Monday Week 2 – Day 7 – Writing

 

Today we are looking at writing.

 

You will find the first reading tasks on the right. Try to do this in 1 hour but if you need longer don’t worry just tell your teacher how long it took and make a note of how far you were able to get in the hour.

 

Don’t forget to make a plan for your writing this helps you to organise your ideas before you begin writing and that means that you can really concentrate on the actual language when you begin to write your task.

 

If you are not sure how to do this then ask your teacher.

 

Also leave some time for checking your work – you don’t want to hand silly mistakes to the examiner.

 

 To plan:

 

• First analyse the question for key words (these will include the words that tell you EXACTLY what you have to do)
• Then brainstorm some ideas and group these
• Now reject any that don’t fit in the groups
• Choose two groups for each paragraph – which is the main idea and which will give the evidence or support to this idea?
• Think about an example for each paragraph
• Now think about 3 sentences for your introduction and 2/3 for your conclusion

You now have a skeleton for your writing and can begin to ‘put the flesh’ on to this which will be your essay.

 

Now write out the ideas into full sentences think about linking words to relate the sentences to each other.

 

Concentrate on the language and on avoiding errors. Don’t worry about the ideas you have already decided these. If a new idea comes into your head FORGET it!!

 

The examiner is more interested in your language than your ideas – this is important

 

Try to check for your ‘usual’ errors as you go along – if you are not sure what these might be then you can ask your teacher after you have sent your first writing to them. It will usually be articles, prepositions, agreement of noun and verb – these are the usual mistakes people make.

 

In these first two pieces of writing you will need to try and write at the band you want so try to write your best band 7 or 8 or 6 or whatever it is. Don’t worry too much about the time but just concentrate on this. 

 

Check how long it takes you and share this with your teacher who can then see how you can improve your speed and still have the right band level.

 

 Good luck with the writing and really focus on writing at the band that you want.