1 Teaching writing as a game with pleasure

The author: Archie yang

Published by East& West Book Co., Ltd.

Characteristics:

1.     The workbook consists of organized topic-based guidelines in each chapter.

2.     A starter for young children who are interested in writing and wish to explore the world of writing.

3.     The workbook serves like games to be solved with different situations.

4.     There are twenty-four guided writing worksheets( with easy, humorous and situational comics) which can be photocopied directly.

5.     Providing the elegant and graceful short essays as examples can save teachers’ precious time.

6.     Provide the 37 most common phonograms and some of the 500 words they make up. The phonograms will help students decode longer words.

7.     Provide Dolch’s list of basic sight words. The list of 220 words, prepared by E.W. Dolch, generally make up from 50 to 75 percent of the reading material encountered by students. These words are generally known as Dolch words, high frequency words, or sight words.

8.     Provide the list of the transitional signals and forty topics for English writing.

9.     The book can be divided into three parts. The first part—the importance of writing and how to construct students’ writing ability. The second part—worksheet, from easy to difficult. The third part---the explanation and instruction of the ways of using the worksheets as well as the example essays and students’ works.

10. Topics of the worksheets—

All about me, Back to School, At the Store, Senses and feelings, What do you do, Describing a person, Moring routine, my birthday party, at a fast food restaurant, my day, in the city and in the country, transportation, in the park, how is the weather, seasons, time, greeting and manners, write a letter, at home, write your own paragraph, write a story, write a poem, Mother’s Day, Teacher’s Day

11. The format of each unit:

Provide helping words, fill in the blanks and draw the pictures, ask students to make sentences by using the provided word band and sentence patterns, provide sentence patterns and write a paragraph, make a mini book, give hints of topic sentence, supporting sentences, concluding sentences, use guided questions to lead students into writing a complete sentence with the examples, provide related reading materials, and useful phases for the specific topic, provide comic conversations with bubbles and ask students to fill in the bubbles, find the words( phases) which match its picture with a word bank, provide the assistance of the Chinese translation, distinguish the word bank with its part of speech, give examples of linking sentences,

Formulas of English Composition

劉文欽

Published by Learning Publishing Co., LTD.

The editor points out the observations --- the most difficult problem most senior high school students meet while learning English writing.

1.     Students don’t know what vocabulary, phrases should be used

2.     Students don’t know how to arrange the sentence order

The book, “ Formulas of English Composition” aims to provide the proper solution by three different secret weapons.

1.     Eighty English master sentences for English Composition for every topic.

2.     Useful vocabulary and phrases are included according to a specific glossary.

3.     Useful sentence patterns for high frequency use with a systematic arrangement and good sentences to memorize.

Besides, the above three parts, the book also contains the mocked composition for college entrance examination.

The contents of the book

1.     the master tips and sentence patterns for English writing.

2.     the real examples of English compositions

3.     useful English Composition vocabulary and sentences with both English and Chinese translation (weather, season, scenery, disaster, watch & clock, time, numbers, direction, distance, road/path, age, life& death, sickness, cure & health, school & education, examination, enrollment, class, subjects, graduation, studying, language learning, reading &books, newspaper, magazine, clothes & clothing, food, housing, sports, games, recreation, interest, hobby, traffic& accident, train, bus, ferry, airplane, car, geography, travel, social, meeting, party, communication, Industry, producing, business, price, trade, buying and selling, tax, political, foreign affair, science, space, behavior, emotion, people, characteristics, occupation, body, animal, plant, mineral,

4.     The raking standard—the English composition will be ranked according to its spelling, punctuation, choices of words and phrases, grammar, organization, and content. The numbers of words for the composition should be controlled more than eighty words.

5.     Useful sentence patterns with the examples of correct grammar are suggested to be memorized.

6.     The steps of applying the formula for English composition---

Step 1. Examine the topic and see what those useful vocabulary and sentence patterns are.

Step 2 Think of the framework of the topic and construct the content

Step 3 Use sentences to construct the content.

Step 4 Make good use of the vocabulary, sentence patterns which I am familiar with.

Step 5. Check the spelling, subject and verb agreement, gender, tenses, punctuations,

7.     Use the mind-mapping to construct the content

My First English Composition Book

1.     The power of writing—the most fundamental/ basic and high frequent topics are included. 

2.     The power of thinking—The guided instruction trains beginners the ability of organizing the words, constructive thinking and even having the ability to think in English directly.

3.     The power of organizing—Using the interesting comics and illustrations to enforce the memorization, abundant sentences for reference and help beginners to build up the ability of organization.

4.     4-hour Mp3 + Composition 

5.     The core concept of the book—from copying to creating step by step

1.     Topic—10 topics with 30 units

2.     Brainstorming by guided questions to get well-prepared for the needed vocabulary and phrases while writing down the key words and topic sentences for each paragraph.

3.     Tips for writing by the opening sentences, transitional words and ending words.

4.     Provide models of examples and enable users to change subjects, verbs, adjectives, adverbs…

5.     Vocabulary with the cute comics and illustrations to assist users to memorize the new vocabulary

6.     Introduce sentence patterns and help users to have a better comprehension of grammar, and learn to apply the learned grammar rules to have suitable applications.

7.     Provide good and modeled sentences as reference and enable users to modify according to personal condition and write his/her own composition.

8.     Illustration—colorful illusions and comics echo with the given examples can help the users memorize the sentence patterns easier.

9.     Practice is conducted by the beginning sentence of each new paragraph.

10. Analysis of the common errors which can serve as a good reminder while writing a composition.

11. Blank filling exercise is like a game. With the hint/clue of Chinese translation, the user can fill in the blank with the provided blank.

12. MP3 is in cord with the contents of the book. It not only details the outlines and the content of every article in three paragraphs but also gives users chances to comprehend the differences between Chinese and English by one English sentences with Chinese translation in turns.

13. The role plays of Peter and Jenny make the articles( 30 units) present like interesting storytellings. The MP3 is recorded by native speakers.

Keypals is a four-level series and it hopes to inspire creativity, strengthen communication and build writing skills. With the step-by-step guidance, English learning and life experience can be integrated into writing.

The author: Yoko Matsuka

Published by Caves books

Characteristics

1.     With the communicative activities, students are motivated to express themselves confidently.

2.     Providing interactive oral practice aims to facilitates interaction between teachers and students and prepares students for writing English.

3.     With the assistance of step-by-step writing exercises, a wide variety of writing tasks can build learners’ writing skills gradually.

4.     With the help of guided personal portfolio, students can practice different various text types in Creative Corner and My Writing World, meanwhile, students’ creativity can be triggered and real-life communication can be enhanced.

5.     Providing useful resources of Writer’s Checklist, Vocabulary, Writing Focus, After-Writing Activities, Syllabus and My Record Sheet.

6.     Providing a thoughtful using guide to instruct users the ways of using the four-level series.

Read aloud –the sample sentences

Do-the pre-writing activities

Practice-sentence patterns, grammar points, and writing skills.

Follow—the examples of guide notes and complete the writing exercises.

Read—the guide notes and write.

Read—if you made any mistake or ask your partner to check it for you.

Review—the vocabulary and writing notes

Teachers—Some extension ideas to help teachers make the writing class more enjoyable.

7.     The format of the unit

Step 1 Get ready

Step 2 Skill building

Step 3 Creative corner