Developing writing strategies

Learn how to improve your writing. A few easy tips can already help you. Read our suggestions and, if possible, try to practise the various steps.

SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING YOUR WRITING SKILLS

Before you write

· Decide why you want to write and who your audience will be.

· To decide on a topic: brainstorm ideas and organise them as a mind-map. Highlight important keywords. Think of links between the keywords and draw lines etc.

· Decide on a concrete topic and gather your ideas together. Take notes.

· Use a dictionary and look up important vocabulary and phrases.

· If you feel that you do not know enough about your topic, then do some research and read more about it.

· Texts in the foreign language can help you to find useful phrases and words for your topic.

· Collect your ideas and research results and put them together into a possible outline.

While you are writing

· Create a first draft using your collected ideas. It is not important yet that the spelling or grammar make sense.

· Read your ideas. Then check whether those thoughts are what you really want to say.

· If you don’t know how to continue, take a break and put your writing away for a while.

· Return to your writing with fresh eyes. Maybe new ideas come to mind.

· Edit your draft: move, remove or rewrite sections that you feel need correction.

· Continue to write and edit until you feel that the result is your final draft.

· Hand your writing to someone else for proofreading. Maybe they can give you some new ideas.

After writing

· Review the suggestions of improvement given by your proofreader. Edit your draft again.

· Proofread your final draft, check spelling and grammar as well as coherence of the contents.

· Continue to edit until you feel that the result is your final piece.

(From https://www.learning-english-online.net/skills/writing/)

Speaking and writing

You are a journalist. Use questions to interview your partner about family values. Write a short post in the blog

Unit 3. Is it easy to be young?

Generation Gap

Lead-in

Ø What does it mean to be young? What do young people want?

Ø What is generation gap? Does it really exist?

Ø What are the causes of numerous misunderstandings between generations? How can parents and children overcome these conflicts?

Ø Make a list of things you differ in with your parents/grandparents (worldview, clothes, tastes, etc). Do you argue about these things?

Reading and vocabulary.