Improving Reading and Writing Skills

Improving Reading and Writing Skills

Motto: “What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.” –Dr Samuel Johnson

This blog post is for intermediate - high intermediate ELLs and their teachers.

There are many great text books to choose from in order to improve reading skills and writing skills, but there is one grammar book that I truly recommend: Azar & Hagen. 2009.  Understanding and Using English Grammar, 4th Edition. Pearson Education: NY. Students do the exercises in this book at home. They discuss answers in groups in class. We discuss the importance of the given structures. They write paragraphs with given structures. Then we go to www.jeoardylab.com  I put students in teams (3’s) and have them compete. Fun stuff! :-)

At this level, ELLs should be focusing on improving these skills:

• Write well-developed paragraphs with strong topic sentences, supporting arguments and conclusion.
• Effectively edit written work.
• Identify main ideas and inferences in academic writing.
• Use context clues to understand meaning of new vocabulary.
• Paraphrase and summarize factual and fictional reading passages.
• Use simple, compound, and complex sentences.
• Master verb tenses and subject-verb agreement
• Use noun clauses, adjective clauses, and adverb clauses
• Use transitional words to sound logical
• Use passive and active voice appropriately.
• Use real and unreal conditionals.
• Use modals to emphasize degree of certainty
• Correct pronoun reference/agreement
• Correct use of gerunds, infinitives, and participles

Reading Activities:

The best way to improve reading skills is to read :-)  Students need to understand the difference between scanning, skimming and analytically reading. I often quiz them to check the level of their preparation. Students are expected to read and complete exercises at home, and class is for discussion.  Those who are unprepared need to leave the class and return once they finish reading the essay from a given chapter. They are not allowed to participate in a discussion based on an essay if they cannot contribute to it. :-(

Writing activities:

• Make a chart on how different cultures write paragraphs and essays and how we write them in the United States.
• The focus is on sentence structures, fluency and paragraph writing, different communication styles in paragraph writing.
• Talk about identifying Subject, Purpose, and Audience and  different prewriting activities.
• Spend a lot of time on organization and topic sentences.
• Students write several paragraphs each week. The topics revolve around the chapters/topics of the textbook and the grammar textbook so that they can show/practice what they know.
• Online: Discussion Board - Forums. Students engage in meaningful discussions through paragraphs as they discuss a question form textbook chapters i.e. Guided Academic Conversations.
• Do a weekly in class writing for 30 - 45 minutes graded by the teacher.
• Do a weekly in class writing which is peer reviewed by other students using a revising checklists or rubric.
• Do in class corrections of the student writing: put an example of a strong paper as well as one that needs a lot of improvement.  This exercise takes a lot of time, but it’s worth it.
• ELLs should write twice a week in class for at least 30 minutes and at least two more paragraphs for homework.
• Students can also write daily journals or blogs recycling sentence structures/grammar and vocabulary.

To test students on grammar/sentence structures and weekly target words, I ask them to write a paragraph. For example: They have two topics: 1. Education (target words: bilingual, impose, dominant, widespread, immersion, emerge) 2. Business (target words: fuel, joint venture, boom, catch up, outsource, goal) they choose one topic and write a paragraph including all the target words. They need to use a variety of verb tenses in it as well.

Testing ideas:

Students write a paragraph, and the topics to choose from are the following: education, dangerous circumstances, transitions, Students will pick 5-6 words from a list of academic target words from the textbook and write a paragraph. They will be asked to use a variety of verb tenses and modals. They will have to underline tenses, modals and circle target words.

Choose one of the topics.  Demonstrate your skills in sentence variety and advanced vocabulary usage - Use 5-6 words from the list in your fully developed paragraph. Use a variety of verb tenses, modals, and connectors in your paragraph.

acquaintance, achievement, annoy, approach, at stake,  apparent, bilingual, boom, catch up, cling, crave, claustrophobia, commitment, concrete, deteriorate, dilemma, devote, dim, diminish(ing), dispose, dominant, distracted, discard, embark, embody, emerge/emerging, enable, envy, excessive, excruciating, frightened, frantically, fuel/fueled, familiarity, fury, goal, immersion, impose, incomprehension, indefatigable, indefinable, inevitable, irrational, joint venture, mundane, naïve, outsourcing/outsource, pollute, prowess, prosaic, preside over, pathetic, preserve, policy, phenomenon, prospects, status, prevail, rage, rejuvenated, regret, restriction, resentment, recreate sabotage, significant, significance, shabby, supplementing, sojourn, summit, spectacular, status, sufficient, visibility, widespread, weed out…

Topics: Educational Practices, Life Transitions, Dangerous Situations

OR:

Write a paragraph about “The most important characteristic(s) of your cultural heritage”) They spend 30 minutes on writing.

OR:

Writing Sample: Vocabulary and Modals Practice

Grammar: Degrees of certainty: future, past, present, progressive modals

Vocabulary: dilemma, phenomenon, prospects, weed out, at stake, status, annoy, approach, cling, crave, diminish(ing), dispose, recreate, sabotage, significant

Use at least 5 words form the list. You may use any word forms. Write a paragraph 6-10 sentences. (Topic sentence and support/details) Choose one of the topics:

1. Is it hard to find to find real love? What is real love? How do you know? Are there other kinds of love?
2. Is it a good solution to send the bare branches off with the army or emigrate to find women?
3. Why do man and women have difficulty understanding and communicating with each other?

When finished, please underline the modal structures and circle the target words.

Criteria	Unsatisfactory (0-11)	Limited (21-28)	Proficient (39-50)	Comments
There are 5-8 sentences at least in the paragraph	0	1	2
The paragraph has a strong topic sentence that identifies the topic and one problem/the focus	0-1	2-3	4-5
The description of the problem is full: specific examples and precise explanation	0-1	2-3	4-5
Grammar: there is sentence variety: modals, conditionals, joining words and verb tenses, adjective-noun-adverb clauses	0-3	4-6	7-10
There is little repetition (one key word repeated 2-3 times max) synonyms and antonyms used well instead	0-1	2	3-4
The writer finished his/her thoughts and made clear transition between thoughts	0-1	2-3	4-5
Vocabulary: target words are used properly Collocations are used correctly      Word forms are used correctly	0-3	4-6	7-10
There is little awkwardness (sounding un-English) in the writing e.g.	0-1	2-3	4-5
Punctuation is mostly correct (commas periods), max. 2 errors	0	1	2
Spelling is mostly correct (2-3 errors are OK).	0	1	2

Using Rubrics:

Students see the rubric (posted online or handed out in class) so they know exactly what the expectations are, they can check boxes. They use these rubrics when they do peer evaluations. Clear guidelines.

Paragraph rubric

Criteria	Unsatisfactory (0-11)	Limited (21-28)	Proficient (39-50)	Comments
There are 5-8 sentences at least in the paragraph	0	1	2
The paragraph has a strong topic sentence that identifies the topic and one problem/the focus	0-1	2-3	4-5
The description of the problem is full: specific examples and precise explanation	0-1	2-3	4-5
Grammar: there is sentence variety: modals, conditionals, joining words and verb tenses, adjective-noun-adverb clauses	0-3	4-6	7-10
There is little repetition (one key word repeated 2-3 times max) synonyms and antonyms used well instead	0-1	2	3-4
The writer finished his/her thoughts and made clear transition between thoughts	0-1	2-3	4-5
Vocabulary: target words are used properly Collocations are used correctly Word forms are used correctly	0-3	4-6	7-10
There is little awkwardness (sounding un-English) in the writing e.g.	0-1	2-3	4-5
Punctuation is mostly correct (commas periods), max. 2 errors	0	1	2
Spelling is mostly correct (2-3 errors are OK).	0	1	2

Summary writing:

Criteria- Summary	Unsatisfactory (0-11)	Limited (21-28)	Proficient (39-50)	Comments
There summary is 10% of the original text in length	0	1	2
The summary opens with the title and the author	0-1	2-3	4-5
The summary opens with the main idea of the text	0-1	2-3	4-5
The summary of the text is full/complete: all relevant details and examples are added	0-3	4-6	7-10
There is little repetition (one key word repeated 2-3 times max) synonyms and antonyms used well instead to paraphrase	0-1	2	3-4
Grammar: there is sentence variety: modals, conditionals, joining words and verb tenses, adjective-noun-adverb clauses	0-1	2-3	4-5
Vocabulary: the key words of the text are used properly: Collocations and Word forms	0-3	4-6	7-10
There is little awkwardness (sounding un-English) in the writing e.g.	0-1	2-3	4-5
Punctuation is mostly correct (commas periods), max. 2 errors	0	1	2
Spelling is mostly correct (2-3 errors are OK).	0	1	2

Discussion Board Grading Rubric

Criteria	10 Excellent	7 Average	5 Needs Improvement	0-2 Unacceptable	Comments
Uniqueness	New ideas, new connections made with depth and detail	New ideas of connections lack depth and/or detail	Few, if any new ideas or connections made Rehash or summarize other postings	No new ideas, uses “I agree with...” statement
Timeliness of postings (original posting, replies and rewrite)	All required postings are made early (by Monday) and throughout the discussion	All required postings are made (by Wednesday) Some not in time for others to read and respond	All required postings are made (by Friday) Most at the last minute without allowing for response time	Some, or all, required postings missing
Target words	Uses 5 target words correctly to provide support in paragraph	Uses 4-5 target words to provide support in paragraph but only 3 are correct	Uses 4-5 target words to provide support in paragraph but only 2 are correct	Uses target words to provide support in paragraph but incorrectly
Spelling and Mechanics	Submits posts that contain grammatically correct sentences without any spelling errors.	Submits posts that have few (1-2) grammatically incorrect sentences and two spelling errors.	Submits posts that have several (3-4) grammatically incorrect sentences and three spelling errors.	Obvious grammatical errors (5 or more) Makes understanding impossible
Grammatical structures	Uses modals and conditionals correctly	Uses modals and conditionals and most of them are correct	Uses modals and conditionals but most of them are incorrect	Does not use modals and conditionals
Total Score
Maximum Points Possible					50