162 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).