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[jillford64]

Has anyone out there taught technical/business writing and/or grammar to native English or very advanced non-native speakers? If so, how did you make it interesting and entertaining?

I am teaching technical writing to the engineers & geologists where I work. They are all native English speakers. We are to the part of the class that will be a review of the most common grammar problems that this group experiences. I did a needs analysis in order to develop the course, and they all asked for a review of grammar and punctuation. They made requests for specific topics. As I have reviewed reports, I have also picked out some common mistakes.

I have only taught grammar to non-native speakers, mostly to beginner and intermediate level students and mostly within the confines of the Interchange series. I'd like to use some activities and games to liven it up, but I don't seem to be creative enough to transfer the activities/games in my how to teach ESL books to my specific topics or to find activities that seem appropriate for native speakers.

I am hoping you all have some good ideas. Here is the list of what I need to cover:

1. parallel structure
2. noun strings
3. misplaced modifiers
4. split infinitives
5. splices, run ons, fragments
6. subject-verb agreement
7. relative clauses (restrictive, non-restrictive, and which/that)
8. main use (or in our case, misuse) of the comma
9. also main misuses of the semicolon, colon, and hyphen
10. misidentification of proper nouns and overuse of capitalization

I have some funny examples for some of these topics. If all else fails, I can use to use the motto of the Starship Enterprise to lead into whether it is okay or not okay to split infinitives. I can use The "Blog" of "Unneccesary" Quotation Marks (www.unneccesaryquotes.com).

For the rest of the class, I was able to tie some topics to the making of the Star Wars movies, which they loved. Note: I cannot take credit for this brilliant idea; it was based on a an article by Andrew Brooks and published in the April 2005 issue of the Society of Technical Communication magazine Intercom. I also used a lot of examples from our own work, which is pretty darn dull, but it is relevant and they liked it even when their own writing showed up as examples (good or bad) in class.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Best wishes,
Jill

[jillford64]

P.S. This is the first time I have taught technical writing.

[fladude]

I was a teaching assistant in law school so I taught some of the legal writing program. The important thing is to remember that these people are business people. They don't care about writing like a poet. In fact you should never bring up poetry or that type of thing. What you should do is focus on simple sentence structure. Business people want a report to be simple short and intuitive to read. If the report isn't simple, short and easy to read then it will not be effective.

Try to focus on writing a one page four to five paragraph report. Keep it simple. Make sure the issue/ point of the paper is expressed in the first sentence. Make sure the last paragraph sums up what the rest of the paper said.

So they should write one introductory paragraph to let people know what the paper is about. They should follow that up with two to three paragraphs on content with no more than one idea expressed in each paragraph. And then they should sum everything up in one paragraph at the end.

At least that's what I always told people.

[Glenski]

You might want to consider attending the ESP/EST conference in Japan this October.

Teaching tech writing/grammar to native English speakers is not like teaching it to non-natives. You have the benefit of being able to explain things far more easily.

That said, I've actually worked with enough engineers and proofread enough scientific manuscripts to realize that most scientists are just plain horrible writers.

If this is your first time teaching technical writing, I might suggest that your students take a real certified course in technical writing with an expert at the helm. Stay away from games, IMO. Livening things up may be mood-enhancing, but you need to focus on the end product.

How many students do you have?
Do they always attend?
How often and how long do you meet?
What is your technical background related to theirs?
Do you have any textbook now? Do you assign homework? How do you correct it?


If you must continue instead of shunting them to a qualified, experienced tech writing instructor, heed the following:
Getting this sort of writing students to look at real examples is important. Have them pick apart abstracts, grant proposals, M&M sections, Results sections, etc. (assuming you yourself know the answers/weak points). Make them explain things to you (especially if you are a layman), forcing them to simplify, but don't neglect the fact that they will probably never have to simplify that much in real life. Do presentations (SHORT ones) and get peer feedback.

[fluffyhamster]

Please don't take this the wrong way Jill, but I really hope that you're not going to be worrying native speakers with any unnecessary prescriptions (see sites like Language Log for discussion about such matters). I'm referring especially to points 4 and 7 on your list, and possibly 6.

[jillford64]

Glenski and fluffyhamster,

Thank you for your comments, questions, concerns, and suggestions. I plan to respond to the questions and give a better description of this teaching situation, but I won't have time until Friday (maybe Thursday if I am lucky). I appreciate your input and haven't taken any offense.

Best regards,
Jill