Question:
I had never had the experience of teaching English composition until I
was given this job of teaching English composition in an university
here in China. Now I am teaching it 'my way'. And my way is to teach
my students to re-write model essays in their own words.
In the beginning of my conducting this course, there was visibly quite
a bit of irritation amongst my students because most of them were not
able to express what they understood in their own words. So they ended
up copying what they read. But now things seem to be normalizing,
especially after learning to use more English dictionary to look up
what they don't know .
I would, however, like to get some views on how to teach English
composition better than what I have been doing.
Answer:
What you're doing is forcing them to use their own words, which is good, but
you need to move on from this to forcing them to use their own research,
logic and planning. In its simplest form, an essay plan is just:
Introduction: Explain the question and how you're going to answer it;
Body: Give a detailed answer to the question, usually excluding your own
opinion;
Conclusion: Summarise the key points, possibly giving your (reasoned)
opinion.
This matter is best explained to the students by getting them to analyse
some of the essays they've been rewriting. When I teach essay-writing I give
two marks: one for the English and one for the composition. I usually find
that most students fail their first assignment, but the bad marks encourage
them to do what they've been told!
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