Focus on Parts of Speech
To teach writing, students must know the basic parts of speech.
Review nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Ask students to
categorize words in these four categories. Taking time to ensure
students understand the role of each part of speech in a sentence will
pay off.
Suggestions to Help With Simple Sentences
After students have an understanding of the groundwork, use simple
sentence structures to help them begin writing. Sentences may be
very repetitive in these exercises, but the use of compound and
complex sentences are too advanced for students at this stage in the
learning process. Only after students gain confidence through a
number of simple exercises will they be able to move on to more
complicated tasks, such as joining elements with a conjunction to
make a compound subject or verb. Then they will graduate to using
short compound sentences and adding short introductory phrases.
Simple Exercise Examples
Simple Exercise 1: Describing Yourself
In this exercise, teach standard phrases on the board, such as:
My name is ...
I am from ...
I live in ...
I am married/single.
I go to school/work at ...
I (like to) play ...
I like ...
I speak ...
Use only simple verbs such as "live," "go," "work," "play," "speak," and
"like" as well as set phrases with the verb "to be." After students feel
comfortable with these simple phrases, introduce writing about
another person with "you," "he," "she," or "they."
Simple Exercise 2: Describing a Person
After students have learned basic factual descriptions, move on to
describing people. In this case, help students by writing out
descriptive vocabulary in categories. For example:
Physical Appearance
tall/short
beautiful/good-looking
well-dressed
old/young
Physical Attributes
eyes
hair
Personality
funny
shy
outgoing
hard-working
friendly
lazy
relaxed
Then, write out verbs on the board. Ask the students to use words
from the categories in conjunction with the verbs to teach students
how to formulate simple descriptive sentences. Through this, teach
students to use "be" with adjectives describing physical appearance
and personality traits. Teach them to use "have" with physical
attributes (long hair, big eyes, etc.). For example:
I am ... (hardworking/outgoing/shy/etc.)
I have ... (long hair/big eyes)
Additional Exercise
Ask students to write about one person, using the verbs and
vocabulary presented in both exercises. As you check the students'
work, make sure that they are writing simple sentences and not
stringing too many attributes together. At this point, it is better if
students do not use multiple adjectives in a sentence in a row because
this requires a good understanding of adjective order. In this case,
simplicity prevents confusion.
Simple Exercise 3: Describing an Object
Continue working on writing skills by asking students to describe
objects. Use the following categories to help students classify words
to use in their writing:
Shapes
round
square
oval
Color
red
blue
yellow
Textures
smooth
soft
rough
Materials
wood
metal
plastic
Verbs
is made from/of
feels
is
has
looks like
looks
Variation: Ask students to write a description of an object without
naming the object. Other students should then guess what the object
is. For example:
This object is round and smooth. It is made of metal. It has many
buttons. I use it to listen to music.