Welcome to Cambridge English video tips
Now today's tip looks at encouraging learners to plan and draft their writing.
Now we know that learners really often say that they don't have time to plan their writing.
There's not enough time in the exam. They're in a hurry. There's a lot to do.
So, with us all working from home, with us all working on our own,
this is an opportunity that we don't normally have in the classroom to encourage students to practice planning.
The better they are at planning, the better they are at writing to the plan and answering the question.
It leads to a better piece of writing, as we all know.
So, let’s start with the basics.
Number one – read the question.
We tell our students this all the time but what do we want them to do at home?
Encourage them to read the question. Highlight the key words.
Pick out the number of points that they must include in their piece of writing.
Write a list of the points that must be covered in the piece of writing into their notebooks.
They can now think about how many ideas and how many paragraphs they have to include in their piece of writing.
Number two is building the plan.
So reading the question is only part of the planning process.
Building the plan is the next important part for them to focus on.
Thinking about the question and the information from the question,
encourage students to put all of their ideas connected to the topic on paper.
All ideas are potentially excellent ideas but first of all they need to get those ideas down
so that they can refer to them when they’re building their plan and when they’re writing.
Number three – create headings for each of the points that must be covered from the question.
These are paragraph headings.
Thinking about the ideas that you’ve identified in the first phase,
now match your best ideas to each of the headings for each of
the points in the piece of writing and build a paragraph plan.
The paragraph plan should include an introduction
but don’t worry about the introduction to start with.
Focus on the ideas that you’re going to include: Paragraph one, idea one.
Looking back at the ideas that were put on to paper previously.
Paragraph two, idea two.
Paragraph three, idea three.
Conclusion.
Summarising those points.
Look back now at the question and ensure that every idea that you have put on your plan
relates to the question.
So, check the question, cross-reference with the question.
The next stage is to make a note of useful words and phrases that you could include
in your piece of writing.
Anything that you think is going to demonstrate the language that you know,
the vocabulary that you can use, all linked back to the topic.
Remember that students are going to be assessed on their range of language that they know.
So this is an important part of the planning process as well.
At this point students have got their paragraph plan, they’ve got their ideas put together,
they’ve cross-referenced their ideas with the question
and they’ve got a bank of useful words and phrases that they include.
They’re now ready to write.
Thank you.