly
expressed. (source Wikipedia). Unlike a dictionary, a thesaurus does not give you the meaning or the
pronunciation of a word.
6. Pro Writing Aid is a fantastic free site that will help you with the final stage of the writing process. This
is a tool you want to use after you have written something, to improve it.

Paste the text you want to edit by pressing Ctrl+V. There is a maximum of 3,000 words.

Press the Analyze button. A window will appear while the analysis is being run.

Once the analysis is complete the processing window will disappear and the summary screen for your
analysis will be displayed. This will give you an overview of any issues and suggestions found in your
writing.