Page 185 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

TEACHING VERB TENSES AND VOICE 171
3. The dog ate my homework. The food processor ate my homework. The vacuum cleaner ate my homework.
4. The tree is growing. John's paper is growing. The city is growing. The child is growing.
5. The man is running. The water is running. The car is running. The test is running. The tape is running. Time is running.
6. A barometer predicts the weather. A TV station predicts the weather. A meteorologist predicts the weather.
7. The weather is predicted (by a barometer). The weather is predicted (by a TV station). The weather is predicted (by a meteorologist).
(3) "English Is Not my Native Language and I Can't Write Like Native Students" Practice
The purpose of this practice is to provide L2 writers examples of tenses and passive uses in authentic NS writing. L2 writers often believe that the quality of language usage (and discourse organization) usually found in NS texts is superb and that the standards of quality expected of L2 writing can be un- fair and unreasonable. First of all, these beliefs are based on a simple lack of facts: Native students' writing often leaves a great deal to be desired in terms of both the quality of language and discourse organization. An important teaching objective is to demonstrate to L2 students that being a native speaker does not guarantee superb writing, and that the writing of native students, like L2 writing, also varies widely in quality.
Samples of native students' writing can be requested from the Writing Center, a mainstream composition/writing instructor, or even individual students on campus. If the teacher has access to the writing of several NS students, the best way to proceed is to collect three or four pieces of LI writ- ing: the not-so-good, passable (and passing), and a good one. If the NS pa- pers/essays are written on the same topic (or in similar disciplines), text and discourse analysis can be made very profitable for L2 writers. Most impor- tant, however, the analysis of NS essays can address a number of points si- multaneously or in the course of a couple of class meetings:
• discourse organization and structure (including thesis and topic sup- ports and the amount of elaboration—see appendix to chap. 11)
• uses of tenses and passives, as well as adverbial time (and tense)
markers and frames, and tense shifts
• uses of adjectives and descriptive adverbials such as prepositional
phrases (see chap. 6)
• vocabulary range (e.g., nouns, verbs; see chaps. 4 and 8)
• any useful/relevant type of discourse and text features
TLFeBOOK