Verbose sentences

[G_Pook]

I was wondering if anyone has had to deal with this problem. the sentences are grammatically fine but they are just too long.

I think I need to go back to the beginning, to the point before the sentence is written, and try to help the student formulate the ideas into easier to read sentences. but this will not be easy for them cos they have been writing like this for a long time.

I was hoping that someone here may have had the same problem with a student. what did you do?

[moonchild7903]

I think your problem comes from that your students already know how to compose work with proper grammar but haven't been accustomed to writing conventions. I mean, I think sentences are long because when they speak, they don't punctuate anyway. So they might be having difficulties identifying sentence endings.

One way to solve it, I guess, is by exposing them to different texts and showing them the difference between oral communication and written communication. Show them how sentences are separated by punctuations and how paragraphs are separated into main ideas.

Good luck!

[Jane W]

Write a long sentence on the board and ask how much you could cut out and still have the sentence make sense. When you've cut it down, show how you can make the rest of the words into more sentences.

This is a slightly different version of an activity from the book Zero Prep. Here's a link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 27-9696830

[G_Pook]

thanks for the help guys. the idea by you, moonchild, sounds like a good one. it probably is very important to subject them to lots of different forms of written english and compare it to spoken. thanks for your time.

jane, this sounds like something i could do as an exercise for them to test what they have learnt from the previous exercise. they could either try to cut down the sentences or, based on the style, try to guess what form and register it is written in.

thank you both!

happy teaching everyone