It's widely known that among other English skills, writing is the most difficult one for teachers to teach and for students to learn. The difficulty increases if you are teaching the skill to junior high school students, just like me :). When it comes to writing section, well, I should admit, I must prepare myself to not only spend much of my time reading the writing students made, but also to the fact that mostly their writing is grammatically incorrect.
If you are anything like me, I am sure you must wonder about what you should do to help them write better and hence help yourselves spend less time to correct their writing. As a matter of fact, examining students' work is the most uninteresting part of teaching profession. Well, if you are among teachers I am talking about who are looking for strategies or techniques to help students write more effectively, the following technique I use in my class may be helpful. I name the technique "Five Little Words".
Five Little Words Technique Applied
I invented the technique while I was examining students writing in which I found that students tend to make more grammatical errors when they are trying to make longer sentences. When the sentences they made is shorter, the quantity of errors they make decreases significantly. Based on this finding, I assume that limitting the number of words in sentences students make will be useful to help them write better.
Following the assumption, I began to think about how many words each sentence should contain. Three, four, five, or six words? Initially I took three as the limit assuming that three word senteces consisting of subject, verb, object (e.g. I read books) are common and reasonable. However, I then thought that even though they are reasonable but such sentences not so natural since usually students write not about themselves but also about their relatives (My father read that book). More commonly, the subject and the object of sentences students made consist of more that one words. So, I decided that the most rational limit is five words consisting of subject (max, two words), verb, and object or complement (max, two words), hence I name it "five little words technique."
After the decision about the number of words in each sentence is made, it's now time to apply the technique in the classroom. The instruction I gave to students was as follow: "please write your experience in the last holiday. Remember, your sentece must consist of maximally five words, no more." Of course, since my students is at the early stage of English learning, meaning that they will not understand the instruction given in English, I translate the instruction to their first language.
The result? Well, it's magic. And you know what it means.
If you are anything like me, I am sure you must wonder about what you should do to help them write better and hence help yourselves spend less time to correct their writing. As a matter of fact, examining students' work is the most uninteresting part of teaching profession. Well, if you are among teachers I am talking about who are looking for strategies or techniques to help students write more effectively, the following technique I use in my class may be helpful. I name the technique "Five Little Words".
Five Little Words Technique Applied
I invented the technique while I was examining students writing in which I found that students tend to make more grammatical errors when they are trying to make longer sentences. When the sentences they made is shorter, the quantity of errors they make decreases significantly. Based on this finding, I assume that limitting the number of words in sentences students make will be useful to help them write better.
Following the assumption, I began to think about how many words each sentence should contain. Three, four, five, or six words? Initially I took three as the limit assuming that three word senteces consisting of subject, verb, object (e.g. I read books) are common and reasonable. However, I then thought that even though they are reasonable but such sentences not so natural since usually students write not about themselves but also about their relatives (My father read that book). More commonly, the subject and the object of sentences students made consist of more that one words. So, I decided that the most rational limit is five words consisting of subject (max, two words), verb, and object or complement (max, two words), hence I name it "five little words technique."
After the decision about the number of words in each sentence is made, it's now time to apply the technique in the classroom. The instruction I gave to students was as follow: "please write your experience in the last holiday. Remember, your sentece must consist of maximally five words, no more." Of course, since my students is at the early stage of English learning, meaning that they will not understand the instruction given in English, I translate the instruction to their first language.
The result? Well, it's magic. And you know what it means.
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