Teaching Writing can be a lot Easier than you Think

Back up to Move Forward in EFL Writing

Teaching Writing in EFL is often about Teaching Grammar

If grammar comes up anywhere in EFL, it is in the writing classroom. Most EFL students will have some writing skills when you get them. But they will often have an idea that their writing is quite good and generally it will be quite poor.

Many EFL students will have had some experience with paragraph and essay writing, but, in fact, often will not have even rudimentary writing skills at the sentence level. You will usually need to take them back to sentence level and begin to teach them very basic structure and how to write simply. Run-on and fragmented sentences will be very common until you correct those errors.

The more basic you get with your writing students, the better. Once a good foundation is built, you can move on to basic paragraph writing and on to essays. These skills take time to develop though and you will find that most textbooks will move your students forward too quickly. Don’t be afraid to move slowly so that you students can genuinely acquire the skills they need.  If you move forward too quickly, they often will not retain the skills you had hoped you had taught them.

Two EFL writing manuscripts are available to you free, courtesy of TEFL Teacher Training

Download them and read them and you will see EXACTLY how to go about teaching basic writing skills to EFL students.

Sentence Writing eBook – a draft manuscript for a sentence writing book – you can use this with your students too! Downloads as a PDF file. 1.827Mb

You can also download an Intermediate Writing eBook – a manuscript written for EFL university students who were ready for paragraph writing. The book prepares students for better paragraphs and eventual essay writing. The Intermediate Writing Textbook draft manuscript downloads a PDF file 2.42Mb

Review these Manuscripts Carefully

There is a method to the madness and it is important to look at and understand the progression of skills that are required. If you don’t pay careful attention to the skills progression, you will spend a semester or two reading gibberish and providing no more skills to your students than their previous instructors.

Ted’s Tips™ #1: Student egos are fragile things they will often want to write long essays of gibberish to illustrate to you just how proficient they are with their writing skills. It is important to gently take them back to the beginning. Only a lout of a teacher insults their students’ skills.  Do it gently and positively.  Often the best way is to compliment them on their skills and then suggest that a review of the basics will make the skills they have even better.

Ted’s Tips™ #2: Writing is an area where you really need to lead students step by step through the required skills. Use the manuscripts provided free here to help your students improve.

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How to Teach Writing in EFL

Teaching Writing in EFL is often about Teaching Grammar

If grammar comes up anywhere in EFL, it is in the writing classroom. Most EFL students will have some writing skills when you get them. But they will often have an idea that their writing is quite good and generally it will be quite poor.

Many EFL students will have had some experience with paragraph and essay writing, but, in fact, will have very poor writing skills at the sentence level. You will usually need to take them back to sentence level and begin to teach them very basic structure and how to write simply. Run-on and fragmented sentences will be very common until you correct those errors.

The more basic you get with your writing students, the better. Once a good foundation is built, you can move on to basic paragraph writing and on to essays. These skills take time to develop though and you will find that most textbooks will move your students forward too quickly. Don’t be afraid to move slowly so that you students can genuinely acquire the skills they need.

Two EFL writing manuscripts are available to you free, courtesy of TEFL Teacher Training

Download them and read them and you will see EXACTLY how to go about teaching basic writing skills to EFL students.

Sentence Writing Textbook – a draft manuscript for a sentence writing book – you can use this with your students too! Downloads as a PDF file. 1.827kb

You can also download an Advanced Writing Textbook – a manuscript written for university students in Korea who were ready for paragraph writing. The book prepares students for better paragraphs and eventual essay writing. The Advanced Writing Textbook draft manuscript downloads a PDF file 8,215 kb

Review these Manuscripts Carefully

There is a method to the madness and it is important to look at and understand the progression of skills that are required. If you don’t pay careful attention to the skills progression, you will spend a semester or two reading gibberish and providing no more skills to your students than their previous instructors.

Ted’s Tips™ #1: Student egos are fragile things they will often want to write long essays of gibberish to illustrate to you just how proficient they are with their writing skills. It is important to gently take them back to the beginning. Only a lout of a teacher insults their students’ skills – do it gently and positively.

Ted’s Tips™ #2: Writing is an area where you really need to lead students step by step through the required skills. Use the manuscripts provided free here to help your students improve.