How to improve students’ writing skills step by step

Weiyong

As an English teacher， my major job is to teach my students to have a good knowledge of listening， speaking， reading and writing. However， among the four basic skills， writing is always a disadvantage of my students. When they finish a composition， I can find all kinds of mistakes， such as the wrong spelling， the wrong struction and even the tenses. How can I better their writing skills？ I have reflected it for a long time， and I make up my mind to do a series of jobs step by step.

Step one： Let the students be familiar with the basic rules.

（1） In the very beginning， I tell the students the gender of words， and let them aware of the importance of each kind. There are ten sorts of words in English， and they are nouns， adjectives， verbs， numerals， adverbs， articles， pronouns， conjunctions， interjections and prepositions.

（2） After that， I show my students the basic elements of an English sentence and the structure of a basic sentence. When they know that there are subject， predicate， object， complement， attributive， adverbial and complement， appositive and parenthesis in a sentence， they can analyze a sentence all by themselves. Besides， I also teach them the basic sentence patterns， such as SV， SVO， SVOO， SVP， SVOC and the sentence of being.

（3） And then， I ask my students to practice these simple sentences again and again for nearly a whole month. Not only do they do their homework， but also I have to check the work and correct the mistakes in time. Especially I spare an entire class to explain the mistakes.

（4） Translation is a best way to consolidate the rules. I make up some Chinese sentences and ask them to translate them. For example， He went back late. We talked a lot. I wrote a letter. He has read the book. My father told me a story.

Step two： Translate short passages and ensure the coherence.

（1） I force my students to remember the conjunctive words and make use of them as often as possible. For example， first， then， afterwards， meanwhile， later， first of all， finally， at last ...； near， next to， far from， in front of， on the left， on one side ...； like， unlike， such as， but， however， on the other hand， on the contrary， nevertheless， otherwise ...； because， for， as a result， therefore， thus ...； besides， whats more， what was worse， moreover， furthermore， in addition， on top of ...； and， as well as， also ...； in general， in a word， in short， on the whole， to sum up， in brief， to conclude ...

（2） I choose some easy articles to let the students translate and I do my best to pick up different styles， such as stories， invitation letters， showing opinions， complaint letters， thank—you notes， application letters and so on. For example， I ask my students to translate the following passage and add some conjunctive words： I agree on the plan. Firstly， it will provide more working opportunities for people to build a factory here. Besides， it can save a lot of money. Finally， it wont do too much damage to the environment. However， I am against it. For one thing， it will take up too much room in our school. For another， the noise will have a very bad effect on our teaching.

Step three： Make some decorations to beautify the article.

（1） Make a good beginning and a good ending. I tell my students to recite some good beginnings and good endings in order to make the sentence get close to be perfect. For example， As far as I am concerned， I agree with the latter opinion to some extent. I think that ____. Computers have been playing an increasingly important role in our day-to-day life， it has brought us a lot of benefits but has created some serious problems as well.

（2） I ask my students to avoid using the same words over and over again. When they need to express the same thing， they should use different words or phrases instead. For example， when using “l(fā)ove”， they also can use “favorite，enjoy，be fond of，like，prefer，preference” or “be fond of ， be crazy about”.

（作者單位：Ningxia Shizuishan No.1 Middle School）