Tutorial Guide to: English for Studying

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Tutorial Guide to English for Studying

• Presented by Cao Wen

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Issues we will cover
1. Survey the the course
2. Deliver the tutorial
3. Mark assignments
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1

• Survey the Course

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Where are we now?
Guide to Success 1 English in Daily Life English
at Leisure English at Work English in Current
Affairs
Guide to Success 2 English for Studying Cross-cult
ural Communication English through
Literature English in a Changing
World English-speaking Countries Today
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New challenges

• From skill courses to content courses
• Language 60 Content 40
• A higher level of language performance than the
  daily situations students encounter at home or at
  work.
• A deeper understanding of language and its
  cultural background
• A more sophisticated linguistic command
  attainable by modern professionals

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Common features

• Each course combines language learning with a
  particular academic field.
• Each course builds language learning upon
  particular knowledge base.
• Each course implies a different field of study
  which no single book can fully explain.
• If, for the first-year courses which focus on
  English skills, students can sleep on their
  already acquired English proficiency to
  marginally pass the courses, they wont have
  such a chance with their second-year courses
  which require a mastery of both language and
  content of certain academic subjects. The same is
  true with the situation the tutors have to face.

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Aim of the Course

• Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man
  how to fish, he eats for a life time.

Teach your students to write, they write well for
this course. Teach your students how to write,
they write well for their life time.
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Aim of the Course

• Your students may ask
• What does the title of this course suggest?
• I have been doing writing tasks throughout the
  first year courses. Why should I work on writing
  again in a separate course?

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Aim of the Course

• The title of this course suggests that the
  English in this course is mainly used for
  academic study.
• The writing tasks in the first-year courses are
  designed in such a way that they were subordinate
  to the other non-writing tasks (eg Student write
  in order to consolidate the vocabulary they
  learnt or the speaking activities they
  practiced.) They are not systematic in view of
  developing writing skill. This course will not
  only reinforce previous writing practice by
  recycling some of the writing tasks, but also
  attempt to create more systematic and coherent
  opportunities for students to practice writing.

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Focus of the Course

• The course focuses on the following issues
• Concepts and features of 7 types of writing
• Writing process
• Language use in writing
• Organization in writing
• Layout in writing

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Themes of the Course
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Themes of the Course
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Task types in the course
Three types of tasks in the course To know
tasks tasks that are designed to develop
learners knowledge about a particular type of
writing, or features of writing, etc. To know
how tasks tasks that are designed to develop
learners understanding of the actual process of
writing. Practice tasks tasks that require
learners to do the actual writing.
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Assessment of the Course
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2

• Deliver the Tutorial

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Essential numbers
4 hours for each tutorial, 4 tutorials for the
course, 16 tutorial hours altogether. Each
tutorial aims to cover 2 units. 3 assignments
for the course (a description, a narration, an
exposition or argumentation).
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Three A training
Awareness training One cant write well if he
has no knowledge of features of good writing.
Application training One cant write well if he
has no skill of applying features of good
writing to his own writing.
Assessment training One cant write well if he
has no technique of critically reviewing his own
writing and sustainably making progress.
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Awareness training

• Two targets
• Identify the focus of the unit (usu. features of
  a particular type of writing).
• Resource focal points / tutorial ppts.
• Identify the features of good writing of a
  particular type
• Resource texts from the unit / good examples
  from your students

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Awareness Layout
Font type Times New Roman Font size 12 Line
spacing 1.5 Margin four sides Paragraphing The
title must be included, Arial 12 bold.
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Awareness Language

• Mistake types
• !!! mistakes (Mistakes that can not be
  forgiven.)
• Oh mistakes (Mistakes that can be avoided with
  careful proof-reading.)
• Emm mistakes (Mistakes that can be avoided by
  consulting a reference book.)
• ??? mistakes (Mistakes that can be avoided as
  the language proficiency improves.)

Please refer to the mistake type sheets for
detailed information.
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Awareness Organization
Eg. Read the text on page 35 of the coursebook
(Unit 1, Activity 4, Task 4) and make a list of
features that make this passage a good example of
writing.
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Organization Coherence

• Does each sentence lead naturally and logically
  to the next in explaining the central idea?
  Sentence relationship
• exemplification comparison and
  contrast
• cause and effect sequence
• listing
  definition
• condition extension
• contradiction

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Organization -- Cohesiveness

• Are there devices (words/phrases) indicating the
  relationship between the sentences before and the
  sentences following?
• Transitional markers
• Pronouns
• Word/phrase repetition
• synonyms/antonyms
• Punctuation

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Organization Unity

• Does each sub-idea support the main idea? Are
  the ideas logically presented? Is the central
  idea fully explored?
• Paragraphing
• Transition between paragraphs
• Topic sentence and idea development

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Awareness A summary
Layout
Awareness (What makes good writing?)
Coherence
Language
Cohesiveness
Organization
Unity
Students are likely to focus more on the
individual word use in their reading and writing
than discourse . In fact, they should have
passed the stage of basic vocabulary and grammar
building and shifted to develop sharpness towards
those techniques in organization. Or, namely, to
rise above the word level to sentence, paragraph
and composition level.
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Awareness Tutorial tips

• Group work instead of individual work.
• Guided instructions instead of general
  instructions.
• (eg. Identify the good features of this passage.
• Find out words/phrases the writer uses
  to
• achieve cohesiveness of the passage. )
• Focused instead of covering all.
• ( Ways to decide your focuses based on the
  nature of the
• selected passage based on your students
  weaknesses. )

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Three A training
Awareness training One cant write well if he
has no knowledge of features of good writing.
Application training One cant write well if he
has no skill of applying features of good
writing to his own writing.
Assessment training One cant write well if he
has no technique of critically reviewing his own
writing and sustainably making progress.
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Application
Step 1 Awareness (organization, language and
layout).
Step 2 Read and copy/reverse translate.
Step 3 Read, note key words/structures and
rewrite from the note.
Step 4 Read, make an outline/flowchart/diagram
and rewrite from them.
Step 5 Write on a similar topic of your own
experience, based on the organization, language
and layout of the sample
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Application (examples)

• Rewrite from a key-word note
• Family plan policy take place stark fact.
  22 ... people 7 land. allow population
  expand unchecked outstripping ability
  countryside feed particular amount land
  available producing food reduced growth
  cities. (You reinforce the use of the key words)
• Rewrite from a key-structure note
• takes place against This is that but only
  To allow such would result in This is
  particularly so at a time when is being reduced
  by (You reinforce the use of the key sentence
  structures)

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Application (examples)

• Ask the students to use the outline diagram on
  Slide 27 to rewrite the passage.
• Ask the students to write on a similar topic (eg
  DINK Family), using the same organization
  pattern, key sentence structures and key
  vocabulary.

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Three A training
Awareness training One cant write well if he
has no knowledge of features of good writing.
Application training One cant write well if he
has no skill of applying features of good
writing to his own writing.
Assessment training One cant write well if he
has no technique of critically reviewing his own
writing and sustainably making progress.
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Assessment Your biggest headache
The average time you need to spend marking a
250-word assignment is ________ minutes. If you
have 50 students in your class, for each set of
assignments, the total amount of time you need to
spend is ________ hours. If you have three sets
of assignments for a course, can you afford this
much time?
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Assessment A helping hand
To check layout -- using a standard

• Sample-assessment
• Self-assessment
• Peer-assessment
• Tutor-assessment

To check language -- using the mistake type sheet
To check organization -- using a diagram-tree
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Stage 1 Sample-assessment

• Present learners a TMA sample, eliminating
  tutors marks and comments.
• Ask learners to work in groups to mark and
  comment on the sample, providing a focus, eg.
  language (spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.)
  organization (coherence, cohesiveness, unity,
  etc. )
• Ask learners to present their comments to class.
  Provide feedback.
• Provide learners the TMA sample with tutors
  marks and comments.

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Stage 2 Self-assessment

• Ask learners to mark their own assignments,
  making improvement whenever necessary. (general
  or focused).
• Introduce an Error Record Sheet.

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Stage 3 Peer-assessment

• Ask learners to work in groups to share their
  revised-version assignments.
• Ask them to comment on each others assignments,
  providing a focus.
• Ask them to present one of their assignments and
  comment in class.
• Alternative
• Choose one or a few volunteer assignments and ask
  learners to work on them.

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You need

• to print handouts of a TMA sample without
  tutors marks and comment, ideally one copy for
  each two learners
• to ask learners to bring their own assignments
• to deliver this course in a classroom equipped
  with a multi-media system or an overhead
  projector
• to print handouts of selected learners
  assignment(s) , ideally one copy for each two
  learners

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Stage 4 Tutor-assessment
Combine intensive feedback (mark underline
type corrections comment) with extensive
feedback (mark underline type comment) .
Make sure that each student in your class
receives at least one intensive feedback for
their assignments. A summary of common mistakes
next tutorial
Good communication and negotiation with your
students of your approaches and reasons.
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Hours Allocation
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• Mark Assignments

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Issues we have covered
1. Survey the the course
2. Deliver the tutorial
3. Mark assignments
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Group Project