Productive and Receptive Skills in the ESL Classroom - Writing Skills
We are going to move on to the second of the productive skills, which is writing and, again, we'll have look at the background, too, and create a typical lesson for a writing skills session. One of the things to be aware of in a writing skills lesson is that writing tends to be more formal than spoken English. So, there will be some differences between the two, such as writing very often uses less contracted forms and so on, but having said that there are many similarities between the two particular skills. So, many of the considerations that we had for a speaking skills lesson will also apply here to a writing skills lesson. Within writing skills itself there are some sub-skills that we may want to teach and those sub-skills could include, but are not limited to, hand writing spelling and punctuation. Now, hand writing tends to be a personal thing but it is very important for our students to get hand writing practice to make sure that they are following the letters correctly and so on and so forth. Spelling, obviously with the English language not being phonetic, spelling can often be a problem for all levels of students. We take a simple example, obviously, the spelling differences between those, two even though, they actually sound the same bow and bough, their spelling is completely different. So, this can often create problems for our students. Finally, punctuation. We should be aware that many languages have a very different punctuation system to that of the English language and some languages have no punctuation whatsoever. If you're teaching students with a different punctuation system or no punctuation then, obviously, our system within the English language can be quite difficult. There are different types of writing that we can do within each of these particular skills and they would be categorized by the situational or creative. A situational piece of writing refers to a different type of writing that might take place. For, example the way in which we write a postcard would probably not be the same as the way we would write a formal letter and the way in which you write a formal letter would probably not be exactly the same as we would write an email, whereas in a creative situation what we're actually doing is things like stories, the creation of dialogues and quite possibly even the creation in poetry.
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Rules of formations for each tense and forms follo.
The past simple form for regular verbs are: Affirmative: Add ?ed? or ?d? to the base form of the ver.
I worke.
Negative: Add ?did not? before the base for.
I did not wor.
Question: Add ?did? + subject before base for.
Did you work? The past simple form for irregular verbs varie.
The past simple is used: ? for actions completed at a definite tim.
I met him yesterday, ? when the time is asked such as when did you meet him? ? when the action clearly took place at a definite time even though the time is not mentione.
The train arrived ten minutes lat.
? when, sometimes, the time becomes definite as a result of a question in the present perfect? Where have you been? I have been to the oper.
Did you enjoy it? ?Ago? is the past simpl.
The past continuous is the past tense of the auxiliary verb be (was or were) + the present participle (verb + ing.
The past continuous forms are: Affirmative: Subject + was/were + verb + in.
I was workin.
Negative: Subject + was/were + not + verb + ing I was not workin.
Question: Was/were + subject + verb + in.
Was I working? The past continuous is used: ? for interrupted past actions, while bathing, the phone ran.
? to indicate gradual development that took place in the past without time expression, it was getting darke.
? to express an action, which began before that time and probably continued after it, at 8 he was having breakfast and ? In description.
The past perfect represents actions that occurred before other actions in the past and is said to be the past in the past or the past viewed from another past viewpoin.
The past perfect forms are: Affirmative: Subject + had + past participl.
When I got to the car, I realized I had lost my key.
Negative: Subject + had + not + past participl.
She told me she had worked in Franc.
Question: Had + subject + past participl.
She was upset because Paul had not telephone.
The past perfect continuous is used to talk about longer actions in the past that had been going on continuously up to the moment that we are thinking abou.
Before eating lunch, she had been clipping her toenails for two hour.
The past perfect continuous forms are: Affirmative: Subject + had + been + verb + ing Negative: Subject + had + not + been + verb + ing Question: Had + subject + been + verb + in.
These well-organized rules were helpful to be able to understand again to enable me to teach these principles to students in the future and the descriptions were helpful as conveyance mechanism.
