A.
Narative Paragraph
“Teacher Paula” – My experience as an English teacher
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I have been volunteering with a Peruvian NGO, Otra Cosa Network. My HELP
English program consists of providing English classes to pupils from public schools where
there are no resources for language teaching. I was responsible for classes 1st to 3rd grade at
the Elementary School ‘Maria del Socorro’ with one or two teachers, depending on the
number of volunteers there were each week. Grade One has two classes a week and Grades
Two and Three have three classes. In total, we taught 9 different classes for 2 hours a week.
Identification
The paragraph is classified as a narrative paragraph because it tells a story, whether it
is a story of someone’s experience or a story of an event. In this example, the writer is telling
about an experience. As we can see, the topic sentence of this paragraph is “I have been
volunteering with a Peruvian NGO, Otra Cosa Network”. It shows how the paragraph is
going to tell the reader about the writer experience or story.
The sentences in the paragraph are supporting the topic sentence. Those sentences
provide more information about the experience. In the paragraph, we can see that the
supporting sentences give us the detail of how many classes that the writer had to responsible.
In the end of the paragraph, we learn that the conclusion is that there are nine different classes
in total.
B. Descriptive Paragraph
Teaching in the heatwave: help, my classroom is too hot
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heatwave-school-summer-hot )
As the longed-for great British heatwave materialises, the sun beats down upon us and
we marvel at the glorious sunshine, the rare clear blue skies, and our slowly parching lawns.
Schools that were built, or rather hastily thrown up in the 1970s do not fare well in this
weather. I am roughly the same age as my school building and seem to have aged only
marginally better, but that's another story. The building's hasty construction; poor choice of
materials, lack of ventilation, and woeful layout turn some classrooms into the equivalent of a
Mediterranean pizza oven.
Identification
The example paragraph is describing about a school condition. The writer uses
specific adjectives and adverbs to describe the school to help the reader to imagine how the
school looks like even without looking at the picture of the school. The topic sentence of this
paragraph is “Schools that were built, or rather hastily thrown up in the 1970s do not fare
well in this weather”. From the topic sentence, readers can start to imagine how the school
looks like. Next, the supporting sentences in this paragraph are also helping the reader to
imagine the condition of the school.
C. Expository Paragraph
EFL Teaching in the E-Learning Environment: Updated
Principles and Methods
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The e-learning environment has such characteristics as flexibility, integrity, unlimited
space for communication and asynchronous use. It can create a number of conditions
promoting the effectiveness of the educational process. These conditions are: enabling the
self-organization of all the members of the educational community; the availability of
information resources; the ability to gather, store and share information. We have studied
issues related to the organization of EFL teaching in the conditions of the e-learning
environment, and came to the conclusion that, under the given conditions a number of
pedagogical principles act in new ways. These principles are: the principle of openness, the
principle of integrated education, the principle of consistency and systematic approach to
training, the principle of interactivity, the principle of visualization and the
demonstrativeness; the principle of activity; the principle of redundancy. To explore the
topic, we will examine and complete the listed principles that underlie the organization of the
pedagogical process of EFL teaching in the e-learning environment.
Identification
The example above is an expository paragraph. It exposes the e-learning environment
based on the updated principle. In this paragraph, the writer builds the credibility as an
expert. The topic sentence of this paragraph is “The e-learning environment has such
characteristics as flexibility, integrity, unlimited space for communication and asynchronous
use.” From there we can see that the paragraph is mainly focused on the presentation of
analysed findings by the experts of this field. The paragraph is ended by the conclusion about
how the next step is to explore the topic.
D. Persuasive Paragraph
Innovative Thinker
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An EFL teacher must be able to quickly think on their feet and to respond with new
ways to present concepts. This is helpful on many levels. Being able to think in an
innovative manner could help you simplify complex concepts like grammar rules that
normally put learners to sleep. Different learners may respond differently to a lesson and
you’ve got to be able to explain the same thing differently to each learner using diverse
examples and activities. Some students may learn through tasks while others learn with
images, and still other learners may acquire through storytelling or dictation. An EFL teacher
must think out of the box to keep learners engaged and to achieve objectives.
Identification
The example paragraph above is a persuasive paragraph. It aimed to give a great
effect on persuading someone else. The topic sentence is “ An EFL teacher must be able to
quickly think on their feet and to respond with new ways to present concepts”, which mean that the
paragraph is going to talk about how teacher should act to face the new challenge. The supporting
sentences are also there to support the topic sentence. It has the main purpose to engage the
reader to agree with the writer and make them to take action regarding the matter.