Idea — Controlled writing — gap-fills, sentence transformation, guided paragraphs — practises form with heavy support and a low error risk. It is the writing equivalent of a drill and precedes freer work. Example —…
La Réunion sits in the Indian Ocean, 9,000 kilometres from Paris and about as far from the London publishing world as a French territory can get. When I tell people I’m an English trainer here,…
Idea — A paragraph holds one main idea, often with a topic sentence and support. Teaching learners to plan paragraphs before writing prevents the wall-of-text that buries meaning. Example — One paragraph for advantages, one…
Idea — Linkers (however, therefore, for example) and discourse markers signal how ideas relate — contrast, result, addition. Used well they guide the reader; overused they clog the text. Example — "It was cheap. However,…
Idea — Coherence is whether ideas hang together logically; cohesion is the surface glue — pronouns, linkers, repetition — that signals the links. Learners often have ideas but lack the glue. Example — "I was…
Idea — Every genre — email, review, narrative, report — has conventions of structure, register and layout. Teaching the genre's shape before writing gives learners a frame instead of a blank page. Example — A…
Idea — Writing is rarely linear: planning, drafting, revising and editing loop and overlap. Teaching the stages explicitly stops learners treating a first draft as a finished text. Example — A learner who brainstorms, drafts,…
Idea — Instructions should be short, staged and demonstrated, not explained at length. Instruction-checking questions (ICQs) confirm learners understood the task before they begin, preventing wasted minutes. Example — After "work alone", an ICQ "Alone…
Idea — The product approach studies and copies model texts; the process approach treats writing as drafting, revising and editing. Most effective teaching blends them — a model plus room to redraft. Example — Learners…
Idea — Pair and group work multiply talking time but collapse without clear instructions, roles and timing. Set the task, form the groups, then start — never start before learners know what to do. Example…