Page 183 - Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies 2009

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Part III: Teaching Skills Classes
Save vocabulary or key points which come from the discussion and are rele- vant to the task by writing the words on the board. This gives you something to do and prevents you from hogging the discussion.
Brainstorming tends to raise energy levels as well. Once students are used to the idea of calling out all their ideas on a topic and benefiting from other peo- ple’s contributions, they can easily do it in small groups with no help from you at all. The class may offer vocabulary or perhaps questions that they think a reader would like the final written piece to answer. Once the groups have something down on paper they can compare with each other for more input.
Some possible topics to brainstorm are:
✓ How many words can you think of which are connected with the topic?
✓ If you read an article on this topic, what information would you expect it to include?
✓ Are there different characters or locations in this piece of writing? What vocabulary do I need to describe them?
✓ Does this topic include pros and cons? What are they? Building structure
Another approach is to focus on the structure of the written work, helping the students conform to the layout needed and remember the expressions that link ideas together. In each case students ought to think through the text beforehand by writing a plan. There should be an outline of each paragraph and the ideas associated with each one. In Appendix A I show examples of formal and informal letters, a review, a report and an essay. I show a template and an example.
Letter writing
All letters need an address, date, opening greeting, paragraphs which each have a main point, a closing greeting and signature. Letters divide into formal and informal, as follows:
✓ Formal letters: At the top of a formal letter you usually write two addresses. The first is your own address and the second is the address of the person you intend to read the letter. You can’t use contractions (shortened forms of words) in formal letters. That means you need to write do not instead of don’t, for example. The purpose of writing the letter must be clear from the first paragraph and you have to stick to formal language with no slang. At the end, you write Yours sincerely (if you mentioned the reader by name) or Yours faithfully (if you started with Dear Sir/Madam) and under your signature you print your name and job title (if relevant).