Teacher Discussion Forums

In my years of teaching, I have seen that while filling in gaps in grammar exercises students are doing very well, but when they are assigned to write a short paragraph in English their grammar is out the window. You can imagine how glad I was to hear one my students being aware of that -that's the first step in dealing with an issue, right?

I've never taught writing in detail -general English courses don't usually place so much emphasis on that. I told my students to read as much as possible, watch that sentences have at least a subject and a verb, make sure tenses are used correctly, verbs agree with nouns...has anyone got any other suggestions to help them?

Thanks

Have you thought about getting your students to keep a diary/journal in English? You can get students to keep a record of their week, and then turn this into a classroom activity, perhaps getting pairs or small groups to compare notes and write reports, etc.

If you try some scaffolding, first - have them make point-form notes on what they'll be writing - it can make things a little clearer. For example:

mother, father, child
shopping for food
busy store on Saturday morning
mother forgets wallet in the car
father goes to get wallet
car keys are locked in car

Of course, a little preview of new vocabulary ("yesterday, we learned about getting frustrated") will focus their minds even more.

We talked about this a bit here:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... ht=writing

You might find "WRITING 101" and "Great Paragraphs" helpful. Both books, designed for intermediate writers, provide step by step tips. I especially like WRITING 101 for students attempting to write their first serious papers - whether at high school, community college, or a language school.

For yourself, you might enjoy reading "The Qualities of Good Prose" and E.B. White and William Strunk's classic "The Elements of Style."

Good luck!