Teaching specific writing skills

1. Teaching to writing richly textured sentences. First teach to write descriptive sentences, show the order at which attributes should follow each other. Teach to describe a ready made object (cat – angora – black – fluffy – charming) a charming fluffy black angora cat. The same + choose the right characteristic. Fill in the necessary missing characteristics on your own (I like our … city library)

2. then at more advanced stage teach descriptive cumulative sentences (formally simple, 1 predicate only, but with a lot of descriptive details which gradually accumulate into a vivid image). They can be expressed by adjectives like (I like our school, light and spacious, with lots of laboratories; absolute constructions; participles) These details are relatively independent and separated by commas. They most usually come after the principal clause, but sometimes come before. (tired, hungry and bitterly disappointed, the hunters returned home empty-handed). These cumulative details are called “free modifiers” and they can be of 2 kinds – they can specify the whole picture or they can specify separate aspects of the whole picture. And it is called “division”. (I disliked the cottage at once - gloomy looking, shabby, with no garden. - He looked asight – his clothes torn, his face scratch, his hat gone).

Choose the description which corresponds to the writer's object picture:

It is a nice room for a translator to work in:

1. with a sofa, 2 big chairs, and a big round table

2. with a computer on the desk, a shelf with dictionaries,...

Самостоятельно подберите расчленяющие детали:

It wasn't a particularly nice day. - I mean, …

Narration

You need to teach a good summary – give a text to select the ready made sentences that make a summary. In an advanced class they discuss, then you give sentences for translation.

Sum up the text answering the questions below. (the questions direct the compression)

Syntactical compression. It is based on questions, but 2 or 3 questions must be answered in one sentence.

Follow the key phrases and the connectives given

Lexical compression

He is never at a loss. If he has a problem, he can always find a way out. He never gives way a despair. He is a) resourceful, b) energetic, 3) optimistic, 4) intelligent

He lef the room. He slammed the door. He did not say goodbye. - he slammed the door behind him without saying goodbye.

Summary of several texts

Show the similarities, give additional information (besides, …), give the authors' opinions, then give the conclusion about the whole text. It is also useful to teach students ina narrative text to decide on the importance of details, their place in the narrative.

Read a short story and decide if anything can be sacrificed, explain why or why not

decide on the effectiveness of every detail

To acquaint with the strategies of influencing the reader (use of examples, definitions, classifications, comparison (through similarity, contrast), analogy) Teach to use by analysing ready made examples. The next type of exercise – fill in the gap with the best definition, analogy, contrast, … and only after that you ask to fill in the gaps on their own.

An essay is a complete piece of discourse which can be written in any of the modes of discourse (descriptive, narrative, explanatory, argumentative)

Stuff that helps to write an essay:

1. write out from the text the phrase which can serve as the chief statement, formulate in a sentence the purpose of the author, the opening statement – formulate what the text is likely to be about.

2. Read the opening statement and a set of questions that can be asked by a potential reader, arrange the questions in the order in which they are likely to be answered.

3. Read the following short description – change or add whatever necessary to turn the text into an explanatory one.

4. Read a short argumentative text, name or write out the thesis and anti-thesis. If they are given in a one sentence – subdivide them into two, name all the arguments supporting thesis and anti-thesis, add arguments.